May 18: For Ian, For Chris, For the Ones Still Here

On this day—May 18—both Ian Curtis and Chris Cornell took their own lives. Two musicians, generations apart, whose voices changed everything for people like me. Ian made anguish poetic. Chris made screaming sound like a form of prayer. They were different, but they understood the same darkness. They gave shape to it. They made it feel less lonely—until, finally, it consumed them.

I don’t think dates matter unless we need them to. But some dates stick like scars. For me, May 18 is one of those. It’s a day that reminds me how thin the line is between survival and surrender—and how loud the voice of despair can become, even in the lives of people who seem powerful, beloved, or “successful.”

The chapter I’m sharing below comes from my memoir, The Cancer Diet, which I wrote as a way of surviving the worst year of my life. I’d been diagnosed with cancer, lost people I loved, and started to realize just how long I’d been carrying the kind of depression nobody talks about unless they’ve already decided to leave. The book isn’t about cancer, not really. It’s about everything else—grief, adoption, addiction, recovery, love, loneliness, and learning how to stay alive in a body and mind that keep trying to find the exit.

This particular chapter centers around a video I saw of Chester Bennington—another voice we lost—talking about his depression. Not singing. Talking. And that’s what gutted me: how clearly he could name the pain, and how little it changed the outcome. I watched it and thought, That could be me. That still might be me.

I’m not sharing this for attention. I’m sharing it because it’s true.
And because someone else might need it.
Because someone else might be here today who won’t be tomorrow.

This is for Ian.
This is for Chris.
This is for anyone who ever had to convince themselves, hour by hour, that they were worth saving.

And if that’s you—
I see you.
I’m still here, too.

Chapter 60: Dead Too Young

3/24/25

Earlier today, I stumbled on a video that shook me more than I expected. It was of Chester Bennington—frontman of Linkin Park—talking about his depression, trying to explain what it’s like to live inside a brain that constantly works against you.

It wasn’t just the video. It was the fact that he didn’t make it. He died by suicide in 2017. And listening to him describe how his mind worked felt like someone reading a page out of my own life. It’s haunting to hear someone articulate the darkness so clearly—and then realize that, even with all that insight, they couldn’t hold on.

Chester was open about his struggles. He sang about pain, addiction, trauma, and the cycles of self-destruction that so many of us face. His words about mental health, about how hard it is to start over, about how much work it takes just not to fall apart—all of them hit different when you know how his story ended.

That’s why the video wrecked me. Because I recognized myself in Chester’s words. Because I know how easily my story could end the same way.

And he’s not the only one.

I’ve always had a certain affinity for musicians who struggled with depression, addiction, and suicide. Ian Curtis from Joy Division. Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit. Layne Staley. Scott Weiland. Chris Cornell. And of course, Chester.

All artists I admire. All dead too young.

It feels like they died from an excess of emotion in a world that doesn’t know what to do with people who feel everything that hard.

When they go, it doesn’t just feel like a loss. It feels like a warning.

And I get it.

I’ve been close to that edge more times than I want to admit. I’ve had suicidal thoughts since I was a kid. I’ve spent years fighting myself—not because I wanted to die, but because sometimes, when I’m in it, it feels like I don’t have a choice.

It’s not every day. But when the darkness comes, it’s overwhelming.

What wears me down most is the repetition. The cycles. The overthinking. The constant analysis and disaster planning. Always trying to see every possible outcome. Always preparing for something terrible. It’s a survival skill that became a form of torment.

Sometimes it feels like I can see every possible future at once. Most of them are bad. Some are wild fantasies. And too often, the ones that come true are the ones I feared most.

There’s something inside me that wants to burn everything down—not because I want destruction, but because destruction feels like the only way to quiet the noise.

I’ve tried to silence that part of me. With alcohol. With drugs. With attachment to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t love me back. With isolation. With freezing in place and refusing to move forward at all.

There are days I feel like I have no agency—like I’m stuck on a raft in a raging river, just getting tossed wherever the current wants to take me. Fighting it is exhausting. So most of the time, I just try to keep my head above water and brace for the next wave.

And the worst part?

I know I don’t really have it that bad.

I have so much to be thankful for—my son, my family, people who care about me. But when the darkness hits, gratitude feels like a lie. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I’m drowning anyway.

But today, I’m still here.

And for now, that has to count for something.