Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Heath Ledger Remembrance Forum
Is it just me, or is Heath's absence still hitting others hard?
optom3:
--- Quote from: MilAn on June 08, 2008, 03:11:23 pm ---No, it's not just you optom. Every time i see a young father with his daughter i think of Heath and Matilda and how he should be with his daughter too.
His death was so senseless. 28 years young, had a beautiful, healthy daughter a promising career and supposedly a new, pretty girlfriend.
I ask myself every day how this could have been prevented? Did those close to him notice his problems, and he must have had problems when he was on anti anxiety medications and sleeping pills etc., did anyone try to help? A life thrown away. It's tragic.
--- End quote ---
I wish someone had noticed too.It shows me how lucky I am that from parents through to my husband.People have always seen when I was starting one of my downward spirals.Including on Xmas day years ago,when I thought I was putting up a pretty good show at my parents house. Not so, my mother bless her, ever vigilant found half my lunch hidden in the rubbish.She had gone looking as she knew the start of the downward spiral for me was always heralded by not eating.
I just wish someone had been that observant with Heath, or maybe they were and he just chose not to listen, we will never know I guess.I do not have lots of friends,but the ones I do.know even over the phone if things are getting bad again.
I would also like to see pharmacies here having a national database as they do in England.I know if you really want to get hold of meds. you still can.But if it stops just one death from mixing all sorts of prescription meds,it would be worth it.
An example for me is I have one set of meds I could still get from my physician, who originally started treating me.I now see a psychiatrist who has given me 2 different sets of meds.Now I am not going to get all the meds made up, but I could do very easily, with no cross checking at all.Get one lot at CVS and one at Wallgreens.The psychiatrist does not know of the doctors prescriptions for me and vice versa.
To make matters worse both have prescribed diazepam as one of my meds, and the other anti depressants would be fatal if mixed.It is madness.I know of the potential risk because of all my time spent working as a clinical chemist,also I look up every med I am ever prescribed.I am not suicidal, but just imagine if I was how easy it would be for me. All legitimate prescriptions, no lies told to anyone. Also just imagine if I did not have the science background I do, I could easily think, well I still feel crap, so I think I will take all the different meds and see if that helps.
It is all too easy to see how a tragic accident could so easily happen again.The pharmacies really need at the very least to be linked by a central computer.It cannot be that difficult in this day and age. Also it needs the pharmacist to spell out what meds will react with each other.So when a prescription is collected they should tell you,dont take this if you are already taking a.b or c.That is what they do in England.It would not prevent the suicides,but I do believe it would stop a lot of the accidental overdoses.
MilAn:
Optom, around 5 years ago i had a severe depression, because of problems in college and private life and i started to think if i ate something i would choke on it and die, so i stopped eating. It was such a difficult time. My mother was the only one who noticed something wasn't ok with me, but my parents are the types of people who think you should handle your problems yourself and don't talk with others about it. But i realized i couldn't handle it myself and i asked my doctor to give me an adress for a phycologist. At fist my parents were against it, they kept insisting i could get rid of my problem myself, but after therapy and a very mild anti depressant (which i don't need anymore) they realized how helpful the therapy was and they changed their mind. Thank God! I guess i wanted to say that even if your parents love you, they don't always fully understand you or realize how bad your condition is. I fought for myself, but i'm a female and maybe females care more about their well-being. I don't know how it was with Heath. :(
optom3:
--- Quote from: MilAn on June 08, 2008, 04:15:26 pm ---Optom, around 5 years ago i had a severe depression, because of problems in college and private life and i started to think if i ate something i would choke on it and die, so i stopped eating. It was such a difficult time. My mother was the only one who noticed something wasn't ok with me, but my parents are the types of people who think you should handle your problems yourself and don't talk with others about it. But i realized i couldn't handle it myself and i asked my doctor to give me an adress for a phycologist. At fist my parents were against it, they kept insisting i could get rid of my problem myself, but after therapy and a very mild anti depressant (which i don't need anymore) they realized how helpful the therapy was and they changed their mind. Thank God! I guess i wanted to say that even if your parents love you, they don't always fully understand you or realize how bad your condition is. I fought for myself, but i'm a female and maybe females care more about their well-being. I don't know how it was with Heath. :(
--- End quote ---
That is such an astute point.Females will get help sooner than males.It is now 6 years since my husband has even been registered with a doctor,either here or in England !!!!
My brother who has had similar problems to me, only got help about 5 years ago.
I am very lucky in that my mother was once a nurse in a psychiatric hospital,so there was no fooling her, not by me anyway.My brother did not fool her either,but he moved to Japan when he was 21 so she could not help him anymore.
To this day she know instantly over the phone when all is not right with me. So I count myself lucky.She also I recently found out, filled my husband in on what to look out for, when we moved here.!!!!! A mothers love,irreplaceable, for me anyway.
MilAn:
Your mom sounds like a doll. :) My mom's very observant too, but unfortunately had a wrong image about psychologists and people who are on therapy, it changed once she saw how much my psychologist helped me. I think your views on such things depend on society and where you grew up.
--- Quote ---My brother did not fool her either,but he moved to Japan when he was 21 so she could not help him anymore.
--- End quote ---
Heath's parents and sister Katie live in Australia, he lived in the USA. I read his true friends were mostly his childhood friends from Australia and as often as he and they could he paid for them to fly over for a visit. I don't know how many real, close friends he had in the USA. But i know really good friends are hard to find and i imagine in Hollywood even harder. I think there's even more competition and envy (mostly money and fame come first), i think Heath was one of the rare real nice guys, but too sensitve for this Hollywood business.
optom3:
--- Quote from: MilAn on June 08, 2008, 05:10:17 pm ---Your mom sounds like a doll. :) My mom's very observant too, but unfortunately had a wrong image about psychologists and people who are on therapy, it changed once she saw how much my psychologist helped me. I think your views on such things depend on society and where you grew up.
Heath's parents and sister Katie live in Australia, he lived in the USA. I read his true friends were mostly his childhood friends from Australia and as often as he and they could he payed for them to fly over for a visit. I don't know how many real, close friends he had in the USA. But i know really good friends are hard to find and i imagine in Hollywood even harder. I think there's even more competition and envy (mostly money and fame come first), i think Heath was one of the rare real nice guys, but too sensitve for this Hollywood business.
--- End quote ---
Too true, a nice guy with an immense talent, but as you say too sensitive for hollywood.
My mother is a sweetheart, and unusual for a Brit. totally into psychiatry etc.Very unusual when you consider my first bout of trouble was 30 plus years ago.She also knew from a very early age that there was something wrong with my oldest son.She just kept hoping she was wrong.
Finally she spoke to me about him.Not easy as I am pretty sensitive about all my kids.In my eyes of course they are perfect In truth when she spoke to me about him I was already thinking he had a problem,He was about 6/7 at the time ,and as I watched him with other kids he was plainly different.It was a relief to have my mum, tackle the subject.I was beginning to wonder if I was just neurotic.
The rest is history,but it was just the start of a very long journey.
Going back to Heath, I am just surprised that no one related his constant fidgeting to something like ADD.I remember in one earlier interview,he was joking saying his agent had said to him,for gods sake just sit on your hands.
One of the reasons I find his interviews so hard to watch, is he just reminds me of my brother prior to Ritalin.He was impossible when you were talking to him,up and down,pacing round fidget, fidget.He has been like that for as long as I can remember.The only time he calmed down was when he was playing music,either,piano,violin,guitar,saxophone.He is a supremely talented musician.But the life of a musician would have killed him.He could not play to an audience.
I saw so much of that with Heath.When it was the relative privacy of him, a camera and his craft, he was fine.Put him in front of an audience for an interview ,and he was almost painful to watch.
Well at least we have his work to remember him by,but it is far too young an age to be talking of someone in the past tense. I will never get used to it. Not when such a large part of me believes it could have been prevented.
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