September is National Suicide Prevention Month. If you are dealing with mental health issues, you can call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or enter their live chat.
Chris Cornell management team member/social media manager Clare O’Brien reacted to ex-Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello recently discussing Chris Cornell’s demons in an interview.
O’Brien tweeted, “Chris herded his demons into his art & gave them useful work. But maybe too much Ativan opened the gate to the pen.”
She later added, “For those who need my metaphor explained: I believe Chris’s darkness was safely contained within his art until benzos let the demons loose.”
She also tweeted responses to people who both agreed and disagreed with her regarding Ativan having an impact on Cornell’s death.
“He was a good man. 🙂 Generous, gentle & kind, especially to the hurt or helpless. Although he absolutely did not suffer fools or trolls!!”
“I don’t know much about Prozac. Is it the same class of drugs i.e. benzos? I’d always go for non-chemical therapy over drugs if possible.”
“I’m stating my opinion. I agree with Tom about the darkness but think the benzos may have bern the catalyst on the night in question.”
“It’s a profound tragedy for everyone who loved him. And for him most of all. He had so much left to say.”
“I am not saying drugs drove his creativity. I am agreeing with Tom that his art was usually a safe place for this darkness to operate…”
“…but I am suggesting that Ativan may have let that darkness out of the art-cage in which he usually held it safely contained.”
Morello told Red Bull, “A lot of the tributes to Chris have been about what a great singer he was, what a handsome guy he was, what a good dad he was, all of which is very true. But I think, in my view, what sometimes goes unacknowledged is his creative brilliance and power came from the darker side of his psyche. And his demons were, that was the root of his awesomeness, in the part that may have eventually been his undoing.
“And he was able to speak. Read Chris Cornell’s lyrics some time, they’re beautiful and poetic. He was able to speak to millions of people around the globe. So while the eulogies are all about the great guy he was, it was the dark box that he accessed and he wrote the shadow part of himself, like a chariot of lightning to make some of the greatest rock and roll of all time. We were blessed to have had 52 years of him.”
