Wednesday 13 August 2014

RIP Robin Williams

A slight change of tone from the usual stuff here, but fuck it.
By now, you will all be aware of Robin William's suicide. As star of The Birdcage and Mrs. Doubtfire, I consider him an honorary member of the TG community; as a comedian he demonstrated such manic intensity, his mind flying off at tangents like a firework display. His serious acting work - Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets society and Good Will Hunting in particular - mark him out as one of the finest film actors of his generation. And from all the stories I've heard, he was a kind and decent human being as well.
But depression and suicide are sadly all too common in the TG community, and as such, I'd like to take this opportunity to say to anybody who might be reading this, however bad things seem, however isolated you feel... don't. Please. Like Dan Savage says 'It gets better'. That doesn't mean that everything suddenly turns to rainbows and unicorns or anything like that - life can still be extraordinarily shitty, but things do improve. If you ever reach the point where you reach for the gun, the razor blade, the rope or the bottle of pills, then... I'm in no position to tell anybody what to do, or to speak to the torment a stranger is going through. But all I ask is give it one more day. After all, what have you got to lose? Talk to someone. Call the Samaritans, or any other similar group. There are almost certainly people who care about you immensely; talk to them.
Please.