Suicide more likely among men

The full story will come out in time, but Robin Williams is far from unique among apparently successful men when it comes to succumbing to depression.

According to official figures, there were 5981 suicides in the UK in 2012, of which 77% were male. And while the number of women taking their own lives has dropped by almost 50% over the last three decades, the number of men has remained unchanged over the same period - with suicide currently the biggest killer of young men in the country.

Jane Powell, director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably, a charity that exists to prevent male suicide in the UK, says it is partly the myth that successful people don't take their lives that makes the subject of male suicide so taboo.

"We have a series of assumptions about suicide that are explicit and implicit, and they make a toxic mix," Powell says. "One is that suicide is undertaken by failures: people who have no friends, who spend all their time in their room, who have something wrong with them.

"Are you going to talk about people close to you who might have taken their own lives if that is what others are thinking? If you say your son has taken his own life, then that means saying he is a failure too.

"But when you look at the people who do this it's quite the reverse. It is often true that they are admired, well-loved and talented."

Another assumption, Powell says, is that men should always be in control.

"If you're a woman and you're not able to cope, you can go to your friends or your GP. If you're a man and not in control, that's embarrassing.

"We have feedback from men who say that even when they do go to a doctor they're not taken seriously, because they're well-dressed and otherwise look like they're doing well."