Depression explained perfectly by Chester Bennington
Depression explained perfectly by Chester Bennington
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Depression explained perfectly by Chester Bennington
Thanks for sharing.
That really hit home.
I dont want their chemicals
I need to see a therapist. That feeling of “not wanting to exist” is far too real.
The worst thing I find about depression is the unreasonable self-destructive behavior. A lot of people want to help, say kind things, offer ‘solutions’, but it all falls on deaf ears. The weird thing is that even though I know about these things, I find it impossible to change my mindset. Kind of like being stuck in limbo, just one big grey mass of being uninterested, unmotivated and generally unhappy with life.
I have so much to be happy about (lovely wife, best son I could ever hope for, supportive family, a good friend, roof above my head, generally good physical health), but it’s sometimes so hard to enjoy it. Because I’m always in some kind of battle with the depressed side of myself. As soon as I have a happy moment, a big cloud of anxiety, depression and frustration forms above my head to remind me the feeling will only be temporary.
I will get out of it eventually though. Not sure when, but I’m working on it. Whoever reads this and has similar feelings, I hope you don’t give up working on it too.
I remember a video someone posted awhile back with a guy who told a story about working in a suicide hotline call center. It was a pretty long video, but he was a great story teller, and most of it was pretty funny.
When he talked about the training, one of the specific things they mentioned was the idea that people who are depressed and dealing with suicidal thoughts don’t actually *want to die*.
They’re usually just tired. They’re tired of pretending things are okay. They’re tired of forcing themselves to do things. They’re tired of doing things that used to make them happy but don’t anymore. They get sick of it and just don’t want to be tired of it anymore.
[His performance on Kimmel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a89S_iYBS1Q) just after his friend passed away will never cease to amaze me.
This line described it perfectly for me. “I don’t want to do anything, I don’t feel like doing anything and I don’t like anything” It feels like quick sand sometimes and it hard to get momentum. It’s easier to stay at home and zone out.
As someone with clinical depression who has also been temporarily paralyzed: the two feel exactly the same.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to call some fucking random number and talk to some stranger. Maybe put more emphasis on what happens after you call the number and what to expect.
Miss you Chester
Anyone notice how awkward his bandmate looked during the BILD interview? Kind of like how you act when your friend is telling something you know really affects them but they’re kind of joking about it, I got that vibe from him.
Chester really hit home with how depression feels and makes us behave, but he did also outline what it takes to help your mental illness.
In December of 2016, I had battled my demons long enough. After being diagnosed with chronic illness, feeling like I was trapped in a loveless marriage and hearing about my aunt dying by suicide just a few months prior – I felt like not living was really the only way to stop the pain.
I went to my garage, fashioned a noose out of a broken exercise band and successfully hung myself.
About 5 minutes later my husband came in and cut me down, resuscitated me and life kept going.
If you think life is excruciating at times, imagine having to be forced back into the land of the living after you had decided against it. Ontop of all my failures I had already conjured in my mind, now suicide was on my list as something I couldn’t do right.
I struggled left and right for months, just existing, not really filling any voids – just meandering around. As long as I didn’t sit and think about suicide too long, I could avoid the overwhelming thoughts that put me in that garage in the first place.
Then Chris Cornell took his life. Triggers came rushing in. My mind just kept thinking ‘It’s inevitable. Everyone is miserable.’ I avoided social media and all of it’s access to opinions on people who die by suicide. I yet again managed to live day by day…
Then Chester took his life, too.
I could no longer avoid the triggers. Every single part of my mental illness that I had shelved came rushing back and I realized I was NOT okay, despite being given the gift of life.
It took every muscle in my body to move myself from my bed to the phone to look up a therapist.
I had absolutely zero fucking clue what I was doing. Do I go in and tell them the truth? Do I go in and only tell them problems not related to my ‘taboo’ dark thoughts? Will they report me and lock me away?
I was nervous and scared, but I called regardless.
When I went in, I was greeted by a friendly face who had a million questions to ask during my intake. I decided to address all my problems, mainly focusing on my depression and suicide attempt.
At the end of that session, my therapist walked me over to a psychiatrist who got me on some basic mood stabilizers. In just one session, I laid the foundation for a liberation from myself.
The first few following sessions were hard to get to. With depression, you often feel absolutely zero motivation and sometimes the carrot at the end of the stick doesn’t look so appetizing. I thought about just not showing up, not calling in and just staying at home wallowing. Luckily, the medication they gave me was starting to boost my morale and I started to find myself not wanting to give up on things so easily.
It’s been almost two years now and I still see my therapist every two-three weeks and see a psychiatrist every three months.
I have days where I still feel just drained – but I attribute that to the days where I’m kicking ass.
I still feel sad and down at times, but to NOT feel those feelings would mean that I’m not alive.
I can’t tell you how many times I told myself that therapy would be worthless – that medications would just make me feel like a zombie – that no one could help me and that I was not fine helping myself.
How typical of mental illness.
Now that I have the tools to control my mental health, I try to spend a good grip of time helping others who were at the same point I was years ago.
I want people to know that it can and will get better, but like anything else, it involves a bit of work. As I said, sometimes that feels unbelievably difficult – but isn’t life already that way?
I was going to struggle either way. Either I struggled getting myself to take medication and to show up to therapy, or I was going to struggle staying alive.
I made the choice to live. I promise you, you can, too.
If any of you need someone to reach out to, I’m always here.
“Weep not for roads untraveled. Weep not for sights unseen.
May your love never end and if you need a friend,
There’s a seat here alongside me.”
– Chester Bennington
In the words of one of the greatest leaders of our time …
“Take a teaspoon of cement and harden the fuck up mate”.
– Sassy The Sasquatch (Circa 2015)
Watching this… fuck, maybe I need some help.
This is pretty much it in a nutshell for me. I’ve got a good career, a family, and in general looked upon by everyone else as the epitome of success. Meanwhile I can’t stand a minute of it, but because of my success no one takes me seriously. I’ve got it so good, what can be so bad?
I know how Chester felt, and I feel that way everyday myself.
What is the line of text referring to at 1:45?
“He didn’t want to say “Crawling.” He seemed too ashamed to refer to anything related to the Hybrid Theory album.”
Reminds me of the Saturday’s spent in bed drinking hard liquor wondering what I did wrong
most of his songs are about him suffering. deep inside he was dying and nobody knew.
This is me!
I don’t enjoy things, I don’t really have interests. I don’t really *do* anything. It’s not that I feel “sad”, it’s that I don’t really “feel” at all. Sometimes I’ll feel sad or angry a few times a year, I’m pretty easily irritable sometimes and, yeah, once or twice a year I wanna give myself to the sea (but who doesn’t?) but for the most part, life is pretty *beige* for me.
And I’ve been this way for so long I’m not sure if this is a disorder or if this is just how I am because I don’t really have a “before” this to compare it to.
I’ve had depression and it’s really not a fucking nice place. It’s like a disease, I can’t remember now why I was depressed or what triggered it, but it does feel like a hole that just spirals down and you can’t just lift yourself out.
You do think about suicide because you literally just can’t see the point of existing when in that state, it lasted for at least a couple of months in my case, I can’t imagine how people live with it for longer. The only reason I didn’t do anything is because I knew it would destroy my mum. I never talked to anyone about it and I don’t think people could tell I had it. I remember my mum and I spoke randomly about it once in my kitchen and I just managed to hold it together without breaking down in front of her. Luckily for me I came out of it, and I can’t even tell you how – fuck you depression you cunt.