Gary James' Interview With Kurt Cobain's Cousin
Bev Cobain
Bev Cobain is an older cousin to Kurt Cobain. She is an accredited psychiatric / mental health nurse who works with depressed, suicidal, and dually diagnosed patients ages 13 and up. She belongs to the American Association of Suicidology and the Washington State Youth Suicide Prevention Committee. She teaches suicide intervention workshops for the state of Washington. Bev Cobain is the author of When Nothing Matters Anymore, which looks at teen depression as teens themselves experience it by examining what happens, what hurts, what's hidden, and what helps. Bev has spoken with hundreds of teens about the realities of teen depression, about feeling beyond blue, and what they themselves can do about it. We spoke to Bev Cobain about her book, suicide and depression, and her famous cousin Kurt Cobain.
Q - You wrote this book for depressed teens. Kurt was 27 years old when he died. Are you saying then that his problems started in adolescence?
A - You know, I've learned an awful lot about depression since I wrote that book, and during the time that I was writing it even as a psychiatric nurse I didn't know. Part of that is most depression begins in the teens or sooner. So, I am saying that Kurt did have some problems early in his life. I don't know what they were except that I know he was diagnosed with bipolar illness at a fairly young age.
Q - Does it follow that if you're depressed you will commit suicide?
A - No. What follows is if you're depressed there is a potential to become suicidal, because around ninety percent of suicides involve depression.
Q - I know what a lot of people will say Kurt Cobain had money, recognition, a nice looking wife, a child, what was his problem? What did he have to be depressed about?
A - He was bipolar.
Q - And material success doesn't matter?
A - Honestly it doesn't. When you have a depressive disorder and you are not in treatment for it, and when you have an episode of depression, then just everything is crazy. You're not capable of being as much as you can be. The disease actually takes over.
Q - There were two other members of the Cobain family that also suffered from depression and killed themselves. Is that correct?
A - Yeah. It was around twenty years ago. I didn't talk about depression. Nobody in my family talked about it, or suicide. I don't think clinical depression was even considered in those days. Two of my uncles, who would've been Kurt's great uncles, killed themselves about a year apart actually. In our family there was a lot of dysfunction, a lot of alcoholism. When that's the case, it's pretty hard to tell what that use of alcohol is anesthetizing, what exactly is it covering up. So, it's pretty difficult to even diagnose a depressive illness in the presence of alcohol or other drugs. So, one of the uncles was an alcoholic, and alcohol is a central nervous system depressant anyway. I do know that he had some demons, but I can't say what they were. The other uncle was despondent after the death of his wife. I'm pretty sure he was depressed, but I'm no doctor, so I haven't diagnosed him, but, it's pretty obvious.
Q - Have you talked to anyone from Kurt's family since his death?
A - I grew up with Kurt's dad. I have seen him and talked to him since Kurt's death. My aunt and uncle, who were his grandparents were probably as close to him as anybody. I've spoken to them. My aunt has since died. They were very close to Kurt. Probably Uncle Leland was. In fact, he was planning to take Kurt fishing when he returned from Rome (Italy) and the European tour. He didn't want to believe either that the overdose in Rome was intentional. So, I had talked to him about that. He said that when they went fishing, they would be alone and talk about these things and get them straightened out, but, they never got that fishing trip.
Q - Did Kurt's father talk?
A - Kurt and his father had been estranged for years before Kurt's death. He's very closed about it. He really doesn't want to talk about it to anybody.
Q - How about Kurt's mother? Have you talked to her?
A - You know, I haven't seen her for years. I did talk to her on the phone maybe a month or two after Kurt's death. She was of course very grief-stricken, and how close they had gotten in the last couple of years, before his death and how she and Kurt had some psychic connection. I don't know if that's true. I just know what she told me. She told me that Kurt was bipolar. She called it manic depression, which is the same thing.
Q - Did you see this film Kurt and Courtney?
A - No. I didn't want to see it. It would've triggered a lot of sadness and loss.
Q - Obviously you've heard the name Tom Grant and the stories circulating about Kurt's Death.
A - Yes, the murder thing.
Q - If it was proven beyond a doubt, that Kurt was murdered, would that surprise you?
A - Yes.
Q - Because you're convinced the bipolar disorder is what triggered Kurt to take his own life?
A - Yes. And, I'm not going by just a feeling I have or what I know about bipolar disease. I followed his musical career very closely because I could tell almost instantly, when I knew he was in a band or on TV and read about him, that he was having a problem with depression or some kind of diagnosis that nobody was picking up on. Then when I started seeing his obsession with guns and seeing his stage antics and reading stories about how he was talking and reading and listening to his lyrics, he was just a walking advertisement for depression. So I would've been surprised if he hadn't killed himself I think.
Q - But you would really be surprised if you found out someone had him killed?
A - Absolutely, I mean he was a walking time bomb. What I tell people when they bring that up to me, often times kids will say, do you think Courtney had him killed? Or do you think someone killed him? I just say it's sort of like the weather around here, if you don't like it, wait ten minutes. With Kurt, he was so self-destructive that nobody had to kill him. Do you know what I mean? It was like, wait a little while, he's doing it to himself.
Q - So, what do you make of Tom Grant and the factual information he has put forth that states Kurt did not commit suicide, but was in fact murdered?
A - Well, I've read a lot of the stuff he's done and written about that. I have a tendency to think you can skew information to suit your own needs. I'm just guessing that's what's happening in this case. I just don't believe it. Shotguns move when you fire them. Without going into all of the stuff he describes, I'm not saying it's totally impossible, I'm just saying it absolutely wasn't necessary. He was doing it himself. He had in fact done it in Rome and if Courtney hadn't found him when she did and gotten him to the hospital, he would've died then. I mean he was literally blue when they found him. So, I just don't see it. Depression rarely raises its head by itself. You hardly ever see it by itself. The two most common things for it to be associated with, anxiety and/or drug and alcohol abuse. So to me, the manic depression was a symptom of Kurt's heroin and drug use too. That was another thing that made him so vulnerable to suicide.
Q - How about those stomach problems he had, did he have ulcers?
A - It's hard to say, because I don't know if he ever got a diagnosis for that and it wouldn't matter anyway because he never stuck with any treatment. Drug addicts don't do that. Stomach problems I'm sure were stress related when he was young. Actually it's one of the symptoms of depression. Stomach pains, headaches, any kind of pain that the doctor really can't diagnose a reason for. Stomach problems are very common in depression.
Q - If only Kurt had stayed away from the drugs, maybe he'd be alive today.
A - That's part of it. However, once you start thinking suicidally, it starts to take on a life of its own. You don't think logically. You think with a suicidal brain, which is totally different than thinking with a depressed brain. The chemistry is so out of whack that you have no way of actually thinking... well, suicidal brains think suicidal thoughts. That's what they do. So, you can't really pull yourself out of it by yourself. You've gotta have help.
© Gary James. All rights reserved.
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