Two years ago the world lost beloved comedian Robin Williams and his widow, Susan Schneider has given new insight into the health struggles the actor faced in his tragic final months.
Schneider appeared on CBS This Morning and revealed that depression was only one symptom of a larger health issue the actor faced that eventually led to his suicide. She shared that Williams was battling Lewy body dementia, a neurological disease that affects the brain and causes many of the same symptoms as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
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Williams’ wife of two years recalls the first time she became aware the problem they were facing was more complex than depression. On their second wedding anniversary he experience gut pain for which they could find no cause.
“Robin and I had been together six years to that point, and I knew my husband’s normal baseline of fear and anxiety. And his fear and anxiety spiked and sustained at a level that was very scary,” she told host Charlie Rose. “So that was kind of the beginning, really the way I see it.”
As the symptoms increased, work and social interaction became hard for the once vivacious actor.
“It got difficult for him to even — even interacting with people became very difficult,” she explained. “He would question things afterward or during … in the realms of ‘Did I do OK?’ Things that focused around insecurity and fear.”
During this time, he experienced paranoia, delusions, insomnia, heartburn and a slight tremor in his left hand, all of which are caused by the build up of Lewy bodies. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
“[Parkinson’s disease] is actually an accurate diagnosis; however, that was the clinical side. The pathology was that he had diffuse Lewy body disease, which is what took him,” she told Rose. “I can tell you in his autopsy, the coroner’s report was clear that he had Lewy body throughout all of his brain and brain stem — nearly every region.”
This story first appeared at Womanista.
