Grotesque.

The proof is every person who has called suicide "selfish" or demanded that he will never get into somebody's idea of heaven. That is some cold, calculated hatred of other people right there.

I cannot even...

Zelda was herself FANTASTIC in Were the World Mine, not that it's relevant. As someone who has been through having a loved one commit suicide, I cannot imagine even Internet anonymity giving someone the feeling that it's ok to torment someone in Zelda's position.

Fuckers.

Have you heard the horrible, hateful things Limbaugh said? What a disgusting slob.

Can't Anonymous attack these trolls?

In this economy, someone who has it all and offs himself is difficult to understand.

@6 well, if there was any doubt, you have once again dispelled it. JBOTSMFOTP

Also, more proof of John Gabriel's theory.

@6:

When dealing with a neurological disorder like acute, clinical depression, material comfort is irrelevant. Too many people operate under the mistaken assumption that, "oh they can pay for therapy, they can pay for medication, they can surround themselves with wonderful toys and luxuries - so, what's their problem?" Their problem is that they suffer from a soul-crushing condition that no amount of money, fame, or possessions can fix. If you've never been around someone with this level of depression, you simply have no idea; one friend describes it like this, "every inch--from the hair on my head to the bones in my feet-- feel like they weigh thousands of pounds. It is a monumental task to lift myself out of bed each day and move through what used to be simple air, oxygen and hydrogen that instead feels like a massive sucking sludge. When I lay down at the end of the day the exhaustion is inexplicable and a concrete slab of anxiety presses down on my chest making it impossible to breathe. When depression fights to stay, it follows me into my sleep permeating my dreams making them real and vivid and murderous. It raids my subconscious and brings to the surface every fear that's buried there. And then I wake up, and do it all over again..." Personally, I can't even begin to imagine what that must feel like, day in, day out, but I DO understand it.

And bear in mind, what treatments are out there, whether they be psychological or pharmacological don't work on everyone the same way or to the same degree; the human brain is simply too complex, and our current understanding of its functioning too limited, to provide the kind of across-the-board relief to suffers of severe depression that we can for, say, people with high blood pressure or heart conditions.

#7, 8, 9

There's the person and the persona.

Wasn't he (persona) always the comic+pathos+heartwarmingness type who ends up cloyingly touching someone's cheek, asking them to "cheer up; it's not all that bad"? I think we're all feeling a bit deceived.

@10: Congratulations, you have just discovered the concept of "acting."

John Bailo is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet.

Today I learned that SRotU is completely uneducated on matters of psychology and biology. Stay in school, kids.

Let me guess @10: you also think professional wrestling is totally not faked, right?

#11, 12

Well, look, it's Savage who decided to politicize this. So let's go there for a second.

Williams was the scion of Hippie Aristocracy. His sudden ascent was based on selling an A-D-D style of pop cultural mixmastering with that cloying pathos and syrupy sentimentality. As such he paved the way for the Simpsons, and just about every other adult cartoon as well as a good many comedians and comic movies.

Yet, what was he really selling. Yes, the same feel goodism about the regime that allows you and I to go sailing through life as it all decays around us, because "hey, it's like the East German Swim team doing country line dancing with Miley Cyrus".

Not sure "there's nothing wrong with feeling nothing" helped.

@14 you need to go outside and play or something..

Bailo, a guy killed himself. Saying that people mocking his surviving family are terrible is not politicizing that fact. I know as a republitroll you feel the need to turn everything into an us verses them argument to satisfy some dark corner of your ugly heart, but suicide? You can't have the decency to let his family mourn him without making it about your screed against the left? Fuck you. You are a piece of shit.

@ 14, "politicize" it? What the hell are you talking about, Bailo.

To paraphrase one of my favorite movie lines, "forget it Matt, it's Bailotown."

JBITSMFOTP
*vigorous headdesk and angry thrashing*

Shut Up, you dumb motherfucker!

My younger sister took her own life when I was in high school. I was at the store a couple weeks later and an employee (a grown man that I barely knew) cornered me and began explaining to me how important it was that I understand that my sister had committed a "mortal sin" and would spend an eternity of torture in Hell. He followed me around the store even after I'd started crying and trying to get away, insisting that it wasn't his fault, "just the facts". I was 16 years old. People really, really do suck, and suicide is one of those topics that seems to invite ignorance and cruelty.

#22 - I am so sorry that happened to you. I think the people who are the biggest dicks about it are the ones who don't have any idea how to maturely handle their fear on the subject.

I was honestly not surprised by Mr. Williams's suicide. There was always a depth and honesty in his personality that can only come from experiencing very deep and persistent pain. He could never have been so funny without it. The tragedy of the death doesn't, for me, outdo the beauty of the successful, 63 year struggle against that pain, filled with prolific, loving offerings to the world.