[Clock ticking]
Boy: I remember having sad
thoughts and asking myself,
"Why are you,
like, acting like this?
What's wrong with you?"
♪
If you feel very uncomfortable
throughout the day,
then you need, like, an
answer of what is going on.
[Thunder]
♪
[Rain falling]
Woman: I couldn't make
sense of the emotions.
Why am I acting this way?
And it became a
very frustrating thing
whenever I'd look in the
mirror and there's nothing wrong
with me on the outside,
there's absolutely nothing wrong
to make sense of that pain.
When I'm mad on the
inside, I'm mad on the outside.
I feel very unmotivated,
disinterested.
My friends had no clue what
I was going through at all.
I felt like, well, my
mom didn't care
and my dad was so
busy and tired and
I had so many emotions
that I had to deal with.
I was like, "Oh, I could
never be depressed,
I could never be--
have anxiety problems."
I was always like,
"I'll be perfectly fine."
I just didn't want
to talk about it.
I just wanted to leave it alone.
It was constant sadness,
and anything that I did,
I couldn't find
myself to be happy.
I was being reckless with
my body and, like, taking
a lot of drugs and stuff
and just being careless
and not caring if I wake up.
At that age, how are
you ever gonna admit,
"I can't see past tomorrow"?
♪
Woman: I think there's
So many things you can say
about mental illness.
It comes out of nowhere,
and then it just creeps
into your body, and
you've got something
inside you, and you don't know
how to deal with it.
Narrator: Mental illness is
one of the most significant
health crises in the world--
as pervasive as cancer,
diabetes, and heart disease--
but it often exists in secret
and is endured in isolation.
♪
It's the place where
sadness leaves off
and depression begins,
where nervousness
becomes anxiety,
excitement becomes mania,
and habit becomes addiction
♪
the place where simply
living becomes painful.
Greek philosopher
Hippocrates called it
the "inner darkness,"
President Theodore
Roosevelt the "black care,"
Poet Sylvia Plath "This
dark thing that sleeps in me."
♪
Young woman: It's the
overwhelming feeling
of being stuck,
like, stuck in my head,
stuck in my feelings,
stuck with this persona,
like, this person
that people saw me as
and that I couldn't escape from.
I can't even imagine
myself without it,
you know, when
something so toxic becomes
such a part of you.
Narrator: All of us are affected
by mental health challenges
in some way,
whether in our own lives
or the life of someone we know.
It is everywhere--
in rural communities
and major cities,
in the workplace, schools,
even in our own homes,
often hiding in plain sight.
Young man: You could see
someone walking down the hallway,
a kid on your sports team,
the most popular
person in school,
the kid that everyone
likes, you know,
and you would never
know that that person
could be going through
something themselves.
It's a silent battle that
a lot and a lot of people
go through and
that hasn't really
been talked about a whole lot.
Narrator: For some,
it is a chronic illness.
For others, it comes and goes.
Some people can't
put a name on it.
Those who can use
words like "devastating,"
"hopeless," "a living hell"
to describe their pain.
All too often, they are
called "nuts," "crazy,"
"out of their minds,"
labels that perpetuate
stigma and isolation.
Even professionals
debate what to call it--
an illness, a
challenge, a disorder--
but that doesn't
change the way it feels,
how it affects everyday
life and relationships.
I do feel like once
people find out you have
a mental illness, they just
sort of treat you a certain way.
People often say,
"What's wrong with you?"
instead of "What
happened to you?"
No, they really don't
care, like, how, like,
we feel, how I feel,
and, like, it gets to me a lot.
♪
Narrator: Mental illness
is, in fact, a disease,
a complicated and
controversial one
that has been a part
of the human condition
for thousands of years.
While there are now
hundreds of diagnoses based
on all kinds of
symptoms, the experience
and the treatments are
different for everyone.
♪
Man: I do believe that this
is a very personalized illness.
It's hard for people to
really compare one person's
experience with another.
That's often what keeps people
from getting help
because they think,
"Oh well, it's not that bad."
Well, compared to who?
Narrator: When you're suffering,
it's hard to know what to do
and even harder to find help.
It affects all ages
in families both rich and poor,
healthy and dysfunctional.
It most often
appears in childhood
and teenage years.
Trauma can be the
trigger, from personal crises
such as divorce and neglect
to environmental disasters,
racial injustice, and pandemics.
♪
Over time, the symptoms
can progress and lead
to increasingly
extreme behaviors
like eating
disorders, self-harm,
and thoughts of suicide.
Woman: When feelings
become so excessive,
where it really interferes
with their everyday ability
to live, that's a--
that's a challenge.
It can be at any age,
and it can be very impactful,
but it can be figured out.
You need to connect with
someone who can help you,
problem-solve,
listen, sort it out,
be able to work
through those things.
Narrator: Intervention can help,
and with the right treatments,
you can feel better
Boy: It was just a lot of
confusion in my family.
Young man: I don't talk to
my parents openly about my
Narrator: but the first
and often most difficult step
is to simply start
talking about it.
Girl talk about them.
I never tell anybody.
Boy: At school, they were like,
"Gabe, what is wrong with you?"
Woman: I was basically homeless
because Man: I am a g*y man.
Man: On this planet right here,
we all have problems,
but that is the great thing
about the human race.
Most people understand
their problems,
and they work
on it to get better,
but sometimes you might
need just a little bit of help,
someone to help get
your life back on track,
because you are the
one who defines your life.
Narrator: These are
the journeys of more than
20 young Americans
from all over the country
and all walks of life
who have struggled
with thoughts and
feelings that have troubled
and at times overwhelmed them.
They share what they have
learned about themselves,
their families, and
the world they live in.
They speak for many of us.
They speak to all of us.
Woman: It's taken me
a very, very long time
to even speak openly about it.
My roommates don't
even know half of this stuff
that I'm telling you guys now,
and I'm nervous.
Like, I'm kind of
shaking inside,
to even talk about it,
but I feel like if I
don't talk about it now
then I'm wasting potential time
where I could help somebody,
and that's all I really
want to do, is, I just want--
if I can even reach two
people from everything I say
or this story, then I
did my part in this world.
♪
How would I describe
mental illness to somebody
who has never had it?
No experience of it?
Oh, boy.
Oh, my goodness.
♪
I would want to shake
their hand first of all.
Congratulations you
made it that far, you know?
Nothing's wrong with you.
I don't know if
you could explain it
to somebody like that.
Young man: It's
person by person.
It changes with every brain.
With every set of eyes,
it's different.
Samantha: I would ask
you how you were feeling.
Then I would ask
you if you believe that.
Man: We don't understand
how common it is,
we don't understand
how important it is
to talk about it
and be open about it,
so this is the
problem that we all
deal with in secret,
and the result is that
we don't deal with it well.
♪
Film narrator: The
thoughts of youth
are long, long thoughts.
What dreams, what
feelings shape the pattern
that we call the
innocence of childhood?
♪
Insel: These are the
chronic issues of early life.
About 75% of mental illness
has onset before age 25.
About 50% before age 14.
So we need to respond to
this with the urgency it deserves.
Boy: I started
having sad thoughts
around the end of third grade.
Just like random things
that just happened
throughout my day, things like
if somebody smiled at
me and I didn't smile back.
I just started feeling different
from all my other friends
and, like, my crowd.
Young woman: I remember
as, like, a little kid I walked off
into a field to,
like, pick flowers
and kind of heard, like,
my friends calling my name,
and I would turn around,
and there was
really no one there.
[Voices whispering]
It was very confusing for
me and kind of frightening.
♪
Woman: When it
comes to mental illness,
there is nature versus nurture.
The nature side is
you were born with it,
it's just in your genes,
whereas nurture says
it was all about
your environment
and what you were
around and what
your parents did or didn't do
or what was in your
community or not,
and what we've come
to understand was that
it's not an "either-or" at all.
What happens to someone
impacts how their genes
are expressed,
so what genes were
there in the first place
is going to play into it.
Dunning: Mental
illness is really life.
♪
It encompasses all the things.
So as much as
children were given
the beautiful and smart,
they also were
given the challenge.
♪
Woman: I live on a
Chippewa Tribe reservation,
very isolated.
We have a beautiful culture,
and we have a really
good support system,
but at the same time,
there's a lot of drug abuse,
a lot of alcohol abuse,
a lot of poverty.
And dealing with being
profiled as an Indian,
that's very confusing for
a person to grow up in.
Billie: I remember
in elementary school
my friends would tease
me and say that I was
a girl in a boy's body.
It was strange teasing,
like oddly specific teasing,
but also oddly accurate teasing.
Boy: My racial background,
being Native American,
Black, and Mexican, when
I went to this one school,
I didn't really fit in with
any particular groups.
It was just because, like,
I look black, but I don't.
One of my first, like,
memories of that school
was it was the first
time we took the bus,
and the three of us
had stepped off together,
and this girl looked at my
kid brother up and down,
and she went, "What are you?"
The first thing I said
was like, "He's Black
"like you and me.
Get away."
Being profiled from the get-go,
especially being, like, 9, 10,
it's pretty traumatizing,
you know?
It's unfortunate,
and it's scary.
♪
Woman: When he's not
happy, when he's sad,
when he's struggling,
he withdraws.
He sits in his room,
and he refuses
to come out sometimes.
Dunning: Early intervention
and early detection
for our children is about
building the relationship
with them, knowing your child,
paying attention
to the little nuances
that may change,
and then meet
them where they are,
not where you want them to be.
Love on them, learn them,
learn about them,
take time to be with them.
That is the one thing
that I have seen make
a bigger difference.
Isabel: He feels like he's being
a burden when he's not happy,
so we have to convince him,
you know, "Let's do something,
"let's--you're not a burden.
You know, you were-- you
were chosen to be here."
Vinson: Their first constructs
for how the world works
all happen in that
home environment,
and the parents really
create that environment,
um, or leave it to other forces
to--to create if they're absent.
Morgan: My mom
was a single mother
raising two children
at the age of 22,
and I was left wondering
why my father left me
as a little girl,
wondering why we
weren't good enough
for him to stay.
Woman: I didn't know
how to talk to my parents
about emotions and feelings.
That wasn't normal
in our household,
just coming from, um, my mother,
who was from a
different culture.
In Thai culture, they
don't really express
emotions a lot.
Lydia: My childhood was amazing.
I remember
literally always, like,
talking to my friends
like, "I'm so lucky.
I have the best family,"
like, "It's me," you know,
but my dad's an
addict, and when I was
in sixth grade, he relapsed.
We all parted as a family,
and my dad went away to rehab.
Xavier: My childhood
was very irregular.
Every action I did
and my siblings did
would just be something that
we would have to think about
really before we did it, uh,
so that we might not upset
my father because my father
was a very different man.
Isabel: I think the relationship
between Dad and Xavier
started to go south
when he witnessed an argument
between Dad and I
that he shouldn't have,
and it was difficult,
and he still will
have flashbacks
and talk about it.
I was definitely a daddy's girl!
I loved him very, very much.
He had glioblastoma, which
is a type of brain cancer,
so I didn't really have
time to enjoy most things
that little kids do.
My father has been incarcerated
off and on my entire life.
He's an addict, but growing
up, when he was clean,
he was an amazing father,
but when he wasn't, it was ugly.
Samantha: I was living with
my father and my stepfamily
in northern Maine,
and, um
♪
he was accused
and acquitted of
♪
repeatedly sexually
assaulting people.
We were moved out of the
house and into foster care,
and then eventually, I
moved with my mom.
Girl: I was in,
like, third grade,
everything was great,
and that's when everything went,
like, to, like, crap.
My parents separated.
Then a few months
later, they got a divorce,
and it broke my heart.
I just felt like
it was my fault.
Morgan: My stepdad
came into the picture,
and they were always,
always fighting abusively,
so I couldn't open up
about what I needed.
Everything was my fault
even if it wasn't.
Dunning: The child
feels a responsibility
for something that
they had no hand in,
and that is tragic.
You're just innocently
in life doing what you do,
being a child.
It's not your fault.
Parents are usually
doing the best they can,
listening and validating and
showing and giving respect
and coming from
that place of love,
but children, they're observers.
They're taking it all in.
They're learning from us.
[Child giggling]
Woman: I was with my mom.
We had pizza, and we
had those little Peeps
that they have around Easter,
and as a joke I put a
Peep in some sauce,
and I showed it to her,
and she just flipped.
She threw the plate at me,
asked me why I would
do something like that.
At that point, you know,
I kind of could tell that
maybe there was
something different,
but I didn't understand.
Vinson: Why are so many
kids having these issues?
Looking at things like
genetics and early adversity,
whether that was parental
discord or someone
in the family with
substance use disorders
or someone being
incarcerated, we see, you know,
these things sort of set
the stage for mental illness.
[Children chattering]
Man: What if you raised a
child who grew up sunny, loved,
and loving, only to watch
that child slowly transform
into a mysterious
stranger, shorn of affect,
dull of gaze, unresponsive
to communication,
and perhaps worse?
Ron Powers.
♪
Maclayn: I remember a lot
of nights where I would sit
in my bed and cry.
I always knew I was different,
but I never really knew if I--
anything was wrong with me.
Dunning: With kids, you
know, they will struggle
for very long periods of time
simply because they don't know
what's going on.
They may want to isolate.
They may not
want to tell anyone.
They don't have the
words. They don't know how.
Yeah, I did feel like I
was keeping a secret
from my parents, and
that was another factor
that--why I was getting upset.
You know, he would
talk about his school
and what happened at school,
and it would be
really minor things
that most kids could
kind of just brush off,
but for him, they
were really a big deal.
We tried to talk
to the teachers.
"Oh, my gosh!
He's great in school!
He's always smiling!"
Then we figured
out, OK, he's a good--
he's a good masker.
Dunning: Children just
don't want anyone to know
what's going on,
and when they start to
move into adolescence,
they are already pushing
back against lots of things,
and it's hard to figure
out what is really
normal mood swings
with teens versus
what is--is it a true
mental health challenge.
Then there can
be lots more things
that parents and kids
are going like this about.
Man: I thought it
was a good idea.
Girl: Absolutely
ruin everything.
Susan, maybe your
mother knows best.
Why? Why does it
just naturally have to be
that parents know best?
Why can't you see things my way?
♪
Vinson: Adolescents
are in the process
of discovering their identity.
As they're trying to make
that transition from being
primarily identified
with the family
they're coming
from to their place
in the world that
they're going out into.
A-T-T-A-C-K! Say it together!
Man: I've been
there, despair ♪
Living on a prayer ♪
Been there when
close friends didn't care ♪
I've been there, trying
to pull it out of thin air ♪
I've been there,
yes, I've been there ♪
Maybe you feel like
nobody understands ♪
Man: When I was a
teenager, I was very rebellious.
I didn't think that
I had any issues,
even when I was exhibiting
textbook definition of what
mental illness was.
Man: Like they don't know
how they're gonna make it ♪
Through another day ♪
Dunning: So it
really is a fine line
between troubled and normal.
Some might ask,
"Well, what is normal?"
♪
Man: We need to remember
what it's like to be a teenager.
I think that a lot of
adults don't remember
when they were 15 what
were they going through
and what's normal
and what's natural,
and then what's
the part that needs
extra intervention?
Makalynn: I grew up in
an area that was wealthy,
but I was from, like, the
other side of the tracks,
so I didn't have, you know,
growing up, we weren't--
we didn't have money at all,
so I was constantly
trying to fit in.
I lied a lot growing up
just to make things seem
greater than they were.
That's when I really
started to act out.
I was constantly in
the principal's office
at school for skipping or
for disrespecting a teacher
or principal, fighting a lot.
I think at that time in high
school when everyone's
trying to figure it all
out, you know, like,
I really just wanted
to understand myself.
We were never taught how
to work through anything
in school,
especially if you grew
up in a household that
you didn't feel comfortable
showing emotions.
The more you bury
it, the more it's just
building up in you.
I was one of the popular kids.
I dated the star
football player,
I was homecoming queen one year.
I maintained this image
that I had to be perfect
at school, and I did
to a certain extent,
and I just hid everything
else behind closed doors.
Yaadieah: I did cheer,
which was my favorite,
I played lacrosse, I did
track, and I did gymnastics.
I think my teenage years
were happy for the most part
but definitely a
lot of insecurity just
as far as the way I looked.
Billie: I lived surrounded
by a bunch of farmland,
and the people
weren't very accepting,
so I never really got a
chance to explore my identity
until I had moved here.
I started to wear
more feminine clothes.
I started to wear
makeup every day.
It was good at first,
but the day I went
to school with pink hair,
my car ended up
getting vandalized,
and someone wrote "q*eer"
on the back windshield.
♪
Alexis: At school, I tried to be
that happy-go-lucky,
outgoing person,
but I dealt with a
lot on the inside,
and not a lot of people knew.
I remember being too much,
too loud, trying to be cool,
but you're not really cool.
I started to get bullied
by people I considered
my best friends.
You know, these were
the people who I thought
were gonna be by
my side, you know,
living the best life ever
together, you know,
and they ended up
hurting me the most.
It's a really big mind
game with girls I feel like.
I was an emotional teen.
I wanted to know who I was,
and I was trying
to figure that out.
So where do I go,
and who do I ask?
I didn't know how
to talk to my parents.
My parents didn't
know how to talk to me.
I was going through so
much that it just spiraled
until, you know, things
just exploded, I feel like.
♪
Yanerry: In eighth
grade, I got a boyfriend,
and we dated on and off.
He showed an explicit
photo of me to classmates
and his friends.
There was a lot of
people talking about it.
Kids would look at me
and laugh, mock me
and so when I became a freshman,
I didn't want to be
known as that girl.
I decided to change my name
and go by the name Rose.
That way, people wouldn't
think that it was me.
They were talking
about this girl Yanerry.
Collin: You think this
is how you are defined
and that's how you're
gonna be looked at
for the rest of your
high school career,
but it's not.
What everyone thinks about
you in high school honestly
doesn't matter the
second you graduate,
but as a teenager, as
far as stress levels go,
I feel like it's--it's a lot
different than maybe
what I could
imagine it used to be.
I feel like the world that
my generation is inheriting
isn't a pleasant one.
[Sirens]
Man: Destruction
Different man: Forecasters
Would you--who
would-- Shut up, man.
♪
Man: & I don't really
know any way to convey ♪
The range of emotions
I go through each day ♪
Got my ideas ♪
Lucas: I think it's a
world full of toxicity
and people who don't
understand others
and don't take
others' well-being
and mental health and
feelings into account.
Man: Stress I encounter ♪
It takes its effect ♪
Don't like the odds ♪
Billie: It's important for
older generations to know
that we live in a very different
world than they grew up in
and what principles and
values may have worked
for them at that time
won't work for us now.
♪
[People screaming]
It's like running old
software on a new hard drive.
It's not gonna work.
Reporter: Just how much water
Young man: It's a world
with a lot of conversations
that need to be had with adults
on how they need to understand
more about the
younger generations
and what we're going through.
George Stephanopoulos:
49ers quarterback knelt
instead of standing during
the National Anthem
Reporter: In the United
States, new confirmed cases
Dunning: The pandemic
has really increased a lot
of people's anxiety
and depression.
♪
Look at our kids.
Look at athletic events
that have been taken,
graduations,
speech and drama,
choir, all of those things.
They're really suffering
because nothing's normal.
Vinson: The reality is
our system was
ill-equipped to meet
the mental health
treatment needs
of our population before 2020,
and it is not going
to be better equipped
to meet the increased
needs after 2020.
♪
Collin: There's a lot of
pressures that come along
with being a teenager,
especially in this day and
age with the social pressures
and social media.
Everyone is scared to be open
regardless of
how they're feeling.
That isn't who
17-year-olds in 2019 are.
They aren't open
about their feelings,
and if they are, they're
looked down upon,
which is terrible.
♪
A troubling new
report today spells out
what all that time
on social media
is doing to our teenagers.
It also outlines what
parents can do to make sure
their kids stay safe.
[Typing on cell phone]
[Cell phone chimes]
[Typing continues]
[Whoosh]
[Typing continues]
[Whoosh]
Young man: Social
media itself is good and bad
for teenagers nowadays.
I feel as if though it's a
good outlet to find someone
to talk to and make
friends, but I also feel like
it puts a lot of pressure
on kids nowadays.
It quickly becomes
another form of isolation,
you know, if I'm constantly
focusing on my phone
and these different
media outlets
and not engaging
in the real world.
Sometimes, it's
just out of control
where all they're doing
is looking at social media,
and they're kind of distracted.
They're not connecting.
I don't think that they
see that as a problem.
Alexis: I hate when people
say, like, "Oh, the youth
"are so stuck in, you
know, their technology,
and they don't even care
about the world around them!"
They were born in that world.
They can't help that
when they were a toddler
an iPad got thrown at them.
That's what they
think playtime is.
I actually joke a lot that
Twitter kind of raised me
because I've had a
Twitter since I was 13.
I'm 23, so that's
10 years of my life.
If you wanted to
have a social life,
you joined social media.
Lydia: If you don't have
Snapchat or Instagram,
if you don't reach
the specific standard,
it can definitely
feel really isolating.
Samantha: Like, on Snapchat,
like, all your friends
would be hanging out,
and then you see
that you're not there
and you didn't get the invite,
and then you're like,
"Well, what did I do wrong?"
♪
Um
♪
it sucks.
On, like, Instagram they
have to look a certain way
for people to think
they're attractive
[Camera shutter clicks]
to feel positive
about themselves.
Collin: And when you're
trying to make yourself fit
to what everyone else
wants to see you as,
it's impossible.
[Cell phone chiming]
Lydia: Everybody is
so fake on social media.
Like, me, like, I'm so fake.
I mean, I hate it.
I hate it, but I'm
also a part of it.
I--I add into that.
Alexis: It's literally
competition.
"If I'm an object, I'm
gonna be the best object,"
you know, "and I'm a
better object than you are,
and you're gonna know it."
That's how we lift
ourselves up personally.
Collin: If you're so
invested into that,
then those little, tiny things
that everyone else notices,
those little, tiny blemishes
that really don't matter at all
can tear you down.
These are 10 things
that you can do
to be more attractive.
Fix your body language.
Ava: I think every girl is
OK with being average.
[Camera shutter clicks]
It's just that other people
are not OK with it.
Ashley and I are on
our way to get filler.
Like, look at that.
Like, excuse me.
It kind of squints.
Anna: I think celebrities
are posting all these pictures,
and, like, girls try to be
someone who they're not,
and it really takes,
like, a toll on people.
Makalynn: I think social
media is extremely damaging
for everybody
but especially for
somebody who is suffering
from mental illness.
It makes the things that
people say on social media
hit a lot harder.
You take stuff, and
you just overthink it,
and you make a
mountain out of a molehill,
but it's a very real mountain.
Yanerry: I had this close
friend who was making
fake Instagram pages
about me and my ex,
saying like, "Oh," like,
"you know, what a wh*re, "
"Who hasn't she kissed?"
I also found out that
things she would do to me
she claimed
that I did it to her,
and I got very paranoid.
I felt like I couldn't
trust anyone.
I noticed that I was
struggling in seventh grade,
so I'd say 13.
That's when I started
to be called names
on social media.
It would never end.
When I told them,
like, it hurts me,
they wouldn't--they don't care,
but it's not true, and,
like, it gets to me.
Angel: Why?
Why would you post
certain things like that?
Billie: Some people
may believe it's just them
being honest.
Lucas: Watch what you
say and who you say it to
because you never
know what somebody's
going through and
what can affect them
and how drastically it can.
♪
Ava: I felt like I
was not enough,
and, like, I would think what it
would be like if I wasn't there.
At first, I thought it was just
me trying to get attention,
but then I realized,
like, it really wasn't.
Like, I really didn't want
to be there anymore.
Davidson: If you can't
say something to their face,
you shouldn't text it,
you shouldn't post it,
you shouldn't snap about it,
and that should
be your first rule.
Vinson: A lot of the narrative
around it is that it is bad
and causing people
to be superficial,
and everybody's
comparing each other
to their highlight reels,
and there is a component of that
for sure, but it's
not all, all bad.
Dunning: In some instances,
it's how kids connect
and how they do make friends,
and that friend may be in Japan,
and they might be in Miami.
There's also a lot of
communities online,
people you can meet through
social media that are there
just to help and make sure
that people know there's
somebody there
that cares about them.
♪
Billie: Being sort
of dissociated
from the rest of the world
gives us that sense of
comfort and sense of home.
When I was struggling,
I know I used to, like, go
on, like, YouTube and
watch all these videos
about, like, people who
were depressed talking
about their depression,
talking about their
suicidal ideations.
This is not something that
is easy for me to talk about.
Lydia: And I just felt
like I wasn't alone.
Woman: refused to
talk about it with anybody.
Vinson: In my opinion, things
like Instagram and TikTok
have really democratized
who gets to have
a voice in society.
It allows young people who
normally wouldn't be able
to drive a narrative to
be part of telling a story.
Today, I'm going to
show you the top 5 outfits
you can start wearing to
get your crush to like you.
News anchor: When it
comes to social media,
seemingly real people are
influencing young people
from their self-esteem
to what they buy.
So-called Instagram
Angel: I feel like it
has a very major impact
on the way that we act.
News anchor: The social
media influencer market is
a multibillion-dollar industry.
Welcome to my
first YouTube video.
Naked Heat Palette.
Angel: It influences
us in our social life,
the way that we talk,
the way that we act.
Reporter: Another viral
TikTok trend going
Reporter two: Seen an
increase in social media threats
made towards schools
across the country.
I will do whatever
the top comment says,
get hit by a car, whatever.
I'll do it just for you guys
if you want to see that.
Billie: It doesn't matter
what people think of you
just as long as you
are being yourself
and who you are and doing
what makes you happy,
and I wish I could say that,
but I can't.
I care a lot what
people think of me.
Social media, at this
point, it sort of seems like
it's more important
than your real identity.
If I wasn't on social
media, I wouldn't talk
to anyone really,
so I don't really feel like I
have a choice, honestly.
Davidson: I think kids
really see that screen time
is a problem.
So they know that
it's an addiction,
but they just don't know
what to do about that,
so they just feed into it.
[Typing on cell phone]
Angel: When you're a teenager
you're at a certain
stage in your life
where you're kind
of like a beginner
in whatever you're experiencing.
It's kind of like a first
try at everything in life
♪
and when something abrupt
like someone you know dying
from suicide happens,
it hits like a wrecking ball.
Everyone is different.
Very different.
[Slide projector clicking]
♪
It's very difficult
to understand
what to do from there.
♪
Morgan: Nobody is
exempt from trauma.
We all go through it
just on various levels.
Everyone has their own problems,
everyone has
their own tragedies.
Amira: A traumatic
experience, it's always there.
It's just about
whether it chooses
to present itself or not.
It just chills out and
waits for its moment
to respond.
[Clock ticking]
[Crash]
[Crying]
[Sirens]
[g*nf*re]
[Police radio chatter]
Woman: Hands up! Don't sh**t!
[Alarm clock ringing]
Kennedy: There's
no way for us to tell
what type of event
is gonna have
what type of effect
on what type of a person.
Everybody's got their own story.
Leah: In time, I could tell
my mother was a drug addict.
Seeing someone that you love
turn into a completely
different person,
it's traumatizing.
I felt like she ruined
who I could have been,
what I could have done,
the person that I
could have become.
Living with my dad was
probably a more stable situation,
but there was issues there, too,
especially when
he got remarried.
You know, I was trying
to express how I felt
by being miserable to live with.
I was acting out.
♪
Lydia: My dad relapsed.
He went away to
rehab, and I felt like
I was losing him,
he didn't care about me anymore.
Man: Lydia knew me for most
of her life as a sober father,
and then she didn't.
♪
I think she was 12.
My father committed suicide.
I had, uh, a really bad relapse
that continued as
a cycle of relapses,
and she watched me struggle.
I was so depressed and angry.
So angry.
So I was like, "It's
all your fault, Mom!"
She was like, "Lydia, you're
so much like your dad."
And I was like, "Well,
if my dad can do this,
like, so can I."
Amethyst: I found out my dad
died the day after Christmas.
The year after he died,
I started kind of treating
other people pretty badly
because I didn't know
how to handle grief properly.
Anna: Ever since I was
little, my dad was an alcoholic.
One time when I was little,
me and my sister were
hiding under our beds
because we were scared
of everything
going on downstairs.
One of our doors in our
houses was just cracked
down the whole thing because,
like, my dad punching it.
It's just kind of
hard to talk about.
It's just really hard.
Dunning: Family strife,
it plays an incredible role.
When a child is
watching a parent
do crazy stuff that
they don't understand,
they're like, "Well,
what should we do?
"Should we, like, retreat,
should we go to our rooms,
"should we not say anything?
Because what if
it makes it worse?"
Then what?
Man: It's about time ♪
Vinson: Actually, children
who are in situations
where they are exposed
to domestic violence
have outcomes that are similar
to if those children themselves
were the ones that were
receiving the abuse.
So it's not always the
best thing for families
to stay together or for
people not to get divorced.
♪
Xavier: Cigarette smoke
is a very triggering thing
from my past since I
associate that with getting beat
by wooden sticks.
Yeah, that's happened.
He would hit us for
seemingly no reason.
Honestly, sometimes I
can't even really remember
why he did it.
There was one time we
had, like, these, Oreo things,
and nobody was going
to question my father
to get another one because
he would've just said no.
He would hit us if he found out.
Turns out, I guess
he finds a wrapper,
which he probably ate.
I guess one of us had
to, like, own up to doing it,
and I think it was
either my brother
or my sister who
owned up to doing it
even though they really didn't,
and, uh, even after
that, he still hit us all 3
for, I guess, wasting his time.
I don't know.
I'm not him.
♪
Yanerry: My ex-boyfriend
in high school,
I expected him to
understand that no is no,
but it--he just didn't.
♪
The meaning of love kind
of just went away for me,
but then I thought that this is a
guy that's supposed to love me.
Maybe I shouldn't feel this way.
I was very back
and forth with myself
until I was so uncomfortable
that I couldn't take it anymore.
I started having
sleep paralysis.
I would see him standing
over me and pinning me down,
and I would hear screaming.
I became very suicidal.
♪
It can absolutely lead
to a very dark place.
I may have an adolescent
or a child that comes to me
who's witnessed
some horrific thing,
something that no
one could ever imagine,
suffered at the hand of a parent
or an auntie or an uncle or
a coach or a trusted person,
even your friend.
And someone says to
them, "That's a long time ago.
You just need to get over that."
That's not how it works.
Time
can erase a little
bit of the--the pain,
but they are forever changed.
♪
Makalynn: My dad's
full-blown addiction,
it was just normal,
commonplace for me growing up,
but looking back now,
his effect on my life
was very traumatic.
♪
So my resilience
definitely surprises me.
Knowing what it means
to-- to hit one of these highs
or to hit one of these lows
and being able to bounce back,
um, standing tall,
that's amazing to me.
Insel: The people who
you think have had some
of the worst experiences can
use those to cope and to grow
and develop and succeed,
and others really struggle.
Vinson: You might have
a hard time identifying
that something is wrong,
but there is a point at
which the symptoms become
so significant that
it makes it hard
to get anything done.
Dunning: The
challenges of life cross
every single one of us,
but in that same breath,
we can learn how to deal
with those challenges,
just as you would learn
how to deal with anything.
So let's look through
all of the symptoms,
and now we will
go forward together
and figure out how to tame it
because it can be figured out.
[Audience laughing]
I didn't know much
about mental illness.
Like, I knew it existed,
but I was very
ignorant about it.
Like, people would
say stuff to me like,
"Oh, he's depressed"
and I'd be like,
"Why? Is his Wi-Fi not working?"
[Laughter]
The thing is I had to figure out
what was going on with me, OK,
because this is
not an illness where
you just pop a couple
of pills and you're OK
in a week, you know?
This thing stays
with you, all right?
So I do a lot of reading up
Yaadieah: I came
from around D.C.
where I had people
of different ethnicities,
different languages.
I didn't really feel
like I stood out,
but when I first got to college,
I felt like a sore thumb.
Everyone was white.
It was just something
I wasn't really
comfortable with.
It slowly started
getting worse and worse
over the weeks.
I would just get very anxious,
I wouldn't go to class,
I stopped going out
with my roommate.
I just stopped going out
of my room sort of at all.
I don't really think there's
a good way you can
explain that to someone.
♪
Leah: I didn't know that
you could put a name
to how I was feeling
when I didn't want
to go to school.
Lucas: Anything that was not
part of my set plan in my head
of how my morning was gonna go,
I wouldn't do it.
Samantha: I thought it was
just, "Oh, I'm a little nervous.
Oh, I'm a little sad,"
and then you feel such
intense, deep emotions,
andyou know, you
realize it's more than that.
We all have a little
anxiety here and there.
Some might ask "What is normal?"
When anxiety becomes
bigger than you are,
we have a problem.
♪
Maclayn: If I didn't participate
in class when other kids
were raising their
hands, I'd get anxious
about how, like, it
would, like, make me look.
Anna: I don't sleep
over at people's houses.
I like just being near my mom.
I just, like, always know
where she has to be,
always know where she is.
Like, I track her on my phone.
I think it was around 13 or 14,
you know, when everything
started happening.
It just came out of nowhere.
I was scared a lot.
I would literally stay
awake for 4 days at a time.
That's day and night, no joke.
Dunning: It may manifest
itself in physical symptoms,
where you might have headache,
you might have tummy ache,
you might have body ache.
Thinking about going
to school was, like,
I would get physically ill.
My hands would shake, or
my whole body would shake,
and I couldn't stop the shaking.
Samantha: I got hives
in social studies class
in ninth grade,
and I went to the
nurse, and she's like,
"You're just having
a panic attack."
And I was like, "What?"
I have had, um, issues
with anxiety and panic attacks
since elementary school.
Leah: It was a combination
of having to move with my dad,
being bullied by a teacher,
and then being left alone a lot,
all kind of
culminated to the point
where I was just-- I
was a nervous wreck.
When you get to that point
where, you know, you're
in a panic attack
and you're like,
"How do I make this stop?"
[School bell ringing]
Dunning: It can be
repetitive thoughts.
In your brain, it gets
caught on a loop,
and it just goes over
and over and over
until it wears people out.
Anna: If you're, like, about
to take a test, you would think
the end of the world was coming.
"I'm gonna fail this,
"I'm never gonna get
into college or anything,
I'm never gonna
have a good life."
Lucas: I'm like, "I
didn't do the homework.
I can't take that test."
I couldn't just do my
best. I had to do perfect.
Dunning: "If I choose this,
what if I don't choose that?
"Well, if I choose
this, well, what if that's
"not the right decision?
"Wonder what the
teacher's thinking of me.
"I wonder if she's
gonna call on me.
"Ooh. my mom's home.
"l didn't put the
toothpaste back just right.
Is that gonna be OK?"
That's anxiety.
♪
Davidson: What is it
that you're nervous about?
Sometimes, they'll say,
"I'm just generally anxious."
When you're generally anxious,
what does that feel like?
It felt like this force that
was just pushing on me
constantly whenever
something was wrong.
You become so afraid
of the outside world
that you just stay in
where you are safe.
Anxiety, uh, has a
number of symptoms.
One of the ones that
can be most disabling
is avoidance.
So if I know a situation
makes me feel anxious,
I just don't go into
situations like that,
and that can have really
negative implications
for school or for
interacting with other people.
♪
Lucas: I was a good
student in middle school.
I did my work,
stayed out of trouble.
I was a good kid.
As, Bs, never had an issue,
but in high school if I
was 30 seconds late,
a minute late, if something
was out of place when I woke up,
like a strand of
hair was this way
and I wanted it that way,
I'd just lock myself in my
room and say, "l can't go."
And it was always
a constant battle
between me and my parents.
And my parents
were always there.
"Hey. Do you
want to go do this?"
"Say, your friend texted me
and asked me if you want to
go over to their house."
And I'd be like, "I don't
want to do anything today.
I'm just gonna sit
inside" on my computer
with what I could control,
and when my dad
first started bringing up
the whole anxiety
thing, I would always
just shut it down right away.
I'd be like, "I don't
have anxiety."
Got to the point where I
ended up in truancy court
my sophomore year with, I think,
about, like,
60-something days absent.
It was bad.
Davidson: Sometimes, a kid
has a real change in their mood
and their personality.
Not being themselves
and not being the kid
who we're used to seeing
could be something as simple
as just having a really bad day,
or it could be something
much more intense.
They need to have
some sort of caring adult
that they can connect to
because that's the first big step
to getting help.
♪
Lucas: I always
thought anxiety was just
a small, little thing
that you could feel
when you're nervous
about something.
I didn't realize
that it can be part
of a way bigger picture.
Fernandes: Every
single day is a battle.
On some days I love
my life, and on others,
I just can't get out of bed.
I shut down emotionally,
worry about things that
are not likely to happen,
and I'm tortured and
paralyzed by my own thoughts.
It's like you know how to swim,
yet you're drowning,
but you don't die.
Audience member: Ooh!
[Typing on keyboard]
Woman: When I was
little, someone asked me
what I wanted to
be when I grew up,
and I said, "Small."
If you develop
an eating disorder
when you are not
thin to begin with,
you are a success story.
So when I evaporated,
of course, everyone
congratulated me
on getting healthy.
Girls at school who
never spoke to me before
stopped me in the
hallway to ask how I did it.
I say, "I am sick."
They say, "No,
you're an inspiration."
♪
How could I not fall
in love with my illness?
♪
Billie: I remember our
bathroom had a scale in it,
and one day, I was
curious and decided to step
on the scale and see the number,
and when I saw the number,
I really didn't like it,
and I started weighing myself
every day, trying to see
the number go down.
I'd go upwards of 4 or
5 days without eating.
It's this feeling of guilt
whenever anything would go
into my body that's
meant to fuel me,
meant to heal me or help me.
[indistinct chatter]
Vinson: Eating disorders
really run a spectrum.
So you have some
eating disorders where kids
are not eating enough,
you have some where
they're eating too much,
but there's a way that
they may be using food,
to help them feel better
because of other things
that are going on.
Yaadieah: Growing up I was
always fixated on my body image,
even from a really young age.
At college, I was sort
of eating for comfort,
and then I would get
upset at how much I ate,
feel ashamed, and I
would have to find a way
to get rid of it, so purging
was just sort of the next step.
Purging just gets a
little bit difficult to hide,
so I would just
exercise to burn off
that same amount of calories.
♪
I would wake up in
the middle of the night
when my roommate was sleeping,
and I would start working out
because she was starting to
get worried about how much
I was exercising.
♪
Billie: A few months ago,
I was in my English class,
and I hadn't eaten
anything all morning,
and I was sitting at my
desk, and I started to feel like
I was going to pass out,
but I was too embarrassed
to pass out in front
of my whole class,
so I groggily got
up out of my desk
and somehow
walked to the bathroom
and then passed out
in the very back stall.
♪
I wanted to just sort
of shrink up and freeze
and be smaller and not
be noticed by people.
Yaadieah: I lost about 30
pounds in, like, a month and a half,
and my friend just
sort of like pulled me
to the side and had,
like, an intervention.
She was telling me how
much, like, weight I lost
and how worried
she was about me,
and, like, the whole
time I was like, "What is
this girl talking about?"
Because I was just so drained.
I had no energy to
really think properly.
My thoughts were scattered,
I was always crying
or upset or emotional
at something.
I could feel my body,
sort of, like, deteriorating
and wasting away.
Vinson: It doesn't necessarily
come with them being thin
or what society may think
kids are trying to get to
with having eating disorders.
For some, it is about
control that they're
trying to exert in some way.
Insel: When my
daughter was a teenager,
she had anorexia,
and I couldn't see it.
So why couldn't I
see that my daughter
was dying of anorexia?
♪
Partly because it doesn't
come packaged that way.
Anorexia is all
about perfectionism.
And she was superb
in every dimension.
And as a parent, I was
completely missing the fact
that what she was
striving so hard to do
was gonna k*ll her
unless she got help for it.
I have treated a lot of
people with anorexia nervosa.
I knew what that looked like,
and I should have known better,
but with my own
daughter, I missed it
until she was the one
who stood up and said,
"I need help."
Yaadieah: I spend a lot
of time in the grocery store
when I go.
It's overwhelming.
I have to check the
labels for everything.
I also feel like people
are watching me,
everyone's, you know,
watching my grocery cart.
It's just a very
overwhelming experience.
Well, you don't have
to do drugs and alcohol,
but you do have to eat,
and you have to eat every day,
so food is not really
something that I can escape.
Woman: Often I have been
gripped by the terrifying fist
of a sadness so complete
it shut out the sun
entirely like an eclipse.
I had landed on the
other side of myself,
a stranger to me.
Jewel.
♪
Isabel: I needed to
decide what I needed to do,
so I left.
3 kids and 4 suitcases.
♪
Xavier: When my
parents got divorced,
it was an upsetting
thing for me.
I kind of became
distant from my mother.
I started developing
the personality
that people are just dumb.
I don't see that I have
to care for other people.
I don't like physical
touch much anymore.
I don't trust a lot of people.
And I get intrusive
thoughts that make me upset.
It just kind of downward
spirals into an even worse mood.
And then I just
kind of shut down.
Isabel: That defeated
feeling is so vastly different
than the kid that I know.
This is the kid who didn't
want to bring home a report card
‘cause he had a 99
as his lowest grade.
And that's when I know
that's depression speaking.
♪
Vinson: People's
experiences of depression
can manifest with feeling sad.
People often feel tired,
their energy goes down.
And sometimes it is
interpreted as them
being oppositional
or disrespectful,
and I see it happen a lot
in children and adolescents.
♪
Kennedy: Whether it's
exactly like everyone else,
probably not,
you can't ascribe the
same characteristics
for every person
because everyone's got
variations on the same.
Just waking up
and hating everything,
yourself, your life, everything.
The feeling is being
pulled into, like, quicksand.
There's always
something pulling you down
and holding you in that
dark spot that you're in.
♪
Samantha: It
physically pains me.
You feel like you're being
stabbed right in the chest.
You feel like a void.
It hurts.
I want to crawl up
in a ball and just sob.
Billie: It feels like you
want to cry, you have to cry,
but then when you
try to cry and release it,
there's nothing there.
Kevin: You just feel
like black and white,
all or nothing,
thinking about the world
and how everything is doomed
and everything's
a waste of time.
You're never really happy,
and you're always just
upset and don't feel like you.
Ava: You don't want to go
anywhere besides your bed.
And your mind
is, like, just dark.
I was feeling so, like,
lost in, like, my thoughts.
I had no idea what was going on.
Dunning: You can't console them.
Maybe they can't
concentrate, they can't think,
so--so they hide.
Alexis: I just didn't
want to leave my room
because that was
where I was alone,
where, you know, I could
let all my emotions out
if I wanted to.
I was trying to
figure things out,
but you're still in it.
♪
It's honestly the worst
feeling you could ever feel.
It's not a--it's-- you feel like
you're never gonna
come out of that.
When you--when your self-worth
and the way you look at
yourself is non-existent,
um, that's--that's miserable.
[Clicking]
Angry, that's what it was.
I was angry a lot as a kid.
The depression
coupled with anger,
just bouncing back and forth.
I just became so angry,
and I didn't let
myself feel sad.
It was all anger.
I'd create drama
in my friend group
because I needed something
to distract myself with.
♪
Vinson: People do not
realize that irritability and anger
are sometimes the emotions
that depressed people
really lead with more
so than being sad.
♪
Samantha: There was a boy
who I had social studies with,
and we went to a party together,
nothing happened,
and then he told the
whole school every--
something happened.
And I couldn't take it.
[Chuckles]
I actually went to his
house with a baseball bat.
But he wasn't home.
But yeah.
Dunning: Depression in
junior high and high school,
that anger really
starts to come out.
It's hard to figure out
what is really the normal
mood swings with teens
versus what is the actual--
is it a true mental
health challenge?
I lived in this
one-bedroom apartment
with my mother and my sister,
and I literally locked myself
in a very kind of large
closet just to be away.
I'd sit there and I
would just cry in a closet.
And then I'd go to school.
You know, you put
on a face, a facade.
You're happy, you're bubbly.
And then you eat lunch
alone in the bathroom.
Kennedy: For self-preservation,
you don't want people
to know the ugly truth
behind door number 3,
so you're doing your
best to distract them
in all kinds of
manipulative ways.
Morgan: I was about 14
or 15 years old, I think,
is when my mental health
issues really started to hit.
I definitely maintained
that everything is fine,
like, "I'm happy"
image at school,
but I just kept all these
painful feelings from everybody.
Because all you're
thinking about is yourself.
You think you
have all your friends,
but you really feel
that you can't even talk
to your friends
about any of this.
So that feeling of desperation,
that feeling of loneliness,
that no one understands,
started there.
I couldn't see a
future for myself.
I just couldn't imagine it.
Maclayn: I was struggling,
and I didn't really
want to tell anybody,
but then it just got too
overwhelming for me,
and I just would, like,
break down every night.
Even my mom, for
example, was just like,
"Just move on."
I went over to her house,
and we watched a movie,
and it was fine, but I
was, like, really depressed,
and she's like, "So
did that cheer you up?
Are you feeling better?"
And I'm like, "No.
I'm still f*cking sad."
Sometimes you grieve for
the person you used to be,
and that just makes you
so much more depressed.
It's a painful, downward
spiral every time.
♪
Dunning: How hard it is
for you to get out of bed
and just be awake and alive?
I'm asking you to
do one step further.
You are worthy of love.
You have value.
So seek it out, find it.
♪
Loving who you
are starts with you.
♪
Yanerry: Have a conversation
with yourself about it.
That way it could help
you feel more comfortable
to speak to other people.
Align with yourself first,
and then align with someone--
your parent or a teacher,
a trusted person.
And it could be a friend.
The people that are in
your life truly want to know.
Collin: Finding your person
that can help you
through times like that
is extremely important.
And once you start
talking, then you'll realize
that that's your person
and that they can help
you through these struggles
and that you aren't alone.
Just hold on, you know,
give yourself time
and talk about it.
♪
Woman: I have never seen
battles quite as terrifyingly beautiful
as the ones I fight when
my mind splinters and races
to swallow me into my
own madness again.
♪
Nicole Lyons.
♪
Amethyst: Signs that
something was wrong
started a little bit
before my dad died,
but they didn't really
kick into overdrive
until about a year later.
[Rock music playing
on headphones]
I tended to be really
hyper and energetic.
Ahh ♪
♪
Amethyst: It often
ends up making me lose
any sense of impulse control,
then ends up in full yelling
matches with my stepmom.
And then everything
would just kind of crash
[Cheers and applause]
and I would get into a
more depressive state.
♪
Makalynn: There's
no threshold for me.
There's no limit.
When I haven't been
to sleep in 3 days
and, you know, nobody else
is wanting to hang
out with me anymore
because I'm just being too much,
then that's--that's where
it becomes a problem.
[Thunder]
I engage in just reckless
sexual behaviors.
I'll feel so restless
that one time I drove
in the middle of the
night to Pittsburgh
just to turn around
just because I
needed to go do that.
♪
Dunning: Mania.
We're going really fast,
pressured speech,
thinking grandiose thoughts.
[Fireworks popping]
We have this grandiosity
that we can do anything.
So who would not
want to feel like that?
Vinson: When they are manic,
people don't have good insight.
So the people around them can
see that something is different,
but the person themselves
might have a hard time
identifying that
something is wrong.
♪
Kevin: When you're manic,
you don't really feel
like you have a problem.
There was a lot of
tangential thinking,
a lot of rapid speaking,
a lot of jumping
from topic to topic.
But at the time, I didn't
have the knowledge base
to understand that.
Vinson: Their mind
is moving too fast
for them to actually
complete anything.
♪
And usually after
a manic episode,
there is going to be
a fall into depression.
And it's almost
enjoyable for a little bit.
But then there are also
always feelings of defeat,
where I cannot force
myself to get out of bed
and do what I need to do.
And I can't deal with the world.
Constructive criticism
automatically turns
into a deep-seated
angry insult towards me.
Looking back when I was a kid,
I would get so upset
and so frustrated,
and crying and
screaming wouldn't help.
So I resorted to
aggression in a lot of ways.
♪
Amethyst: I can overreact if
something sets me off the wrong way.
Sometimes I would slam
some of my things on the floor.
I would often slam doors shut
because I needed some
sort of physical release.
It was almost like I was
watching everything I did
in third person.
I couldn't think at all before
I said or did something.
♪
Things got to be a bit too much,
so my stepmom
tried the last thing
that she thought possible.
She decided to send me to
a Christian boarding school,
thinking that maybe if I
gained any faith in God,
that it would help
fix my behavior.
♪
The boarding school was
very tolerant of me at first,
but I had the worst episode
that I'd had in a while,
and I was thrashing around
and throwing things
pretty violently.
♪
So they decided that I
had to leave the school.
Since my stepmom
had moved to New York,
I ended up living with my
biological mom and brother.
When she first got here,
um, things were all right
for about, you know,
the first 3 or 4 weeks,
and then the wheels
kind of came off.
[Laughs]
A lot of screaming,
especially at bedtime,
to the degree that I was
afraid that the neighbors
were gonna get
pissed off or concerned.
Amethyst: People who go
through this kind of thing,
they don't want to,
and they would never
wish it upon anybody.
It's just something that
we certainly can't help.
Melanie: This is a
brain chemical issue.
This is an outburst
caused by her brain.
It's not her doing it just to
be an obnoxious teenager.
It's beyond her
ability to control.
Amethyst: With my manic
episodes, it would be nighttime,
and I would be
sent to go to bed,
and I would be doing
all sorts of artsy things.
♪
I even started cutting up some
of my old clothes and bedsheets.
For a little while, she
had this notion of being
like a fashion designer.
She would cut her clothing,
she would cut the bedding.
Not cool. Not
cool at all. [Laughs]
Kevin: You have these
highs where you feel like,
I'm in tune with all
my creative powers,
and I would sit down and
I would work on a painting,
and I'd kind of be transported
into this time and space
where time and
space didn't really exist.
I'd just focus on the art.
Painting, drawing, comics,
anything that has to do
with expressing yourself,
I'm all for.
I love making music, videos.
How I come up,
but now that I got ♪
But there's also that
depression that sets in,
that crash that
happens after the mania.
And this all happens
over and over.
♪
Makalynn: I was just
hyperactive all the time as a kid.
I used the phrase, "There's
a w*r going on in my brain."
[Crying]
That was the only way
that I could make sense
of what was happening.
Aah!
Makalynn: I would
act in a way that I knew
was inappropriate
or unnecessary,
but I couldn't control
those feelings.
And then towards the
end of middle school,
I found drugs and alcohol,
and I was able to, like,
silence the--the w*r in my brain.
I was able to mute that.
[Dripping]
Justin: We all deal with
things in different ways.
And we are all introduced
to different things.
So maybe it was
an initial choice.
Let's be honest.
Maybe the first usage.
Maybe it wasn't your choice.
But that continual usage
becomes a coping method.
♪
Dunning: So maybe
you start drinking,
or maybe you start smoking weed.
That's how it begins.
♪
Self-medicating can look
like prescription drugs,
exercise, even
addiction to porn,
anything that is out of balance
of what your life would
look like without it,
because you're trying
so hard to figure out
how to fix what you may not
even know you're trying to fix.
Billie: It originally
started with just,
like, taking a sip or
two just, like, walking by,
and then it turned
into, like, half a bottle
of whiskey from our pantry.
Samantha: I stayed inside,
but I could go out if
I had smoked weed.
Yanerry: My friends were
smoking, like, marijuana,
and when they told
me that it just brings you
a place to pure happiness,
I was completely
open with trying it.
Davidson: The two big
things that a lot of our kids
are struggling
with are marijuana
and electronic e-cigarettes
and things like that.
And whether that's
to mask or hide
a mental health issue
or that is the
mental health issue,
you're not always sure.
Leah: My best
friend, we were both,
like, depressed and anxious.
We tried smoking weed.
We tried doing Xanax.
And our classmate had cocaine,
and we're like, "Let's try it!"
The fact that I told myself I
never wanted to be my mother,
and then here I was, on
my way to being my mother.
But when you're at that
stage, you don't care.
Justin: It was my freshman
year of high school.
I lost my best friend,
and then after he passed away,
um, I started to experiment
with drugs and alcohol.
It's the easiest thing
to cope and deal with
your, uh, pain and problems,
but it's just putting a Band-Aid
on a g*nsh*t wound, basically.
I just remember it as
being, like, my first sign
of mental health
symptoms looking back.
I started doing drugs
in seventh grade.
I was self-medicating from
the overwhelming feeling
of being stuck.
It's like all your feelings
are, like, stirred up in this pot,
and you're just,
like, sitting in it,
and you can't get out.
And when I was high, I
didn't--I didn't feel that.
I didn't care.
People who are
experiencing distress
are going to look
for ways to feel relief.
What people choose
is going to depend on
what's available to them,
what's been modeled to them,
and what from their own
experience works for them.
And sometimes
things work short-term,
uh, but not long-term.
And those are the things
that we'll often refer to
as maladaptive
coping mechanisms.
Makalynn: In middle
school, I started drinking
and using drugs.
That was the--the
major relief that I found,
um, from my own head.
It felt like it took
away all my emotion
for a second, and,
like, when I would think
about a sad thought,
two seconds later,
be like, "Wait, what
was I thinking about?"
Like, you know?
As if someone took me
and put me in a
different person's body
who was just happy.
Vinson: Often there's
this sort of narrative,
"Stop that," "Don't do that,"
"It's bad," "Just say no."
Well, if the child
still has the symptom
and you're not giving
them something else
to help them with that symptom,
they're gonna go back to what
they believe works for them.
Dunning: Why would you not
want to take care of something
that is making your
life a living hell?
It's like a state of, like,
"Oh, my gosh, I don't--
"I don't have to
think about that.
"I don't have to do that.
I can--l can be at
peace in my brain."
What a gift!
[Rain falling]
Until it becomes a challenge.
♪
Man: Young people
all across the country
have been swept into addiction.
Woman: 50% of teens
have misused a drug.
Woman 2: especially young
people are gaining access
in their parents' cabinet
Woman 3: Many
young heroin users start
With opiate
painkillers like Vicodin.
Woman 4: Teens and young
adults dying from an opioid
Woman 5: The U.S.
is in an ongoing crisis.
Lydia: When I was
in, like, eighth grade,
I had started taking
pills every day.
And it was
it was really bad.
Any pill I saw,
it's like a pull,
a physical thing where
you just, like, go for it.
You don't even think about,
"Oh, I want to take
these pills right now."
It's just you take it,
you put it in your hand,
you pop them in your
mouth, you know?
Kennedy: People with
addiction are chasing
what is an obsession.
You are not in control
of your own thinking.
And it's a terrifying concept
because how do
you get out of it?
You can't think
your way out of it
using the same thinking
that got yourself into it.
♪
Davidson: I've had
substance abuse issues
when I was an early teenager,
and I'm pretty open about that.
I smoked pot for the
first time when I was 10.
And when I was 13,
I was sh**ting up
heroin almost daily.
Part of it was social pressures,
part of it was also
not just feeling OK
in my own skin and
wanting to feel OK.
♪
Justin: But there comes a
point where things stop working.
I tried cocaine, ecstasy.
I didn't leave my apartment
for, like, two weeks.
I got fired from
a really good job.
And I constantly
blamed other people,
the employers, but the
whole time I was in denial
about my addiction
and had this onset
that was brewing.
Makalynn: Drugs and
alcohol definitely helped me
mask the symptoms.
But after a good 3
months of silence,
aggression once again
reared its ugly head.
It evolved to taking
whatever pill I could find
in the medicine cabinet,
stealing my mom's liquor,
trying to reach that
state of oblivion 24/7.
♪
Julie: I was in
my teenage years.
My husband was 10
years older than me.
He had his own mental illness
and issues going on.
One day I found him.
He had hung himself
in our backyard.
My world was yanked
from underneath me.
It was very hard.
And even many years later
♪
You know, the
healing still continues.
After my husband
committed suicide,
that's when I met James
and started another
phase of my life.
I got pregnant again,
but, you know,
relationship challenges.
♪
We split up.
And things got bad again.
I wanted to feel better,
so I tried a bunch of
different street drugs--
ketamine, cocaine, crack.
♪
It was just like this
overwhelming feeling
of--[inhales] everything was OK.
That's when it
grabbed a hold of me.
As a young mother,
I lost my home,
I lost my job, I lost myself.
And my kids suffered a lot.
"This isn't my mom."
You know, "What
happened to my mom?"
"Where's my mom?"
You know?
"I want my mom."
♪
Lydia: I always felt like I
needed to hide something.
Whenever somebody would
be like, "Lydia, can I talk to you?"
My heart would start
racing. I'd be like,
"f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.
They found out."
Like, "They found
this, that, that."
And, like, I had so much that
I was hiding from everybody.
I think everyone
thinks, uh, "Not my kid,"
you know, "This won't
happen to my kid."
Lydia: The first time
they ever found out,
they found empty
pill bottles in my bag.
I think they just hoped
that I was just
testing things out.
They grounded me, and
they took my phone away.
It didn't matter how
many consequences I got,
nothing was enough to stop
me from taking what I wanted.
♪
My life was gonna end one way,
and that was being
addicted to drugs,
so why not start now?
[Thunder]
Davidson: I wish somebody
was there to help me
with the struggles
that I was having.
I feel like I had a point
of view that kids needed
to understand that
you can get through it
and get to the other
side of it and be OK.
There's people that can help you
to get through whatever it is
that's making you feel the
way you're feeling right now.
And we'll take it
one step at a time,
and it's not gonna be easy,
and it's gonna be
messy at times,
and that's OK,
because once you're
on the other side of it,
you're gonna realize how much
stronger you are as a person.
Man: I've been in the
back of a squad car ♪
Handcuffs digging in
my wrists not far from ♪
Feeling suicidal ♪
My life up and down
like a seesaw [Siren]
Late at night I
asked God for ♪
A response, but it's
like a dropped call ♪
Or one placed on hold ♪
My heart pumps
cold, blood boils ♪
Kevin: I went to art
school as an undergrad.
And I had, like,
a semester left,
and I just wanted to not
have to focus on school
and all the pressure
I was under.
And I remember I stayed
up for several days,
wandering around the city,
kind of going on long walks.
♪
Man: We talked every Saturday.
And on this particular
phone call he said,
"Dad, Dad, food
doesn't taste good."
I said, "What?" "I don't
want to talk about it.
I don't want to talk about it."
Kevin: And I believe I took
some homeless people out
to get breakfast one morning.
Pete: And then I
called back and he said,
"Dad, Dad, I think I took
some homeless people
to breakfast this
morning at McDonald's."
And I thought, "OK?"
And he said, "I don't
want to talk about it."
And then he called
back again, and he said,
"Dad, I'm having
trouble knowing reality,
what's real and not,
am I dreaming or not."
♪
Yanerry: It started out as me
hearing my friends say my name,
and then I noticed the
more sad that I was getting
over the years, the
worse it kind of got.
It went from just saying
my name to a woman
just screaming at
the top of her lungs.
Then I was alone in my bedroom,
and I just saw, like, a
shadow standing in the corner.
I was wide awake,
but I actually saw it.
Very terrifying.
♪
Vinson: Psychosis is when
someone has a break with reality.
It's hard for you to tell what
is generated by your brain
versus what is
actually in real life.
So you may have people
who are experiencing things
like hearing voices
or seeing things,
and it's so distressing to
them and alarming to them that,
uh, they may be
reacting to those voices
or to what they're seeing.
Dunning: Typically we see
it later in an adolescent's life,
maybe 17, 18, 19, 20,
responding to external stimuli
that--that doesn't
exist for you,
but it does for them.
♪
Justin: I was 22 years old,
and I experimented
with crystal meth.
I'd walk the alleys
in Miami Beach.
I started to see things
that weren't there.
I became very paranoid,
delusional about people
following me,
people out to k*ll me.
My family got involved.
♪
And they decided I
should go to rehab.
And I stopped doing drugs.
I felt better.
But the symptoms
came back again.
This time, I thought
my family was in trouble
in New Jersey,
and I told them they
had to be careful
because the mafia
was out to get them,
the t*rrorists
[g*nshots]
Al-Qaeda.
When there's no
drugs or alcohol present
and those symptoms
come back again,
that's how you
can tell if somebody
has a serious
mental health issue.
♪
Yanerry: They are 3
different shadows for me.
There's one shadow guy.
He's just like a
tall man in all black,
and he kind of just stands in
the corner and stares at me.
♪
And there's one of them
on his hands and knees
and kind of just crawls
around on the ceiling
or on the walls.
And then there's one shadow
where I can see in
my peripheral view,
but every time I go to look
at him, he just runs away.
♪
Then I started to see
shadows in school.
They run by me
or a shadow passes
through the walls and stuff.
I would bring it
up to my friends,
"Do you guys see
that over there?"
And they're like, "What?
What are you talking about?"
And that's when I was like, "Oh,
you know what? Never mind."
That was my breaking point.
So, I kept it a secret
most of my life.
♪
Pete: For 6 months,
Kevin seemed fine.
And then all of a sudden,
he got in the car one day
and he was driving,
and Kevin didn't know
whether he was
awake or dreaming.
So to test it, he took
his hands off the wheel,
and he closed his eyes.
I did sort of a
Jesus-take-the-wheel thing
where I let go of
the steering wheel,
and I ended up crashing
into a parked car.
I kind of was just doing it.
lt--it made sense at the time.
Justin: I mean, imagine if
you couldn't tell the difference
between what was really
happening in your life
and what was
happening in your mind.
You'd feel that everything
you knew was a lie
and that you'd been
lied to your whole life,
and that you found
some new information that
out of nowhere, you
could trust for some reason.
And then you're trying to
explain this to the people
that you have in your life.
And they distance themselves
farther and farther from you
because of your behaviors.
♪
Vinson: I think one of the
biggest misunderstandings
about psychotic symptoms
is that people think
that if you have them, you
must look crazy all the time.
There are people who
may still have symptoms
but are able to function,
who find coping ways
to deal with those things
and interact with other people.
♪
Yanerry: I was very
scared of it at first,
but after a while,
it became a part
of my everyday life.
Because I see it, it's my truth.
It's very much real to me.
♪
We are getting a look
at the damage caused
by a man yesterday who
climbed on the roof of a business
and went berserk.
This was the scene on
Lucas: If I ever saw somebody
acting out, acting angry
Reporter: He does
suffer from mental illness.
I would be like, "Oh,
that person's crazy.
"That person's
losing their mind.
They don't know
what they're doing."
I wasn't any, you know,
different than any, um,
I hate to say this,
but normal person
that thinks that negative
way about mental illness.
Back in high
school, I had a friend
who had some psychiatric issues,
and I made fun of her,
and I drew in her
yearbook a picture of her
wearing a straitjacket,
and I made light
of her situation.
I tell people all the time,
kids are cruel sometimes,
and I was cruel with them.
Reporter: take a toll
on individuals, families,
communities, and
society as a whole.
Reporter 2: , who is
battling his personal demons,
is also battling his neighbors,
and they say enough is enough.
Kennedy: There's
something particular
about a mental illness
that frightens people.
If we walk by a
person on the street
who is in active psychosis,
we turn the other way.
And if we walked by
someone who fell over
and is bleeding, we'd call 911.
This is the most clear-cut
case of a double standard
in the way that we treat people.
Billie: It is naturally
human nature to be afraid
of what we don't understand
because that's just what we are.
We take comfort in
the things we know.
The stigma comes
from a legitimate fear
that if other people know
that this illness is present,
they will treat you
differently, ostracize you.
They will not include you.
Kevin: I think stigma is
kind of like covering your ears
or your eyes and not
wanting to realize that
mental illness could
possibly affect you
or your family members
or your loved ones.
That if you got
a mental illness,
you're gonna be crazy
for the rest of your life.
It's like the self-fulfilling
prophecy as well.
If someone is
constantly telling you
you're this, you're that,
then you kind of
start to believe it.
Alexis: You're like, "Yeah,
I wouldn't want to
be around me either."
Like, I'm an emotional
wreck, you know?
You don't see that kind of shame
with most other medical illnesses.
I didn't really want to
talk about my feelings,
because I didn't want
people to look at me
in a different light.
You want to, like, hide
and just not be by
anybody and just be alone.
And if I were to hide
this or to be ashamed
or to not talk to
people about this,
it would be
festering inside of me
and it would eat at my soul
if I weren't able to
share it with other people.
Billie: You leave people
to make these assumptions
about those that suffer
with mental illness
rather than letting us actually
speak our story and say,
"Hey, this is how these
symptoms actually affect a human."
Everyone is different.
Everyone is unique
in their own ways.
No one ever understands
what someone went through
or how their feelings are.
And once you really get
that thought in your head,
it's hard to sit there
and be so cruel.
♪
Yanerry: I know you're scared,
and I know the fear of
being judged is a fear
that I wouldn't want
my worst enemy to feel.
But you should learn
to really love yourself
and accept it, because you
can spend your whole life
worrying about it.
When you look
back, you just wish
you could have accepted it
and lived your life as close
to your normal as possible.
Woman: There
was a very fine pain,
like the swift and fleeting burn
of a drop of hot candle wax.
The chaos in my head
spun itself into
a silk of silence.
Caroline Kettlewell.
♪
Billie: I felt so empty
and so unmotivated
that I didn't want to live,
but I didn't want to die either,
so I just didn't care.
But the act of cutting
reminded me that
I was here today.
♪
I had a knife laying around,
and I was playing with it,
and I, um, decided to see
how sharp it is on myself.
And I kept doing it.
♪
What sane person would
think that hurting themselves
would stop the pain?
♪
Vinson: So self-harm is something
that is often misunderstood.
Normally it falls into
one of two categories.
Um, and getting
somebody's attention
is not one of those two.
Uh, the first is
that they feel numb
and they just want
to feel something.
And the second is someone
who feels overwhelming
negative emotions,
like anger or
sadness or anxiety.
It allows them to feel
something else other than that.
I learned it in a
book that I read.
Um, once I started,
I couldn't stop.
Yanerry: I watched a
movie that had self-harm,
and I kind of, uh,
wanted to try it.
I was like, "Oh, well,
this is a way to, like,
get everything out."
It doesn't make you feel better.
It's just
relief as you could say.
Just doing it
just gets a weight off
your shoulders and stuff.
Makalynn: It was a little
bit before eighth grade
I started cutting myself.
You know when you
shake up a pop bottle
and you open
the lid up a little bit
and that fizz comes
out, that's kind of what,
you know, hurting myself did.
Leah: I'd just cut myself or
burn myself or bite myself
so that, um, I wouldn't
feel all this pain
that I felt inside of myself.
Alexis: I was just scratching
and scratching and scratching
until I would ultimately bleed.
I hated who I was,
and I hated how I felt
other people viewed me,
so that was the
damage I did to myself.
I actually kept a
hammer in my room
and, um, I would hit myself
in the legs with a hammer,
you know, because a bruise
was a lot easier to explain
to my mom or to
a teacher at school
than a cut on the
inside of my wrist.
One of the things that I
thought would take away
from the anxiety, like
going up to something
and just punching
it as hard as I could.
It didn't really help,
it just hurt to sh*t.
Vinson: Self-harm isn't
done with the intention
of someone ending their life.
It indicates that
there are very limited,
adaptive coping mechanisms
for dealing with
negative emotions
or for dealing with hard times.
I don't want to die, but, like,
I want to feel some
type of pain or whatever.
I don't really remember.
But then I did it right
in my bed, like, crying,
thinking about what
these people said to me
on social media and
how they don't care.
♪
Leah: It's addicting
to get that instant relief
from the pain.
But at the same time,
you are harming yourself.
And God forbid something
really bad could happen to you
just trying to get those
few seconds of no pain.
It had, um, gotten worse,
and that I, um,
was, like, doing it
on my arms and legs
and stomach now.
Leah: I was cutting on my leg
‘cause I was ashamed
of what I was doing.
And you get gauze, and
you wrap your arm up,
and you wrap your leg up,
and you wear sweaters
in the summertime.
And nobody asks.
And it's weird.
Leah: I don't remember my
dad asking me about the cutting.
I don't think that he
wanted to talk about it.
Samantha: Why is
nobody questioning it?
Dunning: People cut because
they want to feel better.
So I will ask you,
"What was that feeling
that you were trying to get to?"
Then we'll have
a great discussion,
and we can be
more fruitful in getting
to what's really going on.
At the end of the day,
it's really not worth it
because you're left with scars
and your pain is still there.
Morgan: I think
self-harming is more than
just cutting yourself.
Activities we do daily
that are just more socially
acceptable like drinking,
smoking, not sleeping enough,
not eating enough,
these are all
self-destructive behaviors
but they're just more
socially acceptable.
Amira: It's hard whenever
you have to balance things
like work and school
and other people even.
Anything can trigger, you know,
yourwhatever you've
got going on, really.
And if you're already upset,
if you're already in an
unstable head space,
it can trigger so
much more, you know?
Kennedy: I think we all can
see whether these illnesses
are causing us to be in
situations that, you know,
are not where we want to be.
Julie: I didn't know
what was going on,
I just wanted it to stop.
I didn't see any reason
to even try to be sane.
If I take one pill,
if I take one sip
of a drink, it's over.
And all the sudden,
you're in that cycle of denial,
where you really are
not in touch with reality.
You're not seeing
things clearly.
I was shutting away my friends
and the people who loved me.
I felt like I had a
disease, you know,
and I couldn't help myself.
It's gonna eventually come
to the time where it's over
and I just stop caring.
Kennedy: You have an
illness that lies to you,
that tells you you're the
one that's gotten yourself
in this situation.
As if you would wake
up in any given day
and decide to
jeopardize your career,
jeopardize your
relationship with your family.
No human being would
willingly put themselves in a place
where they could be
castigated, criticized,
demeaned, and marginalized.
You are hijacked
by your brain illness,
and then it's really not
hard to see where this goes.
Yaadieah: I knew my
day was gonna be bad.
I was having a hard
time just talking to anyone.
I wasn't talking to my friends.
And I also felt like
I was a burden,
everyone would
honestly be better off
if I just wasn't here.
My mother was never home.
I'd wonder if I just k*lled myself
and she just came home to me dead.
Billie: I was already under
suicide watch by my parents.
I skipped my meds
for a couple days
so I could build some up
and then took all of
the meds that I had,
and
I laid in bed and waited
for the meds to kick in.
♪
Mary: Maclayn went to school.
Then we got a call
from the counselor
that he had really talked about,
"I don't have a
purpose here, I'm done,"
and just kept saying the
words, "I'm done, I'm done."
I had thoughts of, like,
wanting to end my life
and that, like, I wasn't
meant to be on this Earth.
Mary: He never said
the word "suicide."
Joe: But when he starts
asking those questions,
I mean At 9.
You just--you just
want to crawl in a corner
and cry yourself.
It was terrible. We
don't know what to do.
♪
Angel: You may not know this,
but you mean a lot to
the people around you.
Your family, your friends, your
coworkers, your teammates,
all those people care about
you in some sort of way.
You need to understand
that your life matters.
Often, if you can just
prevent somebody
from making an attempt,
you can also not only save
their lives for that moment,
but they may not
make another one.
Davidson: I've had
kids that leave my office,
and I'll say to them,
"Hey, um, can you
make me a promise?
"I need you to promise to me
"that you're not gonna
hurt yourself tonight,
and that you're gonna come
check in with me tomorrow."
And that might be the one
thing that they hang on to
that makes them
get through the night.
♪
As much as it's just words,
it means a lot to them.
That's the first step.
♪
Isabel: I was looking
to get him help,
but before that
could ever happen,
he had voiced suicidal ideation.
What happened?
♪
Your kid doesn't want to live.
Second grade.
♪
At second grade, you
should be full of life,
you should be riding your bike
or busting your butt
on a skateboard,
not wanting to end your life.
You have a lot of life.
Alexis: It was just
too much to bear.
I have two younger brothers.
I wrote them good-bye letters,
just apologizing for
being so emotional,
being such a burden,
"I'm sorry for leaving."
And then
[Sighs]
when I--I put my
letters in their room,
I couldn't go through with it.
I couldn't do it,
because I was so worried
they would find me first.
That's literally the
only reason I'm here.
Justin: You matter.
You matter.
You may not
realize it right now,
but your struggles
are for a reason.
There are so many ways out,
and suicide is not one of them.
Well, it was actually
on social media.
These boys didn't
care how I felt,
they just wanted
me to feel guilty,
and they kept pushing,
pushing till, like,
l, like, couldn't
deal with it anymore.
I actually was,
like, really scared,
but I actually
tried to hurt myself.
♪
Yanerry: I overdosed
on ibuprofen.
My stepfather had, I
guess, searched online
that people can't
overdose on ibuprofen,
So no one came to help me.
I was by myself,
and I remember
lying on the floor.
And I was just, like,
begging God to take me.
♪
And then I saw, like,
a shadow standing
in the corner, but
I wasn't scared.
I actually felt comfort
from the shadow.
Even if it wasn't real,
it kind of made me feel like
someone was there for me.
♪
Morgan: I just took
basically the whole bottle
of my migraine medication.
I didn't make a
huge deal out of it,
and then I just went to sleep,
and the next thing
I know, I woke up
in the hospital, my eyes,
like, opening up really slow,
seeing my mom's face,
"What did you do?
What did you do?"
And then I just
went back to sleep.
And I was honestly pissed.
I just want kids to
know that it's just--
you're never alone
and that there's always gonna
be someone who cares about you
and that you're
gonna get through this.
Morgan: After that, two
years was rock bottom.
I was in a very
a*usive relationship.
My parents wouldn't
give me any space.
I was running out of
the house, I was crying,
my mom, she was chasing me.
♪
And I just threw myself
in the middle of the road.
[Crash]
My mom saw the whole
thing, and I was hit by a car.
Windshield was shattered.
Then my body was like
whomp, whomp, whomp.
And I think that was like
a breaking point, snap,
my biggest snapping point.
Lydia: So there was
barely any joy in my life,
and when it was, it
was like momentary,
it was very short-lived joy.
And then it ended, and
I was like, "Well, f*ck,
"l am just like--I'm just
gonna pop these pills,
and if I die, I die."
Erick: Watching your
kid struggle like this
and really not knowing
if they're gonna make it,
uh, it's the most terrifying
thing I've ever known.
♪
Pete: Then all of a sudden,
I became that parent.
You sit there and watch this
person slipping away from you
and you feel so helpless.
You don't get interested
in mental health
because--it's--it's not like
the ski club, you know?
You only get involved
because you get dragged into it.
This is not a calling
I ever wanted,
and, uh, then
once you get into it,
I can't believe you
don't feel a responsibility
to do something about it.
Lives are being lost.
♪
[Man vocalizing]
Dunning: If you're still in
the storm and you don't know
where to go next,
hold your hand up,
reach out.
Reach out.
There will be brighter days.
I know, you're like,
"You don't know me.
You have no idea of my
journey, you have no idea."
You're right, I don't.
You're right, I don't.
But I do know about lots
of other kids' journeys.
They are very different
than yours, I'm sure of that.
But what I know is
that you're worth it.
You have value.
You are worthy of love.
You are worthy of being alive.
You're fighting this fight
that you truly have no idea
whether you're
going to win or not.
You're beyond courageous,
you're beyond courageous,
and you're stronger
than you know,
so keep the fight, stay
strong in your resolve,
because you're worth it.
♪
♪
Man: & I don't really
know any way to convey ♪
The range of emotions
I go through each day ♪
Got my ideas, but I've
been known to stray ♪
Consequences
for my actions I pay ♪
Try to be accountable
for all that I say ♪
Handle my business
and make time to play ♪
Options and choices
I carefully weigh ♪
Mold my ambition
like handfuls of clay ♪
Stress I encounter,
it takes its effect ♪
Don't like the odds
but I still place my bets ♪
Wandering, lost,
without a safety net ♪
Play Russian roulette
with rusty bayonets ♪
I've been in the hold
of a bad circumstance ♪
Hopeless and lonely,
no romantic dance ♪
Sabotage so many
moves in advance ♪
Stuck in a cycle I
cannot understand ♪
Looked at your theories
and studied the loopholes ♪
Been patient and
caring and wise as a pupil ♪
Found something
beautiful even in the unusual ♪
I refuse labor
that is not fruitful ♪
I don't really know
any way to convey ♪
The range of emotions
I go through each day ♪
Got my ideas, but I've
been known to stray ♪
Consequences
for my actions I pay ♪
Can't always
communicate how I'd like ♪
Get misconstrued
when I take your advice ♪
My rage is an agent
of change and I'd like ♪
To not speak, but I can't
always says something nice ♪
When I offer even
the slightest critique ♪
I'm attacked and crucified ♪
By thoughts that are weak ♪
Tried for so long to
maintain my mystique ♪
But the people I meet
treat me like I speak Greek ♪
I don't know how
often I can reiterate ♪
The same ideas that I've
been trying to communicate ♪
Unsuccessfully I wrestle
with the human race ♪
In a way that seems doomed,
I don't want to lose face ♪
Chorus: & Can't convey ♪
Words today ♪
Can't convey ♪
Words today ♪
♪
Can't convey ♪
Words today ♪
Can't convey ♪
Words today ♪
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01x01 - The Storm
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First-person accounts from more than 20 young people, ranging in age from 11 to 27, who live with mental health conditions, as well as parents, teachers, friends, health care providers in their lives, and independent mental health experts.
First-person accounts from more than 20 young people, ranging in age from 11 to 27, who live with mental health conditions, as well as parents, teachers, friends, health care providers in their lives, and independent mental health experts.