The sudden and unexpected suicide of Chris Cornell had everyone reeling. Suicide is a taboo subject and when it happens to someone like Chris Cornell, who just a couple days ago tweeted “Happy Mother’s Day” to his wife in a sweet post and put on amazing show last night, everyone looks to why.
Listening to the radio I hear speculation of marital problems, drugs, etc etc and no one calls it what it is.
This is a man who was incredibly open about his mental illness. Listen to any of his songs even! Yet when it kills him, everyone wonders what was happening in his life. A while ago I wrote a post about my friend who died by suicide too (and please take note I said died by suicide because committed suicide is offensive honestly). Regardless of what was going on in her life, mental illness was the cause. Everything else she did stemmed from that basic fact and this country doesn’t like to acknowledge that fact. We like to blame it on something else…ANYTHING else than a mental illness. I wish as a nation we would wake up and treat mental illness like any other illness (diabetes, heart disease), it doesn’t just go away. Just because Chris’s life seemed everything was going right doesn’t mean his mental illness (depression) disappeared. If we said “but he was happily married and at the peak of his career, how could he have diabetes?” we would sound ridiculous. Yet that’s what we do with depression or any other mental illness.
So next time someone dies by suicide and everyone wants to know why, can we please call it out for what it is?
Depression
or :
Mental Illness
Maybe then the stigma can change and people can get the help they really need without all the judgement before it’s too late.
Goodbye Chris Cornell. There’s a black hole in the bright sun today. May you finally be free from pain.
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