Luke Jenner grew up with a mother who had bipolar disorder and who repeatedly threatened suicide, culminating in her death in 2006. He initially focused on keeping her alive and then struggled to learn how to care for himself. He believes many people feel fundamentally unlovable and leaned on baseball, alcohol, drugs, and music as forms of permission to survive. Alcohol helped him during his darkest periods, and he advises young people to avoid dying before thirty because emotional maturity often arrives around 32–33. He found breakthrough and healing by granting himself permission not to think about himself and by channeling anger through performance.
Luke's story begins with his mother's bipolar disorder and her devastating way of preparing him for what she saw as his inevitable fate. When Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, she showed him a Time article, telling him: "Do you know this guy? This guy's like a hero of yours. He's bipolar, I'm bipolar. You might be bipolar, one out of three bipolar people kill themselves. You might kill yourself. Good luck."
The musician candidly discusses his belief that "most people believe that they're fundamentally unlovable" and how he used various forms of what he calls "permission" to survive - baseball, drinking, drugs, and ultimately music. He credits alcohol with saving his life during his darkest periods, explaining his philosophy for young people: "just don't die before you're 30" because "people don't really get their feelings fully until they're like 32, 33."
Collection
[
|
...
]