Susan Schneider Williams, widow of Robin Williams, has explained that his depression was the not the only factor in his suicide
The world was shaken on 11 August 2014 when it was announced that Robin Williams had died.
His battle with depression and anxiety had not been made public whatsoever, and we were all in shock when it was revealed that he had in fact committed suicide.
How could it be that one of the happiest-seeming and comedic men in the history of entertainment had taken his own life?
But Susan has now revealed that, although he was indeed suffering from depression and other mental health issues, there was also another underlying reason for Robin's downward spiral.
After his death, an autopsy showed that Robin was actually also suffering from dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB).
And in an interview with Good Morning America, Susan has revealed that she actually thinks this was to blame for her husband's suicide.
Speaking for the first time in a frank and emotional interview about her husband's death, she said: "It was not depression that killed Robin Williams. Depression was one of, let's call it, 50 symptoms, and it was a small one.
"I've spent this last year trying to find out what killed Robin to understand what we were fighting, what we were in the trenches fighting. And one of the doctors said, 'Robin was very aware that he was losing his mind and there was nothing he could do about it'.
"I know now the doctors — the whole team — were doing exactly the right things. It's just that this disease was faster than us and bigger than us. We would have gotten there eventually."
As soon as the findings were released to Susan, it made Robin's behvaiour make sense. She said: "Robin would go from totally lucid one moment to be speaking things that didn't match just minutes later.
"Before he committed suicide, his condition escalated to the point that it seemed like the dam broke."
She also revealed that she did not hold a grudge towards her husband at all: "I mean, there are many reasons. Believe me. I've thought about this — of what was going on in his mind, what made him ultimately commit, you know, to do that act. And I think he was just saying, 'No.' And I don't blame him one bit. Not one bit."
Dementia with Lewy Bodies is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's, and symptoms include changes in thinking and reasoning, confusion that varies significantly from one day to the next, visual hallucinations and delusions.
The beloved actor also suffered from Parkinson's disease, a degenerative disease which includes symptoms like tremors, loss of automatic movements and speech changes.
RIP Robin.
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