Wellness & Fitness

NJENGA: Lessons in life from deaths of top entertainers

ROBIN

American actor Robin Williams. ILLUSTRATION | JOSEPH BARASA

I used to be, and still am, a big fan of US comedian Robin Williams. I have read about his depression and abuse of drugs as well as how he had managed to conquer both.

Why do people who are successful in their business and careers get overwhelmed by depression or drugs? And secondly, what are the first signs that someone is going down that dangerous path? Is there a way friends and relatives can help or should people just help themselves?

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Your question has allowed me to further consider a theory, which though accepted by some experts is yet to be proved scientifically. My observations are very similar to yours.

Very many giants in the entertainment world who have troubled childhoods rise to fame and die desperate lives of drug and alcohol addiction. Elvis Presley, Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson are good example of this phenomenon.

Elvis Presley was the giant of rock and roll in my generation and I will illustrate my point using his life and fate. His music lives on many years after his death on August 16, 1977 aged 42.

Elvis came from a severely deprived background, in which his poverty stricken parents lived on handouts. His father served time in jail for issuing a bouncing cheque, and they lived in a poor neighbourhood getting subsidies from government and food from neighbours.

On school entry, he was simply described as an average student, who kept to himself. His teachers regarded his music as “trashy”, and he scored a C in music.

In these circumstances one can picture a teenager full of self doubt, depressed, lonely and perhaps out of touch with parents and peers. In 1954, Elvis was working as a lorry driver.

The following year, he became rich, famous, and sought after by the world. He had also turned out to be an incredibly handsome young man, much adored by the girls.

The rest, as they say is history, as he went on to become simply the king. In a few years, he was catapulted from a life of poverty to a life of opulent decadence. He was in a totally unfamiliar territory in a very short time.

Sadly, this status, came with its challenges, and in a state of self doubt and high societal expectations, his marriage failed, he took to abuse of prescription drugs and eventually died.

This, however, is the short version of the story. Before he was found in his hotel room dead from a drug overdose, many instances had given reason for friends, like you to intervene. They did not do so in time.

The increasing use of barbiturates, prescribed initially by his doctors, his breaking up with his wife and several incidents in which he collapsed on stage were all reasons to wonder what was going on, in the life of the king.

At one time he went on stage and held on to the microphone unable to do more than mumble into the microphone and the world still refused to accept that the king was “dying”.

In a sense, Elvis had become too big a star to be human.

He was both a music, and sex idol and icon and to many, more than a god and many years later some of his fans still do not believe he is dead!

At the height of his career, his fans did not expect human qualities in him. As the king, he had to be smiling, funny, sexy, energetic and entertaining at all times day and night.

Any suggestion that the king needed a break, or was tired or upset were all alien thoughts to his fans. For his part, he had to live the role of king.

My view is that in that state of unrealistic expectations, Presley found solace in prescription drugs and like many others, died at a very early age.

US President Carter in his eulogy credited Presley with having changed the face of popular American culture permanently.

President Obama had very similar words for Robin Williams. Though highly intelligent, he also had a troubled teenage life fearing his father, and in his words “my only friends as a child were my imagination”.

As one of his millions of fans, you will confirm that Williams was indeed one of the greatest and funniest entertainers of his generation. He died a miserable man.

Like Elvis many years earlier, he was to many a mini god; who was fun, funny, energetic and good natured all the time. It was for many impossible to view him sad, withdrawn, angry and tired, or irritable as happens to all men. He was in other words denied the opportunity to be human.

Alcohol, and drugs, in these circumstances become a getaway and a place of solace. For such people, death, in a hotel room, alone often is the only option.

This, however, is the short story because we know that the entertainment industry is replete with individuals who suffer mood disorder (including bipolar), as well as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Both these conditions confer to those who suffer them exceptional skills in entertainment. Such people are funny, energetic, and creative in the extreme in one phase of the condition, but at other times become clinically depressed and subject to drug and alcohol abuse. Many have committed suicide.

Bottom line to your question, these people at the top of the entertainment industry, and indeed at the top of the pyramid in all aspects of human endeavour, are prone to depression, despair and loneliness. It is at such times that they need you most and you must treat them as any other friend in need.