[carljoseph]

I may be jumping to conclusions here, but I wonder if depression was part of the issue for Robin Williams.

In our industry or technology, depression, burnout, mental illness are all areas I don't feel we deal with very well.

[ObligatoryRef]

He has been struggling with depression and addiction for a long time. These kind of mental issues seem all too common amongst comedians.

[marco1]

Can you elaborate on the issue with comedians?

[bennesvig]

In this video a comedian talks about how he dealt with his daughter having cancer while appearing on the Tonight Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBJ1X33rXM

A lot of comedy comes from pain. I think Peter McGraw's benign violation theory partially explains this. According to McGraw's theory, humor comes from a "violation" or something negative that is made benign. Comedians learn to take the negative and transform it into something humorous.

People also say that many comedians have a more realistic view of the harshness of life. This reminds me of the quote from GK Chesterton, “Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?"

[neurotech1]

A large number of comedians are depressed in real life, away from audiences and cameras. I met a relatively famous comedian and he was quite depressed, and definitely not the only one.

RIP Robin Williams

[bashinator]

I've got a lot of respect for Maria Bamford for being so open about it. Also, she's funny as hell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/magazine/the-weird-scary-a...