We had a bad one last night (it’s now August 12, 2014).\u00a0 Robin Williams appears to have killed himself, at least according to the breaking news at the time of writing this, Tuesday morning at 11.\u00a0 Reactions from patients are typical of what we all feel.\u00a0 People are sad for him, for his family, and for themselves.\u00a0 Sometimes there\u2019s anger \u2013 how could he have so much and yet do this, leaving behind\u00a0 three children in their 20s or just older, leaving all of us in shock, disbelief, and of course much lonelier in a world without him?\u00a0 Sometimes there\u2019s a feeling of impotence, as in couldn\u2019t any of us have done something for him.<\/p>\n
One patient described a reaction which bears repeating.\u00a0 It also triggered some of my own reflection about how to live.\u00a0 Alan (not his name of course) came to see me because of anxiety symptoms which he felt were being triggered or at least greatly exacerbated by a deteriorating marriage. He was suffering with erratic sleep, tightness in the chest and abdomen, anxiety at work, bowel disturbance (diarrhea, cramps), and racing or obsessive thoughts.<\/p>\n
Over the course of our sessions, the anxiety symptoms have abated, he\u2019s feeling much better, and although the marriage has wobbled along with indecision on both parts he is particularly happy that his life has begun to \u201copen up\u201d.\u00a0 He has begun to realize how inhibited he\u2019s been, \u201cI\u2019m packing for a trip and all I\u2018m thinking about, I realize, is how to be impressive; to my wife, to my parents, to people I won\u2019t even meet!\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s begun to see how he stifles himself and lives much more timidly than he\u2019d noticed \u2013 never varying from a staid routine even though in his best moments from younger days he was an avid explorer of new experiences.\u00a0 He hardly enjoys his many talents which include painting, architecture, and design; he\u2019d been offered commissions and scholarships in these areas as a young man.<\/p>\n
Amid these recent discoveries, Robin Williams died.\u00a0 Alan told me this morning in response to the news he noticed that he refrained from turning the car radio on to music he wanted to hear, especially as he remembered Williams in \u201cGood Morning Vietnam\u201d a movie with a great rock n roll score.\u00a0 He saw that this is a pattern, a habit of \u201ccarefully keep my mood neutral, so I won\u2019t have to feel anything bad, like I won\u2019t have to notice how angry I am at my wife, or also how much she helps me when there\u2019s conflict with our 7 year old son.\u201d\u00a0 About the car radio during his commute and on other trips he said \u201cI remember now: \u00a0I often want to hear music but I\u2019ll turn to the news so that I won\u2019t get too happy and then have to come home and crash; I avoid the good moods so I won\u2019t feel the bad ones; wow, what a waste.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 By contrast, he continued, \u201cthese people I admire \u2013 the artists \u2013 they seem to go with the moods, they feel their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
That reminded me of my same reaction to Billy Joel so many years ago when I first discovered his music.\u00a0 Here was someone not only didn\u2019t flee his moods but mined them.\u00a0 He fleshed them out into songs of so varying mood.\u00a0 By way of example, give a listen to his album \u2018The\u00a0 Nylon Curtain\u2019; there are several songs reflecting on the end of his marriage at the time and each has a completely different tone, use of language, musical style, each one expressing a different part of the grieving process.<\/p>\n
Alan was inspired by Robin Williams to live more, as I was inspired by Billy Joel.\u00a0 Alan hit on something that Billy Joel in recent years said he believes:\u00a0 \u201cWhen you die you go into other people\u2019s hearts\u201d.\u00a0 The Jewish tradition emphasizes that same feeling when faced with loss:\u00a0 You\u2019re task is to celebrate and embrace life all the more, to live more zealously about the brief time you have here, to survive.<\/p>\n
But I heard from another patient a different reaction to Robin Williams\u2019 death, one that\u2019s just as important.\u00a0 She found herself saying that if Robin Williams can\u2019t find a reason to keep going \u2013 with all the validation he received, all the success, all the joy of doing what he loved (as most of us don\u2019t get to do) \u2013 how do the rest of us keep going?\u00a0 Whose life has enough \u201cstuff\u201d (her word) to chase away the demons?\u00a0 And how can you live so that the pain won\u2019t get to you as it did him, as it seems to have gotten to Billy Joel over the past decade, at least at times?<\/p>\n
There has been talk of Williams having a bipolar disorder, \u201csevere depression\u201d, and of course substance abuse problems which resurfaced lately.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the answers lie here except in that he may have failed to get decent treatment for these, or resisted the treatment he was offered – more on this below. \u00a0 There are people with such problems living much less gratifying, less extraordinary lives, yet who manage to keep living, who find a reason to hang around and even find joy.<\/p>\n
Granted, I don\u2019t know Robin Williams or Billy Joel.\u00a0 But from other performers I\u2019ve worked with over the years there has emerged a common story.\u00a0 With a subset of such artists, there isn\u2019t enough success, acclaim, validation from within the profession and without, fame, sex, money, etc., keep away the pain, whatever their particular pain is.\u00a0 I do not believe the pain is at its core \u2013 and here I know I may ruffle some feathers \u2013 drugs, alimony, taking less-than-perfect work (Robin Williams was reportedly despondent over having to take jobs he wasn\u2019t excited about in order to pay alimony and child support, e.g. making a sequel to \u201cMrs. Doubtfire\u201d), or anything else, including the loneliness of fame.\u00a0 (Damon Wayans once complained that after he became successful he never felt much real connection with people because they were performing for him, trying to be impressive.)\u00a0 I believe the problems are older.\u00a0 In the performers I\u2019ve worked with the problems usually go back to chronic feelings \u2013 from way back \u2013 of being an outsider, left out, inadequate, awkward, unwanted, and other such experiences, so persistent and powerful because they happened when we were so young, needy, exposed, powerless.\u00a0 Often we can\u2019t overcome such experiences via success (fame, money, attention, acclaim, etc.).\u00a0 Too many performers I\u2019ve worked with over the years have succeeded and then found to their surprise that they don\u2019t feel substantially better; sometimes they feel worse, although they may get a few years (even decades) of celebration and distraction.\u00a0 It seems to have something to with chasing the wrong thing, with \u201cI got what I wanted, and it didn\u2019t kill the pain\u201d.\u00a0 Kind of like eating cotton candy when you\u2019re genuinely hungry; it tastes great for a moment but leaves you malnourished and queasy.<\/p>\n
Why is it so hard to face the real pain?\u00a0 If you\u2019ve been following this website<\/a> you\u2019ll know \u2013 resistance<\/a>.\u00a0 (See also the blog entries here in the category of “resistance” to your right, which I’ll organize \u00a0in a couple of days, promise. \u00a0Also you can just look through the archives for the many postings with “resistance” in the title.) \u00a0 As Alan put it, \u201cit\u2019s scary! To think about really changing my life like that! \u00a0Changing careers, changing my whole family\u2019s life, changing my whole point of view, the way I\u2019ve been comfortably thinking about my parents and my wife (and job, and boss, and friends,\u2026) all these years.\u00a0 Makes me angry just to think about lost time\u201d and there was more, Alan didn\u2019t stop there!\u00a0 How much safer to change the subject as he often does during sessions when we really start moving \u2013 he\u2019ll rather suddenly look distracted, I\u2019ll ask what\u2019s going on, and it turns out his mind had \u201cjumped to whether I remembered to call my tennis teacher about rescheduling, and then I was thinking about the tennis party coming up next Friday\u201d.\u00a0 Similarly, people who struggle with mania, with bipolar disorder, often resist the medications that so help them function in all ways because \u2013 they\u2019ll admit it \u2013 they don\u2019t want to give up the highs and they really dread the lows. \u00a0Any of us who\u2019ve felt those lows know we can\u2019t blame them; and anyone who\u2019s felt that grandiosity and sense of infinite power that comes with cocaine high knows the appeal of that state.<\/p>\n Whatever the true story is behind Robin Williams and Billy Joel, I hear two lessons emerging from their lives (in addition to \u201cwatch out for drugs and alcohol\u201d):\u00a0 1) Don\u2019t hide from what hurts.\u00a0 Find out what it is and then you\u2019ll be able to take care of it, because fame, success, money, sex, drugs probably won’t work more than temporarily if at all.\u00a0 If what you\u2019re craving is a family and you\u2019re fleeing that reality by chasing artistic expression or financial success (or both), you\u2019ll be left as empty as when you started.\u00a0 Instead go get the family.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2) \u00a0Turn on the car radio; don\u2019t miss a moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We had a bad one last night (it’s now August 12, 2014).\u00a0 Robin Williams appears to have killed himself, at least according to the breaking news at the time of writing this, Tuesday morning at 11.\u00a0 Reactions from patients are … Continue reading