
How Linkin Park Saved Me
I’ve always struggled with the concept of hero worship. I’ve never understood the outpouring of grief that occurs when a celebrity dies.
When David Bowie died, I was shocked, but I wasn’t a huge fan of his so it didn’t hit me anywhere near as hard as other people. The same happened with Prince, not being a fan I wasn’t upset by his untimely passing.
Even in May, when Chris Cornell died, I was upset but having not been the biggest Soundgarden fan and only appreciating his considerable talent and abilities when Audioslave appeared on the scene, I didn’t mourn him as others did.
So I never understood the unspeakable mourning when a famous person dies. Until this week.
This week, Chester Bennington died. More precisely, he took his own life and it’s devastated me.
Let me tell you of my history with Linkin Park. In 2000, I was 14. I was overweight, unfit and geeky. I went to a high school in England which prides itself on athletic accomplishment, obscenely high test scores and impeccable arts faculties. I fit into none of that. I was certainly not athletic, I was (am) smart, but not prodigious like some of my classmates that were rightly or wrongly placed on pedastals for all to see and I was far from artistic. I can barely draw geometric shapes with any consistency let alone master the paintbrush. I fit in everywhere and no where. People were friendly to me but not friends with me. I was an outcast in plain clothing.
I was into pop punk music when the cool kids were into rap and RnB. I liked Donnie Darko when the cool kids were reenacting American Pie.
I remember when I first heard “One Step Closer” on Kerrang! TV. I was simultaneously enraptured and slightly afraid of the weird, dark and slightly twisted music video (that in retrospect makes fuck all sense, even 17 years later). It was the lyrics that had me, though. That chorus, so simple, so powerful, so full of frustration and rage, it spoke to me. As someone who was bullied all through my childhood, it was a revelation. Here was someone else, older than me, from another part of the world, who was bullied, brow beaten, abused, who was at the end of his tether and ready to snap. It was all consuming.
The videos kept coming. “Crawling”, which at the time in my naievty I took as another song about Chester’s abusive childhood and not about his drug problems, spoke to me. The idea of wounds inflicted that wouldn’t heal or living in a constant state of fear made me think of the people in my life that I hated, who bullied me and made me fear going to school. I felt the anger, the drawing, selfish desire to be free of them.
Papercut sealed the deal for me. I was beginning to suffer from depression at that age (though it wouldn’t be diagnosed until my Twenties). I was well aware of the feeling of having a face I’d show to people versus the face that I hid from them. I was learning not to be vulnerable around some people for fear of being hurt. I was starting to have that nagging voice I battle every day telling me I’m not good enough and I don’t deserve to be happy. Papercut spoke to that.
I bought Hybrid Theory in the summer of 2000 and I never stopped listening to it. Every song had a meaning for me (even if that meaning had nothing to do with the intent of the song).
It was an album that showed me other people have the same emotions and feelings. It was an album that showed me it’s okay to not be okay. That in the end, it doesn’t even matter.
Chester Bennington died at the age of 41. I’m 31. I’ve never battled through the same things that he did in his life, but I battle my own demons every single day. Every day is a fight, another battle in my war with depression.
That someone who spoke to me as a teenager can succumb as an adult both saddens me and inspires me. I don’t want to lose my battle. I don’t want to leave my friends and family decades before I should. I want to live. I want to feel alive and be happy.
I never saw Linkin Park live. I never had a chance to witness Bennington work his craft in person. I’ll never meet the man who was so influential on my young existence.
All I have is sadness and thanks. Sadness that an amazing musician who inspired a lot of my formative existence is no longer here. Thanks that I was on this earth at the same time as him and thanks that his powerful voice and incendiary yet personal lyrics saved a lonely boy and made him realise that he was not alone.
Thank you Chester. Rest easy now, sir. Your work in this world is done.
If you are suffering, there are people who can help. The Samaritans are always there. Don’t suffer in silence, reach out http://www.samaritans.org
