Did Robin Williams Have to Die?

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bipolar disorder, mental illness, Robin Williams, suicide

Robin Williams in his last role as Teddy Roosevelt

I suspect I wasn’t the only person who teared up when the Teddy Roosevelt statue came to life in the last “Night at the Museum” film.

Critics said the late Robin Williams turned the rough-riding president into an on-screen “father figure” for the rowdy crew of cave men, dinosaurs, cowboys, and gladiators who rode rough through the series of crazy comedy films. The role was Williams’ last; he committed suicide by hanging in his home on August 11 last year.

Williams “neither confirmed nor denied” having bipolar disorder. I can’t imagine that anyone who knows bipolar was uncertain that Robin Williams depended on bipolar for the verbal velocity that fueled his comedy.

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I’m Sinking and Stuck in One Place … and That’s Progress

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aspergers, bipolar disorder, stress

The last couple weeks have been challenging, to say the least. I’ve moved; I’ve met the divorce attorney; and although many of the boxes are unpacked, there are still a lot of items to be settled into their proper places. For example, the top of my great-grandmother’s cabinet Victrola is absolutely littered with the salt and pepper shakers I have collected over the years. And did I mention that I’m job hunting?

When Can You Call a ‘Crazy’ a Crazy?

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bipolar disorder, kate millett, mental patient liberation front, ted turner, vision new england

Envision this scene with me. I’m the editor of New England Church Life, sitting at my desk in the crowded offices of Vision New England, a 100-year-old religious organization that serves congregations in more than 50 different denominations. I’m looking out my window across the parking lot as I talk to my current interview subject on the phone. He’s just put out a book that has a lot of people laughing behind their hands and a lot of reviewers laughing out loud in their magazine pages: 87 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1987.

Okay, you’ve already decided he’s crazy just because of the title. But I’m an interviewer. I don’t have that freedom. So I’m asking questions about the book, why he wrote it, how he got the idea, how he found the time … all the usual questions.

Except one of the answers doesn’t add up. Literally. Because I’m a Navy brat and he’s former Navy and his years of service don’t work out. Tours of duty come in multiples of certain numbers of years and he’s out early.