On depression and Chester Bennington.

This morning I woke up to the news that the lead vocalist of Linkin Park, Chester Bennington had passed away. It put me in a pensive state so here I am writing about it. I wouldn’t say Linkin Park was one of those bands that had an earth-shattering impact on my teenage years but they had songs that spoke my emotions in a way I felt I couldn’t. 

When I was 17 I dealt with depression. I remember singing along to ‘Numb’ and ‘The End’ as well as ‘Breaking the Habit’ and ‘What I’ve Done’ when these singles were released. I could relate to these songs and I would belt them out at the top of my lungs. And cry. Because I felt so much. And while the situations in the songs may have been different to mine, they helped. I’d felt that way, people being disappointed in me, hell, I was disappointed in me. The need for escape, the overwhelming desire to start over. Those years were full of that. Depression is something that creeps up on you, back then I didn’t even know it had a name. I just knew that I wasn’t okay and some days I didn’t want to be alive. Music helped in those days. Writing helped. I never spoke to anyone about it and my sisters thought something had happened to me, because I was just so angry. 

I think of someone like Chester Bennington and I wonder what drove him to a point where he felt like he couldn’t go on. Where the lies that this was the best solution became the truth and he couldn’t see a way out. The articles say he had a lot of friends. I wonder if they could tell. If they talked. But I also know that talking isn’t easy because sometimes you don’t even know what you’re feeling. And the last thing you feel like doing is talking.

For me I think my turnaround started when I took a To Write Love On Her Arms survey and I was able to get out of my head and process my emotions. I wonder if he ever had that. Or maybe the depression came in waves of drowning and gasping for air. Maybe he felt alone. I don’t know what he was feeling but i guess it feels close to home because this can happen to anyone. 

For anyone dealing with the overwhelming feelings that depression brings, i hope you know you’re not alone. I hope you know that there are people,  willing to listen and work through everything you’re feeling. I hope you have an outlet. And i hope you don’t believe the lies that say you can’t make it out alive. May Life and light always find you. May you always choose it.

 Please, Choose life beloveds.

To Chester, may angels lead you in.

❤

After all this time.

https://youtu.be/p7L0LJCzXbE

“She’s loving him still. After all this time.”

my bravest self

I am super brave. I moved halfway across the world to study in a country where English isn’t the main country spoken. I work and study. And i am responsible. 

But the last year has taught me that there have been some deep-seated issues surrounding relationships and my relationships with boys in particular. I met someone. And i didn’t know what to do about it. He also would end up leaving to go back to the US at some point which i didn’t know at the time. I realised that my encounters with boys in the past had taught me to be afraid of reactions. Or non-reactions. They’d taught me to blame myself  because maybe I’d been too much. Maybe I’m a lot to deal with. Too outspoken,  too opinionated,  a firecracker, a firestarter. Too much woman. I’d internalised these things and I swore I wouldn’t be that this time. 

But that was acting out of fear. Which is something I never want to do. So I had to work through those issues. Why do i feel this way? Who told me i was too much? 

I would write a letter to this person and second-guess myself because, what if i was being too much? 

My sister said something she’d picked up from watching an Oprah life class, and she shared it with me. It was one of the most freeing things I’d heard in a long time and it moved me to act.

“What would your bravest self do? What would your strongest self do?”

My bravest self acts without fear. And always expects good. My bravest and strongest self is confident in who she is.

I think that sometimes we allow the past to dictate our present and then our future. We think that because it was that way in the past, it will be that way in the future. As though out default setting is that fearful behaviour. As if we are condemned to repeat our mistakes over and over again. As someone who thinks a lot, I tend to replay moments and condemn myself for them. But I’m learning. Maybe we were immature back then,  fine, but let’s forgive ourselves and let it go. Don’t letthe past impede on the hope and good you can expect from the future. Don’t let your past self keep you from being your best self today.

Today, I am being intentional about being my bravest self. 

I hope you are too.

❤