Robin Williams’ widow, Susan Williams has spoken out about her late-husband’s suicide last year. In her first interview since the actor’s death at the age of 63 in August last year, she said, ‘It was not depression that killed Robin. Depression was one of let’s call it 50 symptoms and it was a small one.’
The autopsy results revealed that the comedian was suffering from Diffuse Lewy Bodies Dementia, a neurodegenerative disease that is frequently misdiagnosed. He was also suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Susan revealed that in the months leading up to his death, Robin’s symptoms had escalated. ‘We were living a nightmare,’ she said, saying that her husband was ‘disintegrating before my eyes.’
Lewy Bodies causes crippling anxiety attacks, muscle rigidity, can cause hallucinations and impair memory and motor functions.
‘I know now the doctors’, the whole team was doing exactly the right things. It's just that this disease was faster than us and bigger than us,’ Susan said. ‘We would have gotten there eventually. 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.”’
Now Susan wants to campaign to raise more awareness about the disease in her late-husband’s name.
She added, ‘If Robin was lucky, he would’ve had maybe three years left. And they would’ve been hard years. And it’s a good chance he would have been locked up.’
Describing her husband as ‘the bravest man I’ve ever known,’ Susan went on to reveal that she didn’t blame him for taking his own life. Asked if she thought he was trying to regain control in his suicide, she said, ‘In my opinion, oh yeah. 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.’