Inside Lisa Marie Presley’s ‘unrelenting grief’ over the suicide of her son Benjamin

Lisa Marie Presley wrote an essay in which she shared her “unrelenting grief” over the untimely death of her son Benjamin just five months before he went into “total cardiac arrest.”

Elvis Presley’s 54-year-old daughter was rushed to a hospital after paramedics were able to restore her pulse. TMZ reported on Thursday.

In August 2022, Presley wrote an essay about his attempts to move on from the death of his son Benjamin to mark National Grief Awareness.

‘I can understand why people might want to avoid you once a terrible tragedy occurs. Especially a father who loses his child because it’s really your worst nightmare,’ he wrote in his essay, which was published by People.

Benjamin Keough was 27 years old at the time of his death. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office announced after the incident.

Presley shared her son with her first husband, Danny Keough, whom she married in 1988 and divorced in 1994.

In the emotional essay, Presley admitted that she had stayed away from the parents of other people whose children committed suicide, something that now seemed to haunt her.

“I can remember a couple of times in my life where I met parents who lost their child and even though I was able to be there for them when it happened, I avoided them afterwards and never bothered to follow up because they literally became a proxy. . of my greatest fear,’ he wrote.

“I also discreetly judged them, and swore that I would never do whatever I felt they did or neglected in their actions and parenting choices with their child.”

Priscilla Presley’s daughter, who was seen running to his side in hospital after his medical emergency, wrote that she had been “living in the horrible reality” of “unrelenting” grief since her son’s death.

Unfortunately, it was a sentiment she was well versed in, having endured the death of her father Elvis Presley in 1977, initially said to have been from cardiac arrest, though his prodigious drug use is also believed to have been a factor.

His daughter was only nine years old at the time of his death.

Presley admitted in his essay that bereavement is not a “comfortable topic for anyone” and is “very unpopular” to discuss.

But he believed that it was necessary to speak openly about pain and tragedy if any “progress” was to be made.

Presley added that her son reminded her of her father, which only worried her more.

He was “so like his grandfather on so many levels that it really scared me,” she wrote, adding that “I cared for him even more than I naturally would have.”

Two years after Benjamin’s death, Lisa hadn’t felt much relief over the tragic loss and, worse still, blamed herself for her son’s death.

“I already struggled and beat myself up chronically and tirelessly, blaming myself every day and that’s pretty hard to live with now,” she confessed, adding that “others will judge and blame you too, even in secret or behind your back.” it is even more cruel and painful on top of everything else.

She opined that ‘grief doesn’t stop or go away in any sense, a year or years after the loss. Grief is something that you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, despite what certain people or our culture would have us believe.

“You don’t ‘get over’ it, you don’t ‘move on’, period,” he wrote.

After Benjamin’s death, his friend, musician Brandon Howard, told him People that he had lived with depression for years, at the same time that he was weighed down by the expectations of succeeding as much as his famous grandfather.

“Sometimes I struggled with depression, which is a serious thing with [the coronavirus pandemic] and everything that’s going on right now and everyone’s locked in the house,” Howard said at the time.

“It is difficult when you have a lot of pressure with your family and you are living up to a name and an image. It’s a lot of pressure. It’s almost like you’re pressured to have to be a musician, to have to be an actor,” she added.