Depression: The perpetual liar

As we lose another rock icon to suicide, it has set me thinking about how depression and suicide can really touch anyone, and it today it has touched many people across the world, as it did in May when Chris Cornell took his life.
After a lapse in my blogging seeing the above tweet from Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe fame has got me thinking and wanting to share my thoughts. It just confirmed to me that depression is truly the ultimate liar, many of us living with depression deserve an oscar for the performances we give on a daily basis during dark times, making it seem how absolutely ok and happy we are, while underneath there is a darkness and emptiness that will not dissipate.
Although I am not one to normally express my sorrow for the passing of celebrities on a public platform, the deaths of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington have particularly struck a chord with me for a variety of reasons. Linkin Park, Soundgarden and Audioslave were all big names in the rock world while I was a teenager, and for my generation were often the introduction into a completely different genre of music than we had heard previously. I vividly remember hearing Linkin Park for the first time when I was in 2nd year of high school and thinking I had never heard rock music like that before and instantly identified with it, and thereafter could not consume enough of the nu metal genre for a significant number of my teenage years. I loved, and still love Nu Metal, as a result of that first experience with Hybrid Theory, it changed the kind of music I listened to, and it really spoke to me — it gave me something to connect with.
But also every time I hear of someone taking their life it feels like a punch to the abdomen, because I know that hopelessness, I know what it is like to feel like there is no point in being alive anymore, because you feel you are not truly living. It winds me. I feel so sad for all of those who have given in to their battle because they have been fighting it for so long that they are tired.
It bothers me that people are continually mentioning that it would have been Chris Cornell’s birthday yesterday, and I get it, I understand that it is significant but it feels like people are attributing Chester Bennington’s death to that when none of us truly knows what went through his head in the hours before his death. It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I feel it diminishes the many other issues and difficulties that he must have been living with that led to that, which he expertly disguised on a daily basis.

It makes me sad that someone who had spoken so candidly at times about his struggles with addiction and mental illness as a result of abuse as a child, had obviously become so all consumed by his own darkness that he could no longer speak about it and reach out for help.
I am genuinely incredibly sad at the passing of another musician who helped to form my musical opinions, inspired a generation and whose music touched many people and helped them through their own difficult times.
I hope the passing of these two musicians can help to facilitate conversations around suicide and encourage others to speak out about their feelings and reach out for help and not become all engulfed by the darkness.
