For those who are depressed, the idea that their mind is made up about suicide except for the lingering issue of the sympathy and devastation of their loved ones... that feels like jail and often exacerbates their depression. It is an almost impossible mental state that others can't understand any more than an average person understands how to conduct open chest heart surgery. And people who feel that way have seen people get over deaths in their families, they have seen people laughing it up at funerals, and they have seen people even poking fun at suicides in real life or even on the internet. This is not to say those people are assholes, but just to say a depressed person observes these things very keenly. They know, for a fact (in their mind at least), that a tragedy doesn't compare to life-long daily suicidal thoughts. In Bennington's case, we talk about the 6 kids without understanding what the situation was. Just based on my minimal knowledge of his psychological issues, my guess is that he thought it easier for his family to deal with what has always seemed like a possible outcome. Everyone knew he was abused as a child, everyone knew he was depressed and everyone knew he was abusing various substances regularly. His kids will not understand, but who is their father? An emotionally unstable man, regularly on tour, regularly mentally checked out because of the escapism he sought from acid and other substances. Those kids are still going to be destroyed and devastated, but it's no less devastation than Bennington's own choice, to forego what he once probably thought would be the ray of light in a dark life: seeing his children grow up to become strong adults and spending time with his wife and helping others in the same depths of despair. Certainly, the kids gave up more from our objective perspective. But neither life nor the mind are objective. Bennington seemingly couldn't take one more day of his mind crushing him. Does a celebrity's suicide matter more than everyone else's? Of course not. But the fact that someone can scale these heights while being in that condition tells me that they exerted an unimaginable amount of will to escape. In hindsight, he focused that energy in the direction of music and family and charity to escape what was killing him slowly and he got further along in his efforts than most non-depressed people will. Give me a person who helps thousands of suicidal and depressed kids over a person who raises one kid of his/her own. That's probably the final thought. For years, it was him and his friend Chris Cornell telling kids all over the world that there is hope. "Just look at us" they said. "You can do anything" they said. But one day he realized he can't hide it anymore, and he can't keep telling kids to fight when he feels like he is losing the fight everyday. And then his closest friend tapped out. And it was just him and the darkness. And the jail of living for others not to be sad. I saw in the writing a man torn between screaming out his demons, making music for others to scream out their demons, and also the compromises for some piece of **** corporate exec somewhere. RIP to a legend, even though I wasn't a huge fan of their music like most. But I understand. I hope his family is coping relatively well.
I've seen Linkin Park twice and I have to say they were the best performers I've ever seen. I honestly think half their songs sound better live than some over produced studio versions
Just listened to their latest album for the first time and damn, it is really foreshadowing and you can see how troubled Chester was. This is one of his last performances, it nearly seems as if he's saying goodbye to everyone:
