I know the subject of Robin Williams’ death has been done, well, to death but it has had a significant effect on the awareness of depression. He took millions of people on amazing adventures, made them laugh, inspiring excitement, entertainment and happiness with his ever present talent. I would turn to him to make me smile after being grounded; I would turn to him to entertain me if I was bored. He was like the crazy Uncle you always looked forward to seeing. This man created such colourful, animated work; millions of people could do nothing but sacrifice themselves to amazement and awe, watching this one man distract the world from its own despair. Bringing to life such memorable characters that helped assist in masking his own sadness whilst making those characters symbols of happy moments of a generation’s childhood. This is how this man will be remembered by millions of people including myself.

In typical fashion, the passing of Williams has inspired ignorance to manifest itself on the faces of a minority of critics. I call this minority ignorant, because I will bet an ALS ice bucket challenge, that none of them have ever suffered from depression yet openly judge the actions of those who suffer from it. These people attach labels to suicide such as cowardly, selfish and with no understanding of depression would ask sufferer’s “Why can’t you just snap out of it?”

As human beings, we are sensitive to mentally processing whatever we may experience in life and our reaction to those experiences is emotion. Negative experiences inspire negative emotions, loss causes grief, and rejection causes heartbreak.

We all have a black hole inside of us, covered by a lid of resilience and depending on how resistant that lid is to our negative or traumatic experiences that black hole can be exposed sucking every memory of positivity out of you, leaving nothing but a vessel of despair. You’re drowned in a wave of misery, negative emotions and the graves of repressed trauma, regrets, mistakes, unfulfilled ambitions comes to life to slay any self respect. This is everything that Robin Williams and all depression sufferers feel; finding no solace in anything, even parenthood. Williams, knowing fine well he was a father before taking his own life, felt such a failure that he thought his children deserved to have no father, than the father he thought he was.

So to the ignorant minority criticising the actions of depression sufferers, I ask you, does any of this sound like something you can just “snap out of”?

Instead of judging the death of clearly such a troubled human being, even if you weren’t a fan, at least show some respect for how he lived.