An obituary?...

An obituary?

Translated by a very special person because my english is very very bad. Thank you so very much lovely Nini Nightstorm! ♥

People always tell me that I’m good with words. I’m not sure if that is true, but everyone can have their own opinion. Someone who was very good with words passed away on the 20.07.2017.

I can’t even express how shocked and sad I am. And I don’t really care what you think about my words because I am just a tiny light speaking its mind, and I really don’t care about that; everyone deals differently with grief and loss. I didn’t know him, you say? I’m just a small, unimportant fan? Maybe, but that too I don’t really care about. Everyone mourns differently. And I think I can empathize with Chester Bennington because something similar happened to me. People with identical or relatively similar fates have a special connection, I don’t need to know someone privately and personally extremely well for that.

Somewhat informed fans or interested people know that Chester was sexually abused as a child. The cruel irony is that Chester’s father was/is a police officer in the department for (sexual) child abuse. How couldn’t he know? Well, someone who couldn’t care less about his child wouldn’t of course! The abuse through an older male friend ended two years after the divorce. Forsaken by mother and father, who he lived with, he turned to drugs early until he found somewhat peace in music, painting, and lyrics.

What even fewer people know is that Chester never felt like he belonged. Incredible, isn’t it? That’s got nothing to do with his friendship to the band ‘Linkin Park’. His compensation were other projects like the ‘Stone Temple Pilots’, one of his models, ‘Dead by Sunrise’ and other, in part scattered projects. I don’t want to keep on about that.

Many people underestimate what the experiences of his childhood left behind in him. In various comments I read to work through my own grief, Chester is being attacked. How could he leave behind his wife and his children. It’s egoistic to commit suicide. Even the media pretends as if his traumata, his depressions and everything else have only recently seen the light of day. That no one knew before about his mental problems. I somewhat forgive the media, even though I want to hit every last one of them into the face, hard, for spreading that crap just for the headlines, for the clicks and money.

I’m fighting to this day with depression and other leftovers from my screwed up childhood. Every day I stumble and fight. No one knew? That’s not something you brag about. I don’t want pity, like Chester kept his depressions and traumata private. Maybe too private? I don’t know. Alcohol and drugs are a cry for help, an attempt at a failed therapy of oneself.

It doesn’t matter how pathetic, soppy or cliché it sounds: Chester, his music, and his lyrics were my drugs. When I was thirteen I hit a low point of my life. 2002 was a year where I stumbled more than a ‘normal’ teenager does at the beginning of puberty. A then-classmate borrowed me the Album ‘Hybrid Theory’ and basically initiated my musical awakening. Aside from the fact that I developed from the typical boyband-fangirl to a metal-fangirl and discovered metal and everything else for myself, I found other humans who had to struggle with the (seemingly) same problems I had. Then, my English was worse than it is today, so I had to settle for translations which are, as everyone knows, only usable in a limited fashion. Nevertheless, Chester and Mike put into words what I couldn’t back then. The lyrics gave me a much needed strength I didn’t know I possessed because they resonated with my soul. The more I occupied myself with the band and its members, the more I found myself in them: abuse, emotional neglect, parental indifference. Even though Chester is and was an untouchable person, I felt in a way connected to him few people will ever understand.

Depressions are a serious illness. The waves of his death will cease in a few days and people like us will once again sink into obscurity because other things will be more important. That may be so, but I want to tell those who aren’t just pretending to be concerned with depressions, who aren’t feigning empathy: never stop! People like Chester and I need you!

We smile on the outside, we seem content and in a way happy. We have an intact (new) family, seem to be healthy and stabile, but no one can know how we really are inside if they just cast a fleeting, shallow gaze in our direction. A problem of our society, shallowness. No one knows how something really trivial can throw us off track, emotional wise.

My 20.07.2017 was an awful day for me. I felt miserably and had already said goodbye to it when I heard about Chester’s death from a good friend. I screamed and didn’t want to believe it until I had it confirmed, exactly 44 minutes after the first press release. Even with my stable environment, my therapist, and my family, I don’t feel better today, one day later, even over three months later. I’m zoned out, I don’t know how to deal with it. This is how Chester must have felt when he heard about the death of his best friend, Chris Cornell. Chris was among other things singer in ‘Audioslave’ and ‘Soundgarden’ and one of his best friends. If Chester felt only remotely like I do, I can understand it. Even for an intact family it’s not easy to catch someone with depressions. Who knows what happened in Chester’s family since he kept it private, as was his right. And who knows if Chester had a therapist at his side to help him, like I do. In general, no one can say anything. I don’t know if Chris’ death was the tipping point, even if his birthday would have been on the 20th of August, he would have been 53. Maybe something else was the final straw. There are days when your mentality is as fragile as thin glass so even a restive child can shatter it. I know it myself, sometimes when my stepson doesn’t want to go home from the playground and acts stubborn all I want to do is cry my eyes out. I’d love to curl up like a foetus in some corner and just cry because the kid is being stubborn. So even a little fight with Mike could have been the final straw, or Chris’ death. In case of doubt, only Chester knows, and it’s good that way.

They say there is always a solution. Even I think there’s help for almost anything. No one has to deal with what’s happening to him or her alone. No one is weak for getting help. But sometimes, like a friend once said, there are too many things broken in someone to be repaired. Humans are, like Tim Benzko (German Singer) correctly realized, not machines, and even machines can be broken beyond repair. I don’t want to support suicide in any way! But sometimes life is just too hard and suicide the best solution, even if there is family and everything else. It is not cowardice or selfishness! One who says that simply doesn’t know what depression is and how those suffering from it feel! Not everything can be ‘fixed’ with pills and talks! Inform yourself and spend the day with people like Chester and me! Your empty phrases are like a slap in the face for everyone suffering from depressions and to me a pathetic display of the shallowness of our society!

On the 20th of August 2017, my little, insignificant world shattered into a million pieces after very nearly fifteen years. I will arduously pick them up again, just like ‘Linkin Park’, ‘Dead by Sunrise’, Chester’s family and many others whose lives he touched and affected. They say time heals any wound, but I only partly agree with that. There are wounds all the time in the world can’t heal, they only stop hurting so much and bleed less. I know that the chances of someone from Chester’s environment or even other fans reading this are near zero if this text isn’t shared, but I don’t care. Rest in peace, Chester Charles Bennington, I hope you found peace wherever you are now since you couldn’t find it here.

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

(Lyrics from „In the End“, Album 'Hybrid Theory'. Page: http://www.songtexte.com/songtext/linkin-park/in-the-end-73d69641.html )