Very moving and meaningful contributions. I have now re-watched two films that both have suicide as a crucial issue. At first it felt eerie to see him act in relation to another's suffering and suicide. But something struck me. From these films and from what I know about suicide, it is very likely that this was not a unique and mysterious event. Without knowing details, it is still quite likely that Williams had thought about suicide at other points in his life. Certainly in these two films suicide is a direct issue that he confronts. In the film where he is already dead and then his wife kills herself, he struggles to find her, rescue her, bring her back from a hell-like place to his more colorful heaven so they can be together and she is out of pain and not alone. During an important dialogue he tells her at a hospital where she is recovering from depression and probably a suicide attempt not to give up. Later they revisit that moment and he says quite frankly and astonishingly that saying don't give up was his defense and way to hide and avoid his and her pain. Perhaps there was a "don't give up" mandate that he finally had to admit was not working as a strategy to avoid pain and the quite likely discrepancy between what was external and what he felt inside. The rift and feeling of inauthenticity plus other pressures such as living up to huge expectations, growing older with divorces and probable relational problems, losing starring roles, realizing that you are more vulnerable than you previous thought so you can't fight off depression or maintain sobriety. Without knowing anything really about the private life of this man, it isn't too hard to see how this could happen. Suicide tends to follow a surprisingly similar pattern among very different people. Feeling trapped with no options, feeling alone, feeling huge loss and no way to overcome them or deal, plus more personal issues and fears lead people of all stripes to consider this option. In some accounts of suicide, it is thought that the person is trying to end pain so is actually trying a self-protective strategy that contradicts itself because it means that the self dies to kill off the pain in the ego. But for people who have either had bouts with this struggle or suddenly find themselves feeling that there are no options for them, it is not totally mysterious that this is a form of relief that they ultimately turn to. We actually don't know and probably won't ever find out what exactly was going on in Robin William's life and mind to push him over to actually completing a suicide attempt. Still I don't think that is really our business or what can be taken from this highly public occurrence of what happens so frequently for so many people, whether contemplations, attempts, or completions, it is an all too common and deeply sad problem that can be addressed and needs to be brought into daylight so that more is done to help the huge number of people who also live in this hellish world.