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chester bennington
Celebrities, Severe Depression, Suicide, Drugs and Chester Bennington
The death of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington is another so-called celebrity suicide that is putting much needed focus on the tragic consequences of mental illness.
In the US alone, around 52,000 Americans die from suicide each year, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That’s almost 151 deaths a day by suicide. Meanwhile, men are almost four times more likely to suicide than women.
A few years back, these concerning suicide figures were brought into focus following the death of Chester Bennington, singer with the band Linkin Park and the suicide of Chris Cornell, the lead singer and songwriter of 90s grunge band, Soundgarden.
The issue often tends to be discussed only following so-called celebrity suicides, and we should change that.
Suicide: A silent male epidemic
Researchers have tried to understand why men are so much more prone to taking their own lives.
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Bennington was born March 20th, 1976 in Arizona. He had a rough childhood and was molested and beaten up by an older friend beginning around age seven. “It destroyed my self-confidence,” he told Metal Hammer. “Like most people, I was too afraid to say anything. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience.”
When Chester Bennington was 11, his parents divorced and he was forced to live with his father. He eventually discovered opium, amphetamines, marijuana and cocaine alongside alcohol. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, he said he was on 11 hits of acid a day. “I dropped so much acid I’m surprised I can still speak. I’d smoke a bunch of crack, do a bit of meth and just sit there and freak out. Then I’d smoke opium to come down. I weighed 110 pounds. My mom said I looked like I stepped out of a concentration camp. So I used pot to get off drugs. Every time I’d get a craving, I’d smoke my pot.”
At the time of Linkin Park’s early success, Bennington slipped back into addiction. “The tours we did in the beginning, everybody … was either drinking or doing drugs,” according to The Guardian. “I can’t think of any that were sober.” Bennington kicked drugs in 2006, though, and by the late 2000s, he was celebrating his sobriety and using it as fuel for his music. “It’s not cool to be an alcoholic — it’s not cool to go drink and be a dumbass,” he told Spin in 2009. “It’s cool to be a part of recovery. … Most of my work has been a reflection of what I’ve been going through in one way or another.”