Over the span of countless days in which I would miss school as a result of waking up ‘’ill’’, I still recall with great fondness, those rainy afternoons, as a young child, huddled up in layers of blankets watching Robin Williams’ vast array of films.
As one of Williams’ most famous characters, Patch Adams, would argue, ‘laughter truly is the best medicine’, and my hysterical fits of laughter while watching him on screen would soon give my ‘’illness’’ act away.
My personal favourites among others, were Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin (the ending lines, ‘’Genie, you’re free’’ will never feel the same), which like many other children at time I could watch for hours on end.
Growing up on his films, I have yet to fully comprehend what exactly happened to one of my childhood idols, who was always such a joy-defining figure in my early developing years. Indeed, it was that same joy, combined with his ever shape shifting humour along with and his optimism, that characterised Williams’ view in his audiences’ eyes, both on and off camera.
Is spite of the fact that his personal struggles were made public a few years ago by the media, people rarely ever viewed Robin Williams as an enigmatic character, which makes it so much harder for many to digest that a man who brought so much happiness to others fell victim to such a dark illness which eventually led to his end.
Coincidentally, going back to my favourite films of his, particularly, Mrs. Doubtfire and Hook, one can notice a commonality in the characters he portrays in both films, which in light of the dreadful news, might help translate better to a reality Williams’ faced off screen. In both film Williams plays characters with double identities, one which is absorbed in day-to-day problems and realities most people face in their lives and another which is later developed as a sort of medium to escape those same realities for just a brief moment.
The angle I am trying to get to is that, much like Peter in Neverland and Mrs. Doubtfire, when faced with problems which might seem out of our depth, it is much easier for us to try and create a semi-fictional euphoric realm to escape to than to actually confront reality and speak out with the difficulties we might be facing. Which might be alright to certain degree, but subsequently it is reality that has the final word.
This might be a cause of many different overlaying factors, in my opinion mainly due to the reason that opening up publicly about some sort of emotional or psychological distress one might be going through, may lead to being misjudged or misinterpreted by others. When taking a close look at what the most modern social-media has to offer, with plastic reality shows and melodramatic artists, I am led to thinking that this is also fuelled by the fact that pop culture has the tendency of romanticizing the concept of depression and self-harm whenever it brushes on the issue, and not in the deep profound ways such writers as J.D Salinger and Allen Ginsberg dealt with portraying them. In this regard, I think the way modern culture portrays such issues can serve to downgrade their severity among the general public if taken too lightly.
But the real danger, I feel, lies within the stigma and the lack of knowledge about the subject which mainly keep us from making further progress into tackling a condition which is estimated to effect one in four Europeans. It is also interesting to note that nine of the 10 countries with the highest rates of suicide in the world are in the European Region.
On a much more local level, it is appalling to think that up till last year Malta’s Mental Health Act had not been updated since 1981 and I would like to congratulate the present administration for doing so. As time passes I would very much like to see a greater range of awareness being thought and passed on to the public on the matter making it a topic people feel more open talking about and debating, this could be done through more awareness in schools, public dialogues and CSR campaigns among many other ways. Much is now known about what works in mental health promotion, prevention, care and treatment. The challenge is now to implement this knowledge.
At a time when I myself needed to seek the guidance of a psychologist for problems which I could not handle, the only thing worse than the problems I was facing at the time was the judgment and ignorance I had to put with from a few who accused me of being an ‘‘attention seeker’’ or looked at me strangely. I also lost friends who could not understand why I needed to refer to a psychologist.
It was not easy, but eventually I brushed myself off and moved on. Many of the latter could have been avoided. Really and truly, I will always emphasize that a clear path of communication to what exactly mental instability is will help the people on the street who go through these problems understand them better, accept them and eventually face them rather than avoid them.