So overwhelmed today, and stupidly still in shock. At 12 years old back in '99, I was a linkin park fanatic. I lived on the lpu messageboards and various LP fan site message boards. I started going to shows often and. Blew babysitting money on merch and tix. I was obsessed with Mike Shinoda and my bestie had Chester. Just soooooo many memories, all the fan art and fan fiction. Digging up stuff online, making lyric videos. Fangirling. But yeah like so many, that universal angst saved me. The track Numb helped me with my self injury issues. I made a sculpture to it, and got into art from there. Art became my therapy. LP helped me express so much pain from my childhood trauma of abuses. It's fucking crazy. They were such a huge catalyst for me to fight my depression. Though I grew out of LP with minutes to midnight. I teared up even listening to it, I just didn't like it anymore. After that it all just fizzled out. I quit the lpu and got into different genres of music, mostly alt rock and conscious rap. And life just rolled on really, I drifted from LP entirely around 2009 and onwards. But I'm so grateful and heavily fond of those 10 years.

My heart hurts. I've lost two close childhood friends to suicide two years ago. My bf last year just lost his brother, and that feels fresh because my bf never lost a loved one. It wrecked him and tbh still does.

I've been wanting to dig into what music Chester left behind but been apprehensive, seems triggering from the comments I've read. I'm almost afraid to put myself there in that headspace but it might be a good thing. I have been stoic all day and it'd be a cathartic cry.

Aching for his family. Suicide really does just transfer pain. And yes I understand it's a mental disorder to be that low in depression. Believe me, my bf brother had schizophrenia and I understand that their is a chemical brain imbalance. Sometimes that logic helps but still it hurts.