I've seen a lot of celebrity suicides reported in the news lately, like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, in addition to people in my real life coming to me to talk them out of suicide personally.  It's a great thing when somebody admits to being suicidal to someone for the purpose of stopping themselves, so I never want to turn anyone away.

However, tonight I found out that Scott Hutchison, one of my favorite musicians as leader of the UK indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, committed suicide.  He was someone I relied on to voice how I felt.  Heck, one of his albums is called "Painting of a Panic Attack."  Was that perfect for me, with my PTSD, or what?

I came late to the bad news.  It happened back in May.  I found out now because I was online hoping to find tour dates to see him live since his side project with his brother had just released a record.

The Guardian eulogized him nicely.

"Scott Hutchison was incredibly shy as a child, so much so that his mum called him a frightened rabbit. It’s a poetically neat phrase on its own, vivid and unmistakably sad – but given Hutchison’s use of it as a band name, it becomes instilled with power and pride."

He spoke for me, and his music gave me hopes of turning my faults into power and pride, too.  I identified with him. Heck, he even wore his beard like me, even though I'm 23 years older.

Please spare me any lectures about celebrity worship, or about grieving someone I never met as if I lost a friend.  This was somebody whose work was there to help folks like us, and I accepted his offer.  I'm glad I had the guts to do that much.  I live alone, so it meant a lot to me.

It sucks to lose someone who was so open about his issues that you could lean on him.  Does anybody understand?  It happened with someone I looked up to in my first support group, a face to face support group I was in for 5 wonderful years--until our support group leader committed suicide.  What the h---?

It just sucks.  It really, really sucks.  It sucks.  

I am not having a very good time with life right now.  Right now it's just really sucking.