Chester Bennington
CW: suicide.

Something a bit less political tonight: I listened to a huge amount of Linkin Park as a kid.
Right up until Living Things (and only then really stopping because uni happened), I was a huge, huge fan. The raw emotion the band put into every beat of every song was catharsis to my hormone-addled teenage brain. When I felt like screaming, I put music on and let people far more verbose than me put what I was feeling into words. Chester was a hugely talented man; I feel part of me has died with him and my thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Current reports are suggesting that he took his own life. This in itself is horrifying, but I’ve seen tweets from people expressing shock, that he’d seemed relatively happy recently, that this was out of the blue. What an awful place to find yourself; drowning in your own self-loathing and feeling like you have to put on a grin as it happens. I would know.
If you hadn’t guessed yet, I’m going to have a rant about mental health, specifically the stigma surrounding men who speak up when they are struggling. It is the biggest killer of British men under 45 — of the 6,109 suicides in the United Kingdom in 2014, 76% were male and this number is rising. 24% is absolutely by no means an insignificant figure and mental health struggles are a real, underestimated threat to the wellbeing of society, whatever your gender. A large part of the problem is undoubtedly that men are less willing to discuss their emotions. Stoicism is seen as a desirable masculine trait and sometimes it is, but not often enough for as much value to be placed on it as seems to be. I get told I’m “not very masculine” a lot — I’m perfectly fine with this and part of that is undoubtedly that I do wear my heart on my sleeve a little bit, but that isn’t weakness.
I graduated a couple of days ago, one year after I was supposed to — one of the reasons that this has affected me so much is that eighteen months ago, I was nearly a number on the 2015/2016 figures discussed above. Coming back to a university course I was struggling on, carrying emotional baggage that I’d never dealt with from a relationship that ended nearly a year prior, running out of money; all coalesced into one awful mess of tar-thick despondence. I was always exhausted, and unable to sleep; my thriving social life shut down; I found it impossible to focus on anything for any meaningful period of time. Depression is so, so much more than just “being sad” and I’m glad that there has been an effort to educate people on that. Give it a chance, and it will take over your life.
Not only that but it self-propagates; it makes you scared of everything that could help. It whispers that therapists will judge you, that medication will turn you into a sedated zombie. Add to this the mocking that tends to meet men attempting to talk about their emotions and is it really that shocking that this is leading to thousands of parents having to bury their children every year?
I was incredibly lucky to have family and friends who were nothing but understanding of what I was going through, and firm enough to push me to do the right thing. Recovery is not fun, and it is not quick — I don’t think my depression has or will ever leave me, but I am much better equipped to fight it when it flares up again. The point is that it can be done, you do deserve better and seeking help does not make you weak. One of the most terrifying parts for me was talking to a counsellor, a stranger, about these deeply personal issues; I found it far easier to make a list of what I was feeling and just read it out in the session. Depression is brutal, yes. It is all-encompassing, life-changing and it feels never-ending. But it is not infallible, despite it telling you the contrary. You can find the ways around it. They’re there.
What can we do better as a society, though? Mental health is becoming much better understood and this is, encouragingly, trickling down to the general populace, but it is far from in an ideal place. Call people out when you see them making statements that you know are harmful (I don’t like to make political/moral discussions personal but I did once fall out with a friend over a particularly foul Katie Hopkins article, that suggested if I had just gone for a run one time my depression would have cleared up just like that. Wanker). Support groups like CALM and Samaritans. Put pressure on your MP to get involved in movements aimed at helping.
Things are better than they were ten years ago, but we still have an uphill battle to fight; the reactionary resurgence brought such delights as “oh, man up and get over it” and “sticks and stones, don’t be such a snowflake”. Fight it. Fight it for your loved ones who are suffering; fight it for the people like me who needed support when seeking help; fight it for the twelve Chester Benningtons we lose every single day.
If you’re struggling, you can talk to Samaritans at any time, however you’re feeling, for no charge on 116 123.
