Pelle Ohlin and Cotard’s
Delusion
[Preface:
To those that are not familiar with Black Metal and the community,
this blog post is about one of the most notorious suicides in Black
Metal. This post will have very dark themes, and a picture of gore.
Proceed at your own risk. The names mentioned in this post are all
essentially members of the band Mayhem. Pelle/Dead was the singer.
His other bandmates at the time, which are to be mentioned in this
post include Varg Vikernes, Necrobutcher, Hellhammer, and Euronymous
(who is also now dead).]
Pelle, or Per
Yngve Ohlin, is most notably
known for having been the singer for the band Mayhem. Born on January
16th,
1969, Pelle hailed from Sweden. He had a rough beginning to his life,
with his mother and father divorcing not long after he was born.
Pelle suffered from sleep apnea as a child, and allegedly had wanted
to die from the age of 3.
When
he was ten years old, Pelle suffered from internal bleeding, after
his spleen had ruptured. Allegedly the story was that he had an ice
skating accident, as told in the past by former bandmate
Necrobutcher. But in the book ‘Blod eld dod’ (Blood Fire Death),
Pelle’s brother, Anders, stated that his brother’s spleen
ruptured from a severe beating by bullies. Pelle had been bullied to
the point that he was rushed to the hospital, and was allegedly
clinically dead for some time. It
is stated that after this incident, his fascination with darker
things started to grow.
In
his teen years, Pelle came to like Metal and Rock, with popular bands
such as Black Sabbath, Motorhead, and Venom being among his
favorites. He even called Quorthon, from Bathory, a wimp when he
changed his musical style.
In
1986, he founded the metal band Morbid, and recorded the demo tape
‘December Moon’. Eventually he became disappointed with the path
that the band was going, and decided to join the band Mayhem, since
Maniac had left. Allegedly, Pelle sent the band a package with a demo
tape, a letter with his ideas for the future, and a crucified mouse.
In 1988, Pelle moved to Norway to become the new vocalist for the
band.
Pelle,
also known as ‘Dead’ during this time, became notorious for his
stage presence. He was and still is known for using corpse paint,
covering his face in black and white makeup. Despite there being
other bands having painted their faces before (Kiss, King Diamond,
Alice Cooper), Dead’s goal was to actually look...dead. He
“actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn’t do it to look
cool.” As stated in an interview with Necrobutcher. Many people
consider him to have been the first Black Metal musician to have used
corpse paint.
Dead
was known for many things, such as his hatred for cats. Pelle
did not like cats, and would apparently keep a spear close by him to
potentially chase any that came by. He
also would bury his clothes in the ground, sometimes for months, “so
that they start to rot and get that grave scent”. At one point, he
had even asked his band mates to bury him in ground, so that his skin
could turn pale.
Dead’s
personality has been described as having been, “Shy, calm,
introverted, depressed, and melancholic”. On many corners of the
internet, it has been known that Dead was distinctly different from
the people around him. He was never the type to talk about anything
personal, and allegedly some people weren’t even sure if he had a
sense of humor. In a 1998
interview with Hellhammer, he stated that as Euronymous and Dead
delved more into the Satanic themes of the band, they became more
reserved. Apparently, they would both say that “Christianity is
evil”, though when asked if what the band was doing was evil, they
wouldn’t respond. Per had
a disdain for technology, even preferring to write letter in
‘longhand style’. Overall, he loved the forests and woodlands,
preferring to spend his time there.
When
the band got together, they rented out a deserted house in the
forest, scaring the local townsfolk. Hellhammer has stated that Dead
would lock himself in his room “and be permanently depressed.”.
Apparently, Dead and Euronymous did not get along well, with the
former not trusting the latter. The
two would fight, with verbal quarrels turning into “bloody
beatings”. On one
occasion, Per went to sleep outside when Euronymous would not stop
playing synth music. When he went outside, Euronymous followed him
with his shotgun, shooting into the air. According
to Varg Vikernes, Dead allegedly stabbed Euronymous once during an
altercation.
Pelle
also had a fascination with keeping animals, such as the one time he
found a dead crow and kept it in a plastic bag. He apparently carried
it around with him and would smell the bird before going onstage.
He’d smell the bird so that he could sing with the smell of death
in his nostrils. Pelle would also collect dead geese, and keep them
under his bed.
Per
believed that his blood has frozen in his veins, and did not eat in
order to become more like a corpse. He had been heard on multiple
occasions saying that he was not human, and did not belong in this
world.
Pelle
also became known to self mutilate when onstage. In 1990, he slashed
his arm with a broken bottle. Apparently he was taken to the
hospital, but since it was too late, there was no point in giving him
stitches. He would also cut
himself in front of his friends, that would later have to patch him
up.
During
this time, Mayhem was gaining traction, especially because of their
image. Euronymous saw Per’s tendencies, and felt that it fit in
with the dark image of the band. According
to the band, Euronymous would encourage Pelle to kill himself.
In
1991, Dead and Euronymous were living in the woods together (even
though Hellhammer is listed as having lived with them sometimes, in
the 1998 interview, he stated that he lived with his grandmother
because he couldn’t take the fighting anymore) at their rehearsal
house. Dead spent most of his time drawing in his room, becoming more
depressed. On April 8th
of that year, Euronymous left Dead alone in the house.
Dead
took a hunting knife and tried to slip his wrists and throat, then
shot himself in the forehead with a shotgun (which I assume to have
been Euronymous’). Dead’s body was later found by Euronymous, who
was locked out and had to climb through an open window. When he came
across the body, he went to the store (which Hellhammer described the
nearest store as at least 20 minutes away) and bought a disposable
camera. Euronymous them photographed Dead’s deceased body, but not
before re-arranging some of the items to pose in the photo. After he
got his shot, he then called the police.
Euronymous
claimed that Dead had committed suicide because Black Metal had
become “too trendy and commercialized”. Hellhammer developed the
photos, with Euronymous promising to destroy them after (which he did
not). Instead, he kept them inside an envelope at his record store,
one of the pictures which, were sent to the owner of Warmaster
Records, who used it as the album art for the notorious ‘Dawn of
the Black Hearts’ album. A bootleg that was initially released in
1995 (the album was re-released in 2017, with a different album
cover).While rumored to have made a stew with Dead's brain, which was not true, Euronymous and Hellhammer did end up creating jewelry out of some of the bone fragments that were left in the room (after police allegedly moved the body out).
The
way Euronymous handled Dead’s suicide ultimately became his
undoing, and caused tension between him and the other people in the
band. The other were disgusted towards his attitude of the situation,
with some speculating that Dead was left alone on purpose.
Necrobutcher speculated that
Euronymous may have potentially taken the pictures and forced the
others to look, as a way of dealing with seeing the dead body;
though, Necrobutcher ended his friendship and left the band after.
Many years later, Necrobutcher stated that even
he
thought about murdering Euronymous before Varg Vikernes ended up
doing so.
Interestingly,
before Per passed away, Varg Vikernes had send him shotgun shells as
a Christmas gift, though the shells he sent were not what Per used to
kill himself. Allegedly, Per had a special shell saved for his
suicide.
Pelle
left a suicide note, that when translated from Swedish reads:
“Excuse
the blood, but I have slit my wrists and neck. It was the intention
that I would die in the woods so that it would take a few days before
I was possibly found. I belong in the woods and have always done so.
No one will understand the reason for this anyway. To give some
semblance of an explanation I'm not a human, this is just a dream and
soon I will wake. It was too cold and the blood kept clotting, plus
my new knife is too dull. If I don't succeed dying to the knife I
will blow all the shit out of my skull. Yet I do not know. I left all
my lyrics by "Let the good times roll"—plus the rest of
the money. Whoever finds it gets the fucking thing. As a last
salutation may I present "Life Eternal". Do whatever you
want with the fucking thing. / Pelle. I didn't come up with this now,
but seventeen years ago”
Dead
was buried in Osterhaninge Kyrkogard, Sweden. He was 22.
-------
I
have heard of this scenario for many years, in fact, it was one of
the first gruesome Metal stories that I read about as a teenager. It
wasn’t until recently that I really thought about the mental
illness aspect about it as an adult. Reading what I have about Per,
and everything that he went through, I thoroughly believe that he had
Cotard’s Delusion. Many
other people have said the same thing too, and his whole demeanor
makes me wonder.
First
of all, I will define Cotard’s Delusion (also known as Cotard’s
Syndrome). In “Modern Synopsis of Comprehensive
Textbook of Psychiatry II (1978)”,
it describes:
“Patients
complain of having lost not only their possessions, status, and
strength, but also their heart, blood, and intestines. The World
beyond them may also be reduced to nothing. Trees, houses, and other
people do not really exist anymore. The syndrome is seen most
frequently in patients suffering from agitated depression, but
occasionally occurs in acute schizophrenic breakdowns and in certain
brain syndromes.
Interestingly,
in a biography of Per (first
source as listed below), it also describes him as being sometimes
schizophrenic, though I do not know if this was meant literally.
In,
“Special Report Towards Understanding Cotard’s
Syndrome: An Overview (2012)”,
it states that Cotard’s Syndrome is typically a symptom of an
underlying disorder, that
can last from weeks to years.
The DSM V lists it as a somatic disorder, which corroborates with
this. There are multiple
psychiatric diseases associated with the disorder, such as depression
(Unipolar and Bipolar), psychotic disorder, and brain injury (among
many more).
Other
than the symptoms stated above, Cotard’s delusion tends to manifest
itself in three stages. The first stage exhibits behavior of
hypochondria, depressive mood, and Cenesthopathy
(feeling ill in areas not otherwise specified). In the first stage,
it is not possible to diagnose the syndrome. The second stage
exhibits behavior of nihilistic delusions, delusions of immortality,
negativism, and anxiety. In the third stage, a person can exhibit
persistent
disturbances in a depressive state; or in the paranoid state they
would exhibit less depressive symptoms. It
should be noted though, that these stages are considered a hypothesis
in the journal.
Though
anecdotal, I have noticed from videos I’ve watched that it seems
that people who have experienced Cotard’s seem have had near death
experiences. In a video by Ask a Mortician
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqvEEqWGCyE),
one of the suffers of the syndrome had a PET Scan that revealed his
brain activity was like that of someone under anesthesia or asleep.
Even
further, this was revealed in the frontal areas of his brain, which
seems to correlate with the journal paper. The paper states that
while neural imaging shows no gross structural changes in a brain
with the syndrome, “It
has also been observed that right frontal damage has commonly
occurred in cases of delusional misidentification (including Cotard’s
syndrome). However, left lesions are also described.”.
While
there is no cure, electroconvulsive therapy along side with
psychotherapy has been reported as a helpful treatment. Even further,
the occurrence of the syndrome is more prevalent in women, especially
with older age, with the average age having been 47. The paper listed
the syndrome as rare in people younger than the age of 25, and
Bipolar Disorder being
something to consider as the underlying cause of why a young person
may experience this syndrome. Finally,
those that suffer with this syndrome are at risk of suicide, and
should be watched to ensure that they do not harm themselves.Even further, it has been proven that Cotard's and Capgras Delusions can co-exist at the same in one person, or even switch off with each other.
Overall,
I,
as with many other people, believe that Per was tormented person that
needed help. What I wonder, is how was his childhood exactly? Unless
stated somewhere in a book, I can’t help but wonder if there was a
lot of childhood trauma for him to feel this way, or if anyone in his
family ever considered him to have been Bipolar. Even back in the
90’s when he was still alive, he never talked about personal
things. I can’t help but wonder why. While I am not old, not yet, I
see that he killed himself at the age of 22, and it just makes me
feel so sad. He was ridiculously young, and was unfortunately
surrounded by terrible people that did not help him at all. I know
that it was a different time back then, and mental health is not as
big as it is now, but with the right support system, not having
someone torment him every day, he could have still been with us
today.
Rest
in Peace, Pelle Ohlin.
[SOURCES]
https://web.archive.org/web/20120331113426/http://www.peryngveohlin.com/biographie3.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080219143612/http://www.thetruemayhem.com/interviews/previous/hh-june1998.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_(musician)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8282589/per-ohlin
https://hockknife.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/the-zombie-of-black-metal-per-dead-ohlin-of-mayhem-cotard-delusion/
Modern
Synopsis of Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry II (1978)
SPECIAL REPORT Towards understanding Cotard’s syndrome: an
overview / Hans Debruyne & Kurt Audenaert (2012)
