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When I was 16 I felt numb – and tried to commit suicide

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TW: Suicide

This morning Channel24 reported that Linkin Park’s lead singer Chester Bennington committed suicide. He was just 41 years old and was survived by his wife Talinda and six children.

I remember being 16 and listening to Numb

“I'm tired of being what you want me to be/ Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface/ Don't know what you're expecting of me/ Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes.”

I also felt numb.

I was lost in my battle with then undiagnosed anxiety and depression. A sea of sadness and angst washed over me, day in and day out. Songs like Numb and In The End made me feel less alone, like someone understood me.

To hear that Chester ended his own life by hanging upsets me greatly. Not only because of what his music meant to me and a lot of my friends, but because I know what it’s like to both be in the place where you think suicide is the only answer and what it’s like when a family member dies because of it.

After losing my father when I was 16 I turned to self-mutilation as a way to cope.  I would cut into my skin with needles or razors to try and cope.

Then, one evening I took a handful of pain pills to try and stop the pain. I didn’t necessarily want to end my life, all I knew was that I wanted the hurt to stop. I wanted the pain of being so incredibly sad to go away.

Then by some miracle, I woke up the next morning. I went to school, told a teacher what I had done and was then driven to the nearest hospital. There I was given medication to stop the effects of the tablets.

I still remember one of the doctors treating me like just another sad case of a teenager crying out for attention. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t what I was doing.

It was so much more than that. It was a cry for help. Help that I, unfortunately, didn’t really get until I started working and had medical aid.

READ MORE: Depression is a luxury few people of colour can afford

My stepfather wasn’t as lucky, though. His depression got the better of him in 2014 when he committed suicide by hanging, just like Chester. My mother and I found his body - one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

I keep digging within my memories – did he ever say something? Were there any signs we missed? I can’t seem to find anything. His depression got the better of him as he suffered in silence.

And while finding his body left me with PTSD, the devastation his death left behind was far greater.

READ MORE: Why Robin Williams' suicide touched me so deeply

I don’t know what got Chester to the point where he felt like it was all too much – perhaps it was the pressure of fame, or the fact that he was sexually abused, his battle with drugs and alcohol or his depression. We can only speculate.
Whatever the reason, the world has lost yet another great musician, but also a husband, father and friend.

And while I sit here typing this, listening to all the old Linkin Park songs my angsty teen self found such solace in, I think about how hard it is to resist that voice, that spiral into self-loathing, and that uncontrollable urge that propels you to end it all.

I think about how this keeps happening to people, how suicide pulls families apart. And about the incredible pain Chester must have been in to do this.

If you, or someone you know needs help, then please, please, reach out to SADAG:

To contact a counsellor between 8am-8pm Monday to Sunday,
Call: 011 234 4837 / Fax number: 011 234 8182. For a suicidal emergency 0800 567 567. Their 24hr Helpline is 0800 12 13 14 or SMS 31393 and they will call you back

Follow Carmen on Twitter.

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