(0828 Robin Williams)
970 WBLF. I’m Wes Richards with some thoughts on Robin Williams.
Well, not actually Robin Williams because that’s old news. But what happened after his death isn’t.
Let’s start this way: We ban things that scare us. Sometimes its official, sometimes its an unspoken agreement.
There was a time you couldn’t legally buy James Joyce’s Ulysses or Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. They were banned. Too racy. They’re pretty tame by today’s standards.
TV’s Ozzie and Harriet had separate beds. So did Lucy and Desi.
Then there’s mental illness. No official ban there and a lot of people -- professionals, supposedly -- who preach about it. But most of the so-called mentally ill suffer in silence and secret as long as they don’t exhibit obvious symptoms.
Robin Williams’ death removed the ban, at least part way. Depression. Mania. Addiction. The walls didn’t come tumbling down. But Williams in maybe his final act put some holes in them.
We admit to friends and family now that we’ve been popping Zoloft or something like it. It’s okay.
It really didn’t take the tragic death of a beloved public figure to do that. But in the short term, it helped.
Mental illness -- an unfortunate term to begin with -- is stigmatized. People are often shunned when they are discovered to have tangled chemicals in their brains.
It happens to some cancer patients, too. We fear we will catch what they have even though cancer isn’t contagious.
Both conditions are seen as flaws, and they are. But they’re not character flaws, they are biological. Chemical. Genetic.
No one faults you for having diabetes and treating it with insulin and better diet. It’s a chemical problem, you treat it with chemistry.
But admit you take Prozac, a wall goes up around you.
Depression is a chemical problem. You’re not crazy. You just have something wrong.
Putting aside so-called spiritual aspects of the human machine -- many of which likely are fairy tales -- you are an electrochemical mechanism. So what’s wrong with fixing you in an electrochemical way?
Remove your scarlet letter. Now. right now.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
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