This is Dedicated to Chester Bennington and Mark Soucy whose deaths inspired this post. I have put off writing it until it was the proper time to do so. I feel that that time is now.
I remember the first time that I heard a Linkin Park (LP) song. I was about 15 years old. I didn't have the relationship with God that I have now. I had a rough childhood. The details of it are unimportant for the topic of this writing. Anyway, I could identify with some of the lyrics that I heard, it was definitely a different sound that was telling the stories that I was hearing. Going back into my very immature, adolescent mind, I can remember the anger that I felt about my situation at that time and the music both feeding it and causing it to subside at the same time. I continued to listen off and on to Linkin Park's music. Around 2003, I remember a DJ on the radio relaying the news that they were releasing a new album in the near future. The DJ said something to the effect of, "Front man Chester Bennington recently got a divorce, so this album should be really good with a lot of swearing and stuff."
In 2002, I was a senior in high school. I can still remember the look on the majority of people's faces. The ones that were not crying were quite visibly shook. A friend and classmate had hung himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. His mother came in to make sure he had gotten up to go to school. In my very immature mind, I remember saying to myself, "What could have been so bad in his life that he felt like he needed to kill himself to escape it?" Don't get me wrong, though. I battled depression myself given the circumstances that I was in. However, I never thought about killing myself. I had a lot of thoughts over the next few days after my friend's death. Every so often I will think about him and still ask myself why. It has been 16 years as of this writing.
In 2004, I was working a dead end job, always worried about money, didn't really have any friends that I hung out with because my girlfriend at the time would get seriously upset if I spoke to any of them. We broke up and an unfortunate phone call took place between me and her and I pretty much hit rock bottom. I was driving home 2 days after that phone call and saw a very large concrete utility pole and thought that it would be a good idea to run my truck into it as hard as I could. Thankfully, I also had the good sense to quickly get home and talk to someone. I don't remember who it was but I did talk to someone. After my head was somewhat clear again, I realized how really glad that I am that I did not act on my initial thought.
As I matured and began to develop a closer relationship with Christ beginning in 2006, I slowly moved away from listening to angry music. I found that it did not benefit me at all to listen to it anymore, but LP hung in there for a while. Now for a while, I struggled with depression. Let's face it, life happens and sometimes gets the better of us.
I tell you all of that to inform you where I am coming from. Suicide is running rampant these days. Whether it is an average teenager, a stock broker who might have made a bad deal and cant face the consequences of their risk, to a super successful singer of a multi-platinum selling rock band. That last little bit was to bring my rambling to a close and get to the point. On July 20, 2017, Chester Bennington was found dead in his home by his housekeeper. His death was ruled a death by hanging. In listening to his music, I can now hear what it really was. It was a cry for help.
Some of the songs that LP wrote and sang are angry doses of truth and a release of frustrations to their targets. Others are ballads that detail sadness and heart ache in their purest forms.
I am in no way naive that what happened to Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, or any other laundry list of victims to depression are isolated cases. There were almost 45,000 people who committed suicide in 2016. It is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States of America. I mean come on! THis is AMERICA, the land of opportunity and we are killing ourselves by the 10's of thousands? Depression is the most common reason given for suicide if there is one given. This just leads me to ask one very obvious question: HOW CAN WE STOP IT?!?!?
The fact is that one individual can not do it. It will literally take every single person to make this monster retreat back into his cave. Please understand that I know that things in life happens. That is why it is important to build tight knit communities that care about one another. Jesus very famously said love your neighbor. One of the secondary reasons that He said that is because your neighbor may be going through something and just wants someone to love on them a little bit to give them strength to press on through the hard time that they are going through. I have heard stores about people that die, for one reason or another, and they are not found for weeks in some cases.
If you are reading this blog, then most likely, you are a person of faith. That being said, let's be real here: The devil is a liar and will go to any lengths to keep someone from being happy. I personally believe that depression is nothing but a very clever, and very convincing, deception. We sing our songs about how big our God is, and yet at the end of the day, we still go back and bow to the slave driver of depression that the devil has appointed over us. I am not shaming anyone in their situation. I say that to stress the point that it is time that we band together and fight back. These are my steps to help end the devil's reign over our minds and help us remember, and remind others, that we are no longer slaves. It is by no means exhaustive or all encompassing. However, I do think that it is a really good start.
1. Build each other up instead of tearing them down. The effort to "keep up with the Jonses" has turned us into petty, immature little brats that are willing to step on anyone to help ourselves advance. If someone has something good happen to them, congratulate them! Be happy for THEIR success. I made that word in bold for a reason. It is their success, not yours. Go and find yours. It will take truckloads of work and patience. At one time in my adult life, I saw everyone getting exactly what I wanted. I became bitter and jealous and it profited me NOTHING! I kept after what I wanted and eventually, it became mine.
2. Stand up for those that cannot stand up for themselves. This is applicable in a great many areas. How many kids are bullied and everyone turns a blind eye to it? I got news for your Jack, IT IS YOUR BUSINESS! Micah 6:9 says "Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." Where is the justice for the one being bullied and everyone turns a blind eye? Where is the justice for the mother that has asked for help multiple times from the man that abuses her and he winds up killing her? The police can only do so much. It is not only the police's job to protect someone when they are in danger. If you know for a fact that someone is being abused in one manner or another, make some noise. If they do nothing about it, cause a civilized ruckus. Make some noise so that they will try and shut you up. The squeaky wheel gets the oil every single time. Let the abuser and the enabler know that you refuse to stand idly by while another human being is abused and driven deeper into the kingdom that they devil has built for them.
3. I know that this is VERY CLICHE', but Love one another. There is a reason why this is the greatest command. If we build a culture where people think before they speak or act, consider the feelings of others before themselves, then it will spread like wildfire. Yes, this idea is Utopian. It is difficult to achieve. However, I would rather spend the rest of my life working towards the goal of spreading kindness and love than to hear about one more single person thinking so little of themselves and seeing so little value in their life that they decide to end it.
4. This one is for the parents. BE A PARENT! You are not your child's friend. You are not someone that they hang out with at school. You are responsible for their well being and them growing up into a productive member of society. You do not have to be a tyrant, but you do have to use your authority to help mold them. Talk to your children, spend time with them, love on them, but discipline them when it is necessary and do so within reason. They may get mad with you sometimes, but when they grow up, they will realize that you were doing what you did for their benefit. Ladies, when you become a mother, beware of Post Partum depression. Have an accountability structure in place to keep you from sinking too far down. That is a sneaky little devil and can destroy you and your family. Men, be prepared to help her fight that. Be the umbrella of protection for her and help her get to the other side of it.
5. If you are thinking about getting married, you had better be darn jolly well sure that you want to do that. I am not, in any way trying to discourage you, but I am warning you that it is hard work to stay married. In a month, my wife and I will have been married for 12 years. Those years were HARD, and sometimes it seemed like we fought every devil in hell to hold it together. Love is a strong bond, as is the bond of marriage. It is not easily broken. That bond also makes the hurt that you feel by other's hurtful actions even worse. It has driven even the toughest people into dark places in life. When/If you get married, please, PLEASE go into it carefully. Listen to each other first and foremost, and make decisions in your other relationships based on the PRIVATE (I cannot stress that part enough) conversations that you have with your spouse.
Why did I mention Chester Bennington at the beginning of this post? It is because his childhood led him down a very dark road. He was abused physically and sexually and he was bullied in high school just because of his size and looking a little different. These events led him to drugs. When his mom found out that he was using various amounts of drugs, she forbid him to leave the house. How many of us have found ourselves in one of these situations. I was physically and verbally abused as a teenager and it took me many years to get over the anger that I harbored for the abuser. I sank into anger fueled depression because of what I experienced at that abuser's hands. The very dangerous thing about anger is that your body redirects your blood from your brain to your muscles to prepare for a fight when you are angry. Then you lose 25% of your IQ in the process. You can not make a good decision 99.9% of the time when you are angry. The point is that I was perpetually making stupid decisions based on how I felt about my life experience. When I eventually did get married in the fall of 2006, I had a truckload of issues to deal with in order not to become just another statistic. I have lived part of what Chester went through. I can understand why certain things are in his music. Even though they were preventable, the problems that he experienced that led him down the road that led to his eventual untimely death cannot be fixed by one person alone. It will take all of us. We will not all join in at the same time. It will take diligence and work (there's that 4 letter word again). It is by no means easy either, but it will definitely be worth it. If it was easy, everybody would do it.
Grace and Peace be with you ALWAYS!
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