August 12, 2014
My son texted me yesterday afternoon telling me that Robin Williams had died. Aside from feeling profound sadness – I postulated a drug overdose. When my son suggested that it was a suicide by hanging – I countered by suggesting the accidental “sex choke”: he didn’t reply.
But having just read that Robin used a belt in the closet (echoes of David Carradine) — and was “partially clothed” – I think I came pretty close to the truth: particularly after hearing another report suggesting that Robin was found “clothed.”
Before I start discussing cocaine addiction and depression – I have to talk about two morons who were on CNN yesterday: one was an anchorman, and the other, an alleged psychological/psychiatric specialist. The CNN personality (recall that I no longer wish to insult people by identifying them) knew absolutely sweet fuck all about depression; while the psychiatrist (whose name I have already forgotten), wanted to look at depression through the disease model – which this communications theorist totally discounts.
As human beings, we move through our daily (and dream states) with four interlocked systems: our neuro-biological; our intellectual; our emotional; and, our spiritual systems (those atheists in my readership can deal with the first 3 only, if they so wish). The point of the matter is: is that a depression in any single system can depress the other 3 systems. So if an athlete has an injury which depresses the neuro-biological system – the other 3 systems can become depressed as well; or, if your significant other “shines you on” – then your emotional system can also depress the other 3 systems.
And this is where I become quite angry with pundits who wish to push the disease model (of depression) without accounting for the damage that cocaine does to the neuro-biological system. A former supervisor, who was also a psychiatrist, once explained to me the damage that cocaine (crack even more so) does to the body’s nervous system: he likened 2 years of consistent cocaine usage to lighting a forest fire in the body’s nervous system. And Robin Williams consumed a mountain of cocaine? Mt. Whitney? Mt. Everest?? Whatever, we’re talking a Siberian Forest-styled forest fire! And as I have written elsewhere, Robin grew up in the mid-west US – where drugs of all types comprise an integral part of the culture…so we know that he could consume with the best of them…
The hallmark of depression that I have personally witnessed (not only in the disenfranchised youth I worked with, but also with my former patients) is: a loss of feeling…a loss of sensitization to bodily experience. Depressed people can go out in freezing cold weather in a t-shirt – and not feel cold. They take to “cutting” just to remind themselves that they can “hurt.” When I read that Robin W. may have been cutting himself as well – that “sealed the deal” for me: Years of cocaine use and abuse had left him not only depressed, but also unable to FEEL! Hence the Carradine experiment: to see if one can muster a powerful orgasm. And, sure, disease proponents can (and will) certainly argue that Robin W. had a chemical imbalance.
Of course he did! But this is the wrong-headed thinking by chemical imbalance proponents: they look at the tail of the dog as if it were the head: they can’t separate cause from effect: they don’t blame cocaine…
When I heard about Robin W.’s heart surgery awhile back – I knew he had weakened his heart through cocaine usage (let the Congenitalists now attack!). But it is quite evident that the generation of pundits who now occupy our airwaves attempting to make sense of stuff they know nothing about – WERE NOT heavy 60s or 70s drug experimentalists: otherwise they wouldn’t sound like such fucking fools.
Don’t get me wrong – I admire, respect and am envious of the amazing talent that was Robin Williams. I do believe he inspired me at many points in my life – like he did so many of us. Though a diminutive man, he was a colossus in a number of fields. It’s too bad that no one could figure out a successful intervention for this giant…I’m not even sure I could have – and I think I know exactly how and what he felt…