Attachment Through the Lens of Robin Williams: Lessons on Love, Loss, and Connection
By Jesse Chung
Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and commentary purposes only. It does not constitute a psychological assessment or diagnosis of Robin Williams or any individual. The analysis is based solely on publicly available information and is meant to illustrate concepts from attachment theory.
I remember watching Dead Poets Society as a teenager and trying to reckon with the fact that this teacher also voiced Genie from Aladdin. For nearly 3 decades Robin Williams defined a generation of entertainment. Some may remember him as the comic that set an early LA comedy scene on fire in the late 70s and early 80s. Others may remember him for his electric performances in almost every avenue of entertainment through the 90s and 2000s. Many of us may remember hearing rumblings of his addiction and mental health struggles. I still remember the shock from hearing of Robin Williams' death by suicide in the Fall of 2014.
It's difficult to grapple with the duality of performers. Some claim it is the performer's wish for the audience to simply enjoy their art as a solitary piece— the way a viewer can enjoy a painting in the absence of the painter. It is true that performers have every right to privacy and presentation. It is also beneficial to learn from the experiences of performers who suffered from mental health issues in order to enlighten proceeding generations of creatives.
A closer look at Robin William's mental health struggles takes us back to his early childhood experiences in the Midwest. Robin was the son of a wealthy business man and an eccentric, charming mother. In his posthumous documentary Come Inside My Mind, Williams describes his childhood self with a deflated almost forlorn tone, "I was so fucking quiet." Williams explains that his parents were on the road for most of his childhood due to his father's work. He was raised primarily by his household staff and attended boarding school from middle school to high school. In his documentary, Williams is asked, "Earlier in life, did you have a fear of abandonment?", to which he responds, "Oh yeah, it's a primal fear for any child, and it dictates a lot of how you deal with life." An unattended fear of abandonment in childhood can often lead to struggles with intimacy in adults.
He coped with his isolation by immersing himself with toys and figurines in imaginative play. This was no doubt a useful tool for his electric improvisation later in his career. It is also possible that a young Williams noticed his lack of early relationships and misinterpreted this as an inability to form relationships. Children have cognitive limitations that can lead to misinterpretations and misattributions regarding early experiences (Erriech, 2013). William’s internalization of these experiences align with characteristics often associated with fearful-avoidant attachment, also known as disorganized attachment style.
A fearful-avoidant attachment style can be characterized by both a desire and an intense fear of emotional closeness and intimacy with others. Williams married three times and divorced twice. His first marriage was to Valerie Velardi who was an aspiring professional dancer in San Francisco with a bright extroverted personality. During their 10 years of marriage, Velardi was aware of Robin's frequent infidelity on the road. Velardi recounts “he was always looking for connection – he loved women – I understood and I wanted him to have that. But I also wanted him to come home.”
Within a year of his first divorce, he married Marsha Garces, his son’s nanny. As a child who was raised by household staff, in my opinion, it is no coincidence he found an attraction to his own household staff. Garces also worked as his assistant and helped Williams write material. At 38 years old, Williams sought help for his addiction to cocaine and alcohol after witnessing the fatal overdoes of his friend, John Belushi. Williams mentions in his documentary that when he started romantically seeing Garces he understood, “I don’t have to live this mad-house existence. That’s why my life was saved by her not ruined by her.”
There is an element of safety-seeking behavior in William’s attraction to Garces. As a child Williams likely sought nurture from his household staff in his parents’ absence. As an adult, Williams sought safety and support from his son’s nanny as he decreased his dependency on substances. William’s move towards sobriety was not enough to sustain the relationship. Williams and Garces were together for 21 years, had two children together, and eventually divorced citing “irreconcilable differences”. Those who suffer from a fearful-avoidant attachment style often have trouble trusting their partner to love and support them as they are and therefore subconsciously anticipate rejection, disappointment, or betrayal.
Though he sought closeness with women, a lack of healthy relationship modeling and his fearful-avoidant attachment style impaired Williams’ ability to identify healthy coping to process negative experiences within close relationships. These childhood factors may have also contributed to his relationship with drugs later in life. Individuals with insecure attachments often face difficulty maintaining relationships and psychotropic substances can be “a way to ‘self-medicate’ attachment needs, to regulate emotions, to cope with stress, and to replace relationships eventually” (Schindler, 2019). In his 20s and 30s, Williams frequently used cocaine and alcohol to fuel his rocketing career in television and standup comedy. The fast-moving nature of show business provided operant conditioning towards his substance use, affirming the means to his career success.
Williams’ choice of stimulants can also be considered through the lens of his fearful-avoidant attachment style. In 2019, Andreas Schindler of the University Medical Center in Hamburg-Eppendorf identified that when it comes to drug choice, “the abuse of stimulants might be linked to more hyperactivating, closeness-seeking attachment strategies, while use of sedatives might be linked to deactivating, distancing strategies.”
Some performing artists might use stimulants to cope with high demand for their art. It is also important to observe drug-choice from an attachment perspective to identify deeper underlying struggles with intimacy and identify how these issues inform the persona they portray to their audience. For many performers, the act of performance itself is therapeutic.
Exhibiting energetic captivating performances is not exclusively linked to poor mental health. However, in Williams’ case, his childhood experiences, his choice of stimulants, his career choice, and his struggles with long-term intimacy align with characteristics of someone with a fearful-avoidant attachment style.
You don’t have to be an artist or someone who identifies as fearful-avoidant to take something away from Williams’ story. Williams’ life, as told through an attachment theory lens, can help us all make sense of our own experiences, patterns, and relationships. If you haven’t taken an attachment-style survey, explore one of the free, online versions. If you already know your attachment style, consider the following:
How did my early childhood shape my attachment style?
How has my attachment style informed previous relationships?
How might my attachment style be impacting my current relationships?
How has my attachment style influenced my relationship to alcohol and other drugs?
Moving forward, how can I disrupt a maladaptive behavioral pattern that might be related to my attachment style?
It is important to remember that our attachment styles don’t determine our futures. You’re not pre-destined to experience divorce, substance use disorder, or self-harm just because you’re fearful-avoidant. Rather, we have a better chance of disrupting patterns that harm our relationships if we understand our own attachment styles.
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References
Erreich, A. (2013) Unconscious Fantasy as a Special Class of Mental Representation: A Contribution to a Model of Mind. Training and Supervising Analyst, Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with NYU School of Medicine; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Child Study Center, NYU Langone Medical Center.
Schindler, A. (2019). Attachment and Substance Use Disorders – Theoretical Models, Empirical Evidence, and Implications for Treatment. Department for Personality and Stress Disorders, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, /university Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
Zenovich, M. (Director) (2018). Robin Williams: Come inside my mind. HBO.
