Mental Health and Death

While mental health may not be discussed at funerals in Roanoke, VA funeral home, there is no doubt that some of those funerals can be directly linked to mental health. Mental health issues have a long history of stigmatization, both in the United States and in the Western world in general. 

We have made fun of mental health issues. We have hidden mental health issues. We have pretended mental health issues didn’t exist. We have ignored mental health issues. 

But doing all these things didn’t change the fact that mental health issues are real. And they can often be a precipitating factor in untimely deaths, whether we hide from that truth or not. 

In Western society, happy, optimistic, charismatic, and easy-going people are prized as being the picture of perfect mental health. However, one of the things we have learned in the second decade of the 21st century is that this picture of perfect mental health can be a mask donned for the public, while there are very serious mental health issues going on in private. 

One such example is the death of comedian Robin Williams in August 2014. Williams literally sprang on the scene in the mid-1970’s as the hyperkinetic and hilarious Mork in the hit television show Mork and Mindy. 

In the 1980’s, Williams began acting. In 1987, he landed the well-received role of Army DJ Adrian Cronauer in the well-received Good Morning, Vietnam. He followed that with the lead role in 1987’s Dead Poet’s Society, where he played English teacher John Keaton at an all-boys preparatory school. 

In Dead Poet’s Society, one of the main characters, a student named Neil Perry (played by Robert Sean Leonard) committed suicide because he was distressed over his father’s disapproval – and banning – of his dream of becoming an actor. 

William’s Keaton did a masterful job of handling the suicide with the other students, even though the school’s headmaster blamed him for the suicide and terminated him. 

Throughout the 1990’s, Robin Williams established his legacy as a first-rate actor in both comedic – Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage, for example – and dramatic – Good Will Hunting and What Dreams May Come, for example – roles. 

What Dreams May Come is the second dramatic movie in which the character that Williams played – Chris Nielson – came face to face with suicide. Chris met and married Annie and they had two children and settled down into a wonderful and happy life. That life was shattered when their two children were killed in a car accident while they were on their way to school. 

Chris and Annie both grieved intensely, but Chris was able to recover, while Annie never fully did. However, just as they were beginning to put the fragile pieces of their lives back together, Chris was killed in a car accident on his way home from work. His death was the last straw for Annie and she died by suicide shortly after his death. 

The suicide – and Chris saving Annie in the afterlife – was the central theme of the movie. 

So, the news of Robin Williams’ suicide in late summer of 2014 took everyone by surprise. To the public, William’s comedic and dramatic genius meant happiness and success.   

But Williams had, as many comedians do, battled depression throughout his life. In addition, he’d recently been diagnosed, after experiencing balance problems and memory issues, with Lewy Body dementia, which had deepened a depressive episode. Williams, unable to cajole himself out of this one, quietly hung himself during the night. 

For information on funerals at Roanoke, VA funeral home, our compassionate and experienced staff at Conner-Bowman Funeral Home & Crematory is here to help. You can come by our funeral home at 62 Virginia Market Place Dr., Rocky Mount, VA, 24151 or you can contact us today at (540) 334-5151 if you have immediate need.