Essay On Chester Bennington's Not So Hidden Struggle

Chester Bennington's Not So Hidden Struggle Many people do not realize how serious depression is until it is too late. Today's society is often surprised when a celebrity like Chester Bennington of Linkin Park commits suicide. He may appear to be mentally stable due to his high public profile, but he is suffering in silence. Although Bennington’s death was sudden, it was very obvious that he suffered from severe depression and not at all shocking that he committed suicide. This paper will prove, through an in-depth analysis of the lyrics from Bennington’s songs “In the End,” “Breaking the Habit” and “Heavy,” that he was not hiding his depression and people should have been more aware of his situation. As a result, perhaps we can learn to recognize depression through the loss of such a well-known and talented musician. At the beginning of Bennington's career, people were not very aware that he was struggling with depression, yet many of his songs, like “In the End” had depression written all over it. At the opening of this song, Bennington described that he “kept everything inside” (line 16). This is a common aspect of depression, where individuals feel that holding all their feelings in helps them hide their weaknesses. Bennington did an excellent job at this, specifically at hiding his sadness, as …show more content…
He was rather showing his pain to the world through his lyrics. As Bennington's music career advanced, his lyric choices seemed to depict exactly how he felt at a given time, and as a result, his suicide was surprisingly not surprising. Bennington found a safe haven in his music and after a while, even that was not enough. Therefore, we must take depression seriously as most of the time it is hidden beneath a mask of what others label as