Elf Blood

This week, the world wept as one of the greatest entertainers of our time was taken from us far too soon. Robin Williams was a great man, a fantastic comic actor- Hell, a great actor all-round. He was the personification of fun, the party incarnate. Everywhere he went, everything he appeared in, he injected raw, chaotic, passionate energy into.

Underneath this effervescent exterior, however, lay the dark recesses of depression and dependence. Robin Williams had struggled with the black dog for a very long time, and it finally overwhelmed him this week.

I’m not going to dwell on his passing, neither am I going to explicitly celebrate his life; there’ll be plenty of time to do that later. I myself will be watching The Birdcage this weekend to do just that, a fine, hilarious film. What I want to do is use the opportunity to state what I keep on stating:

If you ever feel overwhelmed, if you feel that you can’t go on, if you feel that everything is weighing down on you and you alone, please seek help. If you feel nothing, if you have forgotten what joy is, if you swing from high-flying happiness to darkest misery, please seek help. If you feel that there’s something welling up inside of you that’s tearing you apart, something that stops you from sleeping, something that claws away at the inside of your chest and tugs at the threads of your thoughts.

Please seek help.

Never feel that you have to put on a brave face. Never feel that you’re the one at fault. Never feel that you cannot open up to others. It is not weakness to lean on your friends, your family, your health-workers from time to time. In fact, what might be considered cliché is actually very true – It takes a lot of courage to admit to yourself that things can’t go on this way, and to do something about it.

But please, I urge you; make that something you do a positive action. Talk to someone. Express how you feel, or how you don’t feel. Get in touch with people who can help you find that balance in life, living, and mind. Recognise the source of your problems, and work to overcome them. Live the life you want to, live a life free of worry and dark thoughts.

Live life.

If you’d like to find out more, please visit mind.org.uk for information on support and services, and some valuable information on how you can help yourself, or help someone you care about through mental illness.

Life can be better. And it will be better if you want it to be.

M.