 Hello, my beautiful internet friends. When we talk about videos that are good for YouTube and growth and algorithms and and all that stuff This video is not one of those. I just want to talk to you guys Which is really all I've ever wanted to do on this channel So I'm just gonna talk to you I'm not gonna really edit this video much I'm gonna tell you a pretty personal story because I think this would help me today and here's to hoping it would help Someone else out there a few days ago. Maybe a week ago. I released a video talking about Suicidal thoughts because you know what I'm in a pretty dark place in my life right now in my mind right now And here's the thing. I've dealt with depression for years. This is not a new thing But it's generally something that comes and goes it's kind of like always an underlying current it exists but it's not constant And it has been constant for weeks now and I am really struggling to keep my head above water and Today I was reminded of one other time in my life It felt like this and this is a story I wanted to share with you guys at one point, you know Anyways, and I figured why not today? So Chester Bennington is the lead singer of Lincoln Park was the lead singer of Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is the best been in the world if you didn't know I mean, it's just undisputable They are the best. They've always been the best. I was introduced to them when I was like 13 It was the first non-Christian music that I listened to and I fell in love with it it was just I Felt like someone finally understood me as like an angsty confused 13 year old little girl and I connected with Chester's voice and the lyrics so deeply and I listened to that music all throughout high school through when I you know broke my ankle and recovering from surgeries and going back to school and adjusting to everything and then going away to college and I always felt like Chester was singing and writing songs to me like exactly where I was in life and exactly what I needed to hear and if you listen to so many of their songs Especially their older songs. They're not happy. They are dark songs, right? They talk about heavy things but I Think it was actually it was either Mike Shinoda who's another band member or Chester who said in an interview once that you know Our fans get the music isn't about darkness It's about letting that darkness out of you and not keeping it inside and that's totally what their music did for me It gave me an outlet So that I could get to a better place and I felt like they helped me through everything that I'd gone through in my life About two years ago. I got to the place in my life where things were kind of going. Okay. I'd been married for about two years Which was amazing. I'd worked through a lot of like the trauma that I had gone through it wasn't as Feeling like so messed up and all over the place and depressed and I was like, you know what? I think I kind of got this thing together like I am moving in a positive direction I don't feel like death every day. I can you know get up and actually get stuff done and like this is cool and it was Around that time that Lincoln Park released another album and this one was called one more light and it was in my opinion Their most upbeat happy album. It's a great album. I would highly recommend listening to it and there's one song on it called one more light and I Remember listening to that song Driving around and it's a song about losing someone a suicide It's it's kind of a song to that person who's lost and the people who were left behind and how one life matters like one light matters and I remember seeing that song and like so From a place of strength so Wanting to just like sing that to everyone who was hurting and like let them know that it was gonna be okay And that their life mattered and like I knew that darkness. I knew how it felt to just want to be done And that you could get to a different place and I love that song because I was like I want to help people like I feel like I'm in a great place and then my life wrecked I mean bad bad things happened in my life and relationships Exploded and I was a mess I Plunged into a kind of darkness that I was I Guess kind of familiar with but it was so heavy and it was so fast and that summer I was In a very dangerous mental place But I also don't think I allowed myself to really recognize that and I continued listening to their album, right as I was Fighting for my life, but not really acknowledging that I was I was highly functional. I was working hard I was getting stuff done, but I was so messed up inside and Probably gonna start crying just FYI I I Remember going to work one day. It was after lunch actually and I pulled up to a stoplight and There was It's amazing how I can still get emotional about this. There was a notification on my phone And here's something you gotta know real quick Chester was my personal hero He always sung to me kind of like about holding on You know and that like it was it was worth it even though a lot of their music was was really dark It's like that's what got me through so much and then that notification popped up on my phone that on July 20th, he had committed suicide and I Pulled over my car I just kind of like stared out the window for quite some time and pulled myself together went to work and then came home and Brian left work when he heard that news because he knew how much it was gonna affect me like he didn't even tell me He was coming home. He just like came home to me because he knew that I was not gonna be okay, and I Chester committing suicide affected me so deeply. I never met him. I never knew him, but I felt like he understood me I felt like we were such similar people and he Gave up on life. He couldn't hold on to hope he couldn't see to another day, and it made me feel like that's Maybe that's what I had Not like that's what I had to do But like really does it ever get better, you know, maybe it doesn't get better is like the thoughts that I was having I was in a very extra dark place after that and I Remember looking at his Twitter account This is one thing shifted for me because I think it was two days before he died he posted this picture on Twitter where he Was Smiling with a couple buddies and it was like a retweet of another person's Tweet words are hard sometimes Essentially saying like excited to record with these guys or it was something about the future was something about excited about Upcoming things and then like two days later. He hung himself and People always talk again like I've talked about this before people always talk about like the signs of someone who's suicidal like That they stopped planning for the future and they stopped participating in things They love and he was planning for the future and he was on frickin vacation with his family the day before I think the day of even and like none of the stereotypical signs were there from the outside He looked highly functional and when I saw that that picture on Twitter Things just not storming things just Collided into me things connected so fast in my mind that like holy shit This is exactly what is going to happen to me if I do not take where I am seriously if I do not take my mental health really seriously because I would also Continue to act like everything was fine. I would continue to go about my life. I would Look fine from the outside and then I would just drive off a cliff like I could just see that happening And I don't I can't tell you if that's true or not I can just tell you that I felt it so so strongly and it terrified me Because suddenly it was very real and I saw like the devastation that his death brought and I felt that pain even though I didn't know him personally and I didn't Want to do that to people and I wanted to find a reason to still have hope And so I took things Really seriously after that I took Myself really seriously and started having hard conversations with my counselor and we really dug in and I Started talking very honestly to Brian, which is a terrifying thing And I think scares him still But I think that really sincerely saved my life I Am forever heartbroken that Chester wasn't able to get The help that he needed that he wasn't able to see to another day that you know though what happened happened It's horrible I'm so grateful for the gift of his art that he gave us that he shared with us because it's helped me so much and it still does and Today I was just thinking about that and I was thinking about the fact that I I have felt this way before I have felt this weight before that I feel right now and it was two summers ago when I was going through all that and you know what it got better than and It's so it's so hard to imagine a world in which You don't feel this way when you feel this way like when depression is kicking your ass It's a real difficult to picture a scenario in which It's not in which it's gone in which you feel okay And like you could accomplish things and like you don't have a freaking elephant sitting on your chest of pain and darkness and numbness and all of the things but I Was in that place and I found a way out of it through taking my mental health seriously and getting help and That's what I'm in the midst of right now and I Don't know. Maybe this is a weird and random story to share but It's really therapeutic for me to talk To you guys it makes things make a little bit more sense to me. It gives me a little bit of hope. I so appreciate your Willingness to be vulnerable and share your stories back. Thank you Truly and thanks for watching videos like this Sometimes it's real tempting to just fake it and do things that I feel like would be more quote-unquote successful But at the core of this this is really therapeutic for me and I'm grateful for that and I hope that it's therapeutic for other people I hope that it can help other people too So here's to hoping a very good friend of mine sent me a quote the other day because I was talking to him about feeling hopeless and He said a quote that had a line in it said something to the effect of I am a prisoner of hope and Honestly, that's what I feel like even in the midst of this stuff even in the midst of feeling this way I also know In my heart like at the core of who I am that I am a prisoner of hope and sometimes it feels like I'm Stuck and like I want to escape from hope and I want to give up on it But I won't I can't even say that I'm holding on to hope. I feel like it's holding on to me and If you're having a similar day week month I'm right there with you. You're not alone and we'll both find a way to get out of this We'll both find a way to get through it and take yourself seriously Please take yourself seriously. Please find help that you need whatever that looks like for you Cuz it matters and you matter and I matter Thanks for listening guys. I'm gonna get back to work now. I love you guys. I'm thinking of you I'll see you in the next video