Today Chester Bennington killed himself…on Chris Cornell’s birthday no less.
About a month ago we lost Chris Cornell with his suicide.
These will not be last of what we hear when people take their own lives.
However, when it’s someone we know or a musician/celebrity who had inspired us in our lives whether it was a difficult point in our personal lives or not, those deaths touch us in a deep way. I’m left wondering what were the last thoughts in their mind? What were they thinking? Did they think about what they were leaving behind, who they would be hurting as a result of ending their lives, by their own hands.
It really sucks. There are no words.
However, I do have choice words for those who mock those who take their lives.
For some reason these people have a belief system that either money or their fame should fix these inner feelings of hopelessness. Especially when they compare their own lives to a life of a celebrity.
Sorry, you cannot compare your life with a life of a celebrity. Their lives consist of a more demanding level of having to appease people they work for. But let’s forget that for a moment and think about the human level.
I’ll share my own personal experience with you.
There was a time in my life, I felt complete and utter hopelessness. Yes, every day I went to bed with a blade, waiting for the nerve for me to cut myself and end my life. But when I looked at my life and looked at my cats, the first thing I wondered was, well who will take care of them? And somewhere deep inside, I felt I had more to live than just making it all end, because I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore.
You see, being a recovering addict, clean and sober for the last 26 years, I had too much pride to use again. So going out to a bar and getting drunk wasn’t an option. But at the time I had about 10 years clean give or take so even then, my mind wasn’t thinking, “well you can do 10 years again.”
It just wasn’t in the cards.
But I didn’t like this hopeless feeling. I felt like I was in a black hole and it was just getting deeper and deeper. Pretty awful to say the least. The every day crying didn’t help either. I didn’t want to talk about my feelings to my family because I didn’t want them to think I was some emotional failure who couldn’t control my feelings and just move on from whatever it was I was going through.
At the time, I had made a drastic change in my life and through that change, I realized how many people I had hurt and let down and no matter how much I said I was sorry, I couldn’t find a way out to forgive myself, for being human.
I sought and found a therapist I can talk to, even if I just sat there and cried. I began blogging in a journal and even kept an online journal. As crazy as people thought at the time displaying your life for the whole world to see (and here we are today), it was the one thing that made me feel better.
Not giving a fuck what people thought about my mistakes, my pain, my life.
It was mine to bear. It was mine to learn from.
It came to a point where the blade I kept from my bedside became part of the trash. No matter how many times I put it close to my wrist, the bottom line was I loved my life too much and I couldn’t bear the pain of letting anyone down.
People who make cruel comments about suicide are people who are cowards who can’t deal with their own feelings of failure or hopelessness. It is a coward act to make fun of people who feel depressed or sad. Not everyone is happy and joyous every day. Shit happens. Life happens.
To expect for anyone whether your life exists living in front of the cameras or not, at the end of the day, we are humans with real emotions.
Every day, we walk out into the world and we wear our “masks”.
When I lived in New York, my mask was the angry mask. For many years, I wasn’t happy living in NYC with all the madness and the “rush rush, where the fuck are you going/doing” attitude.
That was another roller coaster of feelings for me because living in NYC was like swimming in water never arriving to the island where I can get a chance to breath and rest. It was a horrible life. But that’s just me. People who live in NYC love it and that’s good for them.
It just wasn’t good for me anymore.
I’ve been living in Arizona now for almost eight months.
My first trilogy book is complete and in the process of proofreading and making changes to the first draft. I would have never finished this book had I still been stuck in New York.
I live in a great apartment. My dogs and cats are a happy bunch. It’s nice to go out to my patio at night and look at the stars. It’s nice to be home in ten minutes and enjoy the sunlight and talk to my parents without making complaints about the trains or the people upstairs prancing around all hours of the night disturbing my sleep or the bathroom ceiling caving in.
But these are material things…right?
Can material things make you happy? Sure.
Can they take away your depression. No.
But I can say this. I wanted to make a change in my life. My relocation began a series of wonderful things that happened in my life because I MADE the choice.
The beautiful thing about life is choice. When you feel you don’t have one, pick up the phone and call someone. There is always a choice. Never believe what your head tells you.
As a recovering addict I believed that I cannot do without alcohol. I remember telling friends of mine, after a year, I’m going to drink and I’m going to do it right. I will control myself.
After a year, I made two years, then three, and so forth.
When I don’t feel right, no matter what those feelings are, no matter if I feel stupid sharing them, there’s a friend I have that will listen to me and tell me I’m going to be all right, no matter what.
I’m glad to be alive. I’m glad I can feel. I happy I can love.
But the greatest love, is the love I have for myself.
Never, ever doubt you can’t be the best person you can be.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
You don’t have to know a person in order for them to save your life.
Until then.
Loves and Hugs,
MB~
Viewing the World in a Box 