Robin Williams died on Monday. Robin Williams the iconic actor who has made the world laugh as long as I’ve been alive. I remember my parents taking me to see Popeye at the movie theater and from then on I was hooked. So what does Robin Williams have to do with a human rights blog?
I admit, I wanted to write this post yesterday but I didn’t know where to begin. Strange that someone you never met can have an impact on your life. I think for most people it’s the shock that someone who was that funny and brought so much joy to so many people could be in that much pain. Williams was not only a prolific actor he was a great humanitarian.
Every Christmas he appeared in the St. Jude ads that run on TV and in movie theaters and he was a long time supporter of Amnesty International. In his more serious roles he was always cheering for the underdog and telling us that it was more noble to stand up for what you believe in than to go along with the crowd.
Yesterday, August 12, was UN International Youth Day and ironically the focus of this year’s day was mental health. According to the UN, 20 percent of the world’s youth population suffers from some type of mental health issue. I can only imagine that those numbers will escalate in the next few months due to depression and PTSD caused by war and conflict; I would expect there would be a sharp uptick in Africa and the Middle East.
According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness 1 in 4 American adults will suffer from some form of mental illness in one year; and approximately 14.8 million American adults suffer from depression. One of our basic human rights as outlined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights is the access to health care. Sadly in many countries, including our own, this right isn’t realized.
One only has to walk down any major metropolitan street to see homeless people, 46 percent of whom have a mental illness. The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to sharp increase in suicides among military personnel and more than half of all soldiers suffer from some form of mental illness.
One of the highlights of my graduate experience was the honor of interviewing four US Army service members who had served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was working on a paper that focused on PTSD and I followed the chronology and the development of the disorder from its first mentions during the American Civil War up to present day. None of the men I interviewed had been diagnosed with PTSD but their experiences still had a profound influence on them both mentally and emotionally. Most of them said the hardest part of adjusting back to civilian life following a tour was simply driving down the road without fearing they would be blown up.
We face a tremendous crisis in this world when it comes to diagnosing and treating people with depression and mental illness. Access to help and services should be readily available to those who are in need. Each life is precious and it’s a gift, but we’re human and we’re fragile. To quote the tagline of my human rights program: “There is no such thing as a lesser person.”
Do All the Good That You Can 