Henry Rollins attacks Robin Williams for taking his own life

[Jazzy]

Henry Rollins, the American punk musician and actor, had been criticised as a "moronic fool" after launching an extraordinary attack on Robin Williams for taking his own life.

The entertainer said he had "disdain" for people who take their own lives and that those who did so "blew it".

Rollins, 53, the former singer with punk rock group Black Flag, immediately faced a backlash on social media and in Hollywood.

Williams, 63, the star of films including Mrs Doubtfire, took his own life last week. He had been suffering from severe depression, anxiety and the early stages of Parkinson's disease.

In an opinion piece for LA Weekly, entitled "**** Suicide" Rollins praised Williams for his talent and for his work with the US military, for whom Rollins has also performed.

He said: "That’s all I needed to know about him. As far as I was concerned, he was a good man."

Rollins then went on: "It’s here where I step off the train. I am sure some will strongly disagree with what I’m about to say...but I simply cannot understand how any parent could kill themselves."

"How in the hell could you possibly do that to your children? I think as soon as you have children, you waive your right to take your own life."

"When someone negates their existence, they cancel themselves out in my mind."

Rollins said he had many records, books and films featuring people who had taken their own lives.

He said: "I regard them all with a bit of disdain. I no longer take this person seriously."
He noted 40,000 people a year kill themselves in America, adding: "In my opinion, that is 40,000 people who blew it. **** suicide. Life isn't anything but what you make it."

Source

Your thoughts about what he says regarding suicide?

 

[Sinon]

As what you could call a 'survivor' of suicide attempts... I agree with him. Life sucks sometimes, and sometimes you can't see a way for it to get better. But all suicide does is cement that. It will NEVER get better if you're bleeding out in a bath tub or dangling from the ceiling by a homemade noose. And yeah, maybe it eases the pain you feel. But it hurts so many more people who may never recover from the void you leave in their life.

And, Rollins hit the nail on the head. He was a parent. His oldest child is the same age as I am. How would I feel if my dad committed suicide? Pretty bad. I'd feel angry. Enraged, even. Because my father is one of two people I share the closest familial bond with, and to lose that because he would choose to die would be painful. I'd feel abandoned. Abandoned and useless. Knowing forever that maybe I could've helped but wasn't able to.

Overall, your worth as a person is dictated by two things. Who you are, and the people you keep close to you. A drifter with no family? Suicide would probably be negligible. But Williams was a household name, he was loved by his friends, his family, and millions of people he had never even met, whose names he didn't know. He had tons of support from his wife, his children, the rest of his family. Could he have gotten through it with their help? I don't know. Nobody will ever know.

Because he didn't try.