Robin Williams' dementia like 'terrorist in his brain', wife reveals
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Loading... - HALLE BENSON
- 04 Oct 2020
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Robin Williams’ widow has revealed that a little-known disease he was suffering from when he died was like a "terrorist within his brain".
The Oscar-winning actor took his own life in 2014 without knowing what was wrong with him.
Writing in the journal Neurology, Susan Schneider says her husband had been suffering from Lewy body disease, which has characteristics common to both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Doctors only discovered what was wrong after he died.
"How I wish he could have known why he was struggling, that it was not a weakness in his heart, spirit, or character," Ms Schneider writes.
Describing the disease's progression, she says her husband's "larger than life spirit" was crushed by "skyrocketing" fear and anxiety.
She mentions a "continuous" tremor in his left hand.
There was also a "shuffling gait", "terrible insomnia" and a "loss of basic reasoning" and memory.
The disease began to affect his work.
While filming Night At The Museum 3, Ms Schneider says: "Robin was having trouble remembering even one line for his scenes, while just three years prior he had played in a full five-month season of the Broadway production Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo, often doing two shows a day with hundreds of lines - and not one mistake."
She says: "This loss of memory and inability to control his anxiety was devastating to him."
As the symptoms took hold, Ms Schneider says doctors diagnosed the star with Parkinson's disease.
He was also, she writes, keeping some symptoms from her - including the fact that he was hallucinating.
In her essay, called The Terrorist Inside My Husband's Brain, Ms Schneider also recalls the last words they said to each other.
"When we retired for sleep, in our customary way, my husband said to me 'Goodnight, my love,' and waited for my familiar reply: 'Goodnight, my love'.
"His words still echo through my heart today."
Ms Schneider is hoping to raise awareness of Lewy body disease.
"It is my belief that when healing comes out of Robin's experience, he will not have battled and died in vain," she writes.
