I’m sure most if not all people were shocked by the death of Robin Williams. The frustration for most people that I heard from was the difficulty in understanding how such a talented individual could take his own life. Certainly Robin’s act if you ever saw it was overboard in sponteneity. You never new what was going to come out of his head in the form of comedy. Apparently this was his release.
Unfortunately most people who are afflicted by forms of depression do not have the creative release valve to protect themselves as Robin Williams had. Over the almost 25 years working with fibromyalgia patients, I have found that almost all of these patients suffer from some form of depression. This depression usually is caused by a difficulty of the medical profession improperly diagnosing this condition. Of course patients also must carry some of the blame in an innocent fashion. Let me explain.
Since there are so many symptoms that accompany a fibromyalgia patient, it is easy for a patient to get frustrated with themselves and their doctor or doctors. A patient with fibromyalgia may go to their doctor complaining of painful joints. The patient may be given medication for this problem. Next they go to another doctor for stomach pain. The patient is given different medication. This is followed by medication for skin rashes and then hair loss. These and many more symptoms are often directly related to fibromyalgia along with many more.
A fibromyalgia patient often ends up with a windowsill full of different medications for all sorts of different symptoms usually most if not all related to fibromyagia with no answer to their health problem. Frustration along with depression follows and deepens.
I have not found any statistics on suicide related to fibromyalgia cases as of yet. The one that is on record and I mentioned in my book, FIBROMYALGIA: Falsehoods, Fakers, and Facts concerns a
30-year old mother and wife who after many attempts at trying to find help for an improperly diagnosed fibromyalgia condition finally took her life. I do know that depression and frustration by fibromyalgia patients is an ongoing problem.
We do not need a Robin Williams scenario for any fibromyalgia patient due to a misunderstood and misdiagnosed health condition. Each fibromyalgia patient deserves our highest degree of “proper” professional treatment.