Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell, two faces of the same coin, in a disrupted society.

In this post I am going to write up my reflections on the suicides of Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell.

There are many things that we can see being redundant between the two of them:

1. Divorced parents: both of them had to go through the experience of divorce, this is one of the most dramatic experiences for young boys and girls, Chester was only 11 years old when his parents divorced. This is not only traumatic because all of a sudden your family is splitted, but because of the hate that is generated from the parents, usually trying to put the son or the daughter on their side with gifts, speaking badly about the other parent etc.
   As a matter of fact, divorces have seen a giant peak in the recent decades, it has actually turned into a business, with courts, lawyers and many other people milking money out of the system.

2. Traumatic childhood: Chester admitted that he was abused sexually by a friend, Chris on the other hand said about his 13-16 years when he abused drugs and had no friends at all, missing a father is a thing that many people cannot understand, but the ones who had that experience can easily relate to a person that is totally isolated from the others and have difficulties in building strong bonds with people.

3. Alcool and drugs addictions: I see those addictions more like the consequence of their life experiences, and an important cause that led them to the suicide.

4. Inability to have an healthy marriage, which works as a reminder of the failure of their parents marriage, pushing deeper the wounds.

I have another name for you: Kurt Cobain, there are many similarities with Chris and Chester, and the same end of the story.

Even big amounts of money, success, fame and worship from fans were not enough to save them from killing themselves. And they are not the only ones who went down that road, our society is full of men and women who suffer the same things, end up in the addiction's vortex and be consumed.

With divorces ratings going up, suicide ratings going up we are living a decadence of our values and societies, and it is not a silent thing anymore, even if we find ourselves talking about Chris and Chester there are countless people that are living the same situations right now, countless people that are building the road to their death, unable to deal with their past and unable to find comfort in their present.

Here are two of their songs, enjoy and remember that even during a painful life they were able to leave us great songs.

Peace be with you Chris.

Peace be with you Chester.