- [Announcer] "Your Fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Sarah and Jim Kennedy.

(upbeat electronic music) (upbeat electronic music continues) - He was the happiest person in the room.

A college freshman gone just days after going back to school.

Now his family is on a mission, training people how to talk to their kids about suicide using an evidence-based approach.

(all chattering) And at a one of a kind summer camp, kids are learning how to face fears most people can't even see.

We take you to Camp Cope with Courage.

Hello, I'm Jaye Watson.

Welcome to "Your Fantastic Mind."

First up this week, post-traumatic stress disorder affects millions of Americans and even with treatment up to half can relapse or don't fully recover.

But now, new research is targeting the brain itself to try to quiet the brain's fear response.

(upbeat music) (siren wailing) - Three young Black teenagers at 16 years of age, with all of this potential for the future, has about 10 shotguns pulled on 'em, and a vehicle.

And if that doesn't give you post-traumatic stress syndrome, then I don't know what will.

- [Jaye] For actor, writer, and comedian Dex Spencer, the trauma dates back to high school, a routine night leaving a football game that turned into a life-altering encounter with police.

- I would have clients reach out with the same name and I would be triggered.

It was pretty bad for a while.

- [Jaye] For Kacey Carelson, who works in sales for a restaurant company, a violent relationship left lasting psychological and physical impact.

Different trauma, the same condition.

- I was having like flashbacks, I was having memories.

I couldn't go to stores that I knew like he would frequent.

I couldn't go places without being triggered at some memory that had happened there.

- [Jaye] For both, the past wasn't staying in the past.

Do you have things like that, environments and places that bring it back in a flash?

- It looked like a routine traffic stop.

So anything that looks remotely close to that?

Yes.

- [Jaye] And for many people with PTSD, that's where healing stops.

PTSD isn't just psychological, it's biological.

- The amygdala is a region that is involved in processing of anything threatening.

So if you see anything potentially threatening in the environment that make kinda like fires, and it's much stronger in people with PTSD.

(somber music) - [Jaye] The brain's fear center constantly signaling danger, and even with therapy or medication, up to half of patients don't fully recover or relapse over time.

- What it means on a day-to-day basis- - [Jaye] For nearly 15 years, Dr.

Sanne van Rooij, a clinical neuroscientist at Emory, has been studying the brain circuits behind trauma, trying to understand why some people recover and others don't.

- So they come in for two weeks every day.

So it takes about like an hour and a half or two hours.

- [Jaye] Now she's testing a new approach called Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, RTMS.

It uses targeted magnetic pulses placed on the outside of the head to gently change activity in specific areas of the brain.

RTMS is already FDA approved to treat depression, OCD, migraines, and nicotine dependence.

- We have good treatments for PTSD.

They're effective for like 50 to 70% of patients, trauma-focused therapies like psychotherapies.

But then we know also that like 30 to 50% does not recover from these treatments.

(machine clicking) - [Jaye] The idea, change the signal driving fear.

- So TMS, Trans Magnetic Stimulation, is a non-invasive neuromodulation therapy, which means you can modulate the brain using magnetic stimulation by placing a coil on the head.

Yes, ready?

- [Jaye] But there's a limit.

RTMS can only reach a few centimeters into the brain, not deep enough to directly target the amygdala.

So they found a workaround.

- We can use the stimulation on the outside of the brain, finding the area that is communicating with the amygdala and choose that as our location for treatment.

Hopefully that will actually help us, and we can down-regulate the amygdala, like sort of dampen it or dial it down.

(gentle electronic music) - [Jaye] This connected region is in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

- You doing okay?

- [Jaye] For each person, the team identified the personalized area in this region that most strongly communicated with the amygdala.

- We're talking about the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, but we define it really broadly.

So it's basically this whole frontal area of the brain on the right side.

And we purposefully defined it really broadly because we were interested in seeing if this location, that we pick for each participant, is different.

- [Jaye] And it is.

MRI scans precisely identified where to apply stimulation.

Then they target that spot twice a day for 10 days, delivering 36,000 magnetic pulses.

- [Kacey] I would sit there and work for an hour and they'd come check in on me and it would just keep tapping over and over again.

It was actually really relaxing.

- [Jaye] The study was double blind and randomized, meaning no one knew who was receiving real treatment.

50 participants, half active, half placebo.

All of the participants were tested in a startle booth, where an unexpected puff of air measures how easily they're startled.

(air hissing) After RTMS, followup MRI showed the amygdala became less reactive to neutral and fearful faces.

- We saw that the individuals who received the active TMS show like a lower response to the fearful faces in the amygdala after TMS, whereas the other group doesn't show a difference.

- [Jaye] The fear center quieted and symptoms dropped with it.

On average, PTSD scores fell nearly in half, from around 40 to about 20, below the threshold for clinical PTSD.

In the placebo group, that improvement didn't last.

(gentle music) - It wasn't at the forefront of my mind anymore.

It wasn't the first thing I thought about.

Like I had to actually remember, I won't say it made me forget because nothing will ever make you forget, but it made it not as prominent.

It made it not as, like it just, it didn't impact my life anymore.

- [Jaye] Today Kacey is engaged, building a new life.

- [Kacey] My life's fantastic now.

I'm in a healthy relationship and you know, I don't think I would've been able to talk about some of the things and heal parts of myself without this.

- [Jaye] The trauma didn't disappear, but it no longer controlled their lives.

- After these treatments, I feel like it opened the doorway and allowed the optimism to set in.

And when the optimism set in, it was able to be maintained because I had recurring treatments, and it worked.

It definitely moved the needle.

- [Jaye] Today, Dexter's acting career is taking off, with roles in film and television.

- There's this gigantic stigma around mental health.

My personal philosophy is it is a stigma that we have to remove.

- [Jaye] By calming the brain's fear circuitry, this approach may help people take their lives back.

- [Kacey] It was a part of my past, but I was able to move on.

(gentle music) - We turn now to suicide, the second leading cause of death among young people, and it's rising, especially among teens.

And while it affects everyone, nearly three out of four of those lost are boys.

A 19-year-old college freshman, a son, a brother, a friend, by every account, a light.

So what happens when no one sees the darkness?

This is one family's story and how they're turning loss into action, training others how to talk to their kids about suicide, using an evidence-based approach anyone can learn to help save a life.

(gentle electronic music) (birds chirping) - [Ben] How is it possible that the happiest person on the planet could end his own life - [Jaye] At his son's graveside, on December 8th, 2024, Ben Parkman began speaking.

- [Ben] And how did we, me first, but then all of us, how did we completely miss it?

- [Jaye] Blunt, anguished words from a parent whose child died by suicide.

- The suicide mind is hellbent on killing its host.

I recall the conversation I had.

- [Jaye] His wrenching videos would unite a community.

It was too late for his son, but there were so many others who could be saved.

(gentle music) Manny Parkman had just started college at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

- Always smiling, always happy, so fun, goofy, forgetful, (laughing) distracted and hysterical.

- [Jaye] An athlete, a musician, the kind of person people describe the same way, bright, joyful, magnetic.

- You know, I'd say he was the happiest kid I knew.

He had more friends than anybody I knew.

- [Jaye] The happiest person in the room gone a few days after returning to college from Thanksgiving break in 2024.

- Yeah, in hindsight you see things you don't see when it's happening.

- [Jaye] In the days after Manny died by suicide, his family sat Shiva, grieving, searching for answers.

- The phone knew that in the 48 hours before his death, he searched YouTube and Snapchat and TikTok on how you kill yourself, how asphyxiation happens, how long it would take, best methods to do it.

You know, you could just vomit, like it was clear that this was a kid who was struggling and in pain, is probably gonna kill himself.

It was right there in black and white.

He had a journal that read like Jekyll and Hyde, whether or not he should kill himself or not, whether he deserved to live or not.

(phone beeping) - [Jaye] In the day before he died, Manny called nearly everyone in his contacts, including his dad and brothers.

- I'm here because I wanna flip your world upside down.

And how?

So you never get that phone call.

- [Jaye] At a gathering of parents at a local high school, Ben shares the moment that upended his life.

- She said, are you "Ari Manuel Parkman's father?"

And I said, "Yes."

And she said, "My name is Jessica.

I am the Deputy Coroner of Boulder County."

And I said, "What can I do for you?

Is everything okay?"

And she said, "No, I'm sorry.

Manny is deceased.

He was found this morning along the hiking trail.

It appears to be a suicide."

My first reaction was to say, "You have the wrong kid, Jessica.

Manny Parkman is the happiest kid I know."

- [Jaye] Experts caution against sharing details of how someone dies by suicide to prevent copycat behavior.

What matters most is what led up to it.

Manny wasn't himself at parents' weekend.

His dad, Ben, says he called the school.

- You know that conversation ended more or less with, "Oh, kids are resilient.

The first semester is difficult for a lot of kids.

You know, I'm sure it'll be fine."

- [Jaye] At home for Thanksgiving, Manny didn't see his friends much, slept a lot, and wore the same clothes.

- I even joked with him over the Thanksgiving break.

I said, "Manny, you're wearing that same sweatshirt all week.

Do we need to go clothes shopping?

Do you need more clothes?"

(gentle music) - [Jaye] But on that break, he was also still Manny, hanging out with his family, holding court, what often looks like the typical highs and lows of growing up.

- We had a table here, we had that table, we had a table there.

We had like 25 people here for Thanksgiving.

And so Manny was the king comic of that table.

I have this image of him sitting right there, and the whole table literally bent over laughing.

(gentle music) And then on Sunday, he stood right there and we took pictures, family pictures of him, his brother, me.

If you're not looking for it and you don't think it's in the realm of possibilities, then you don't connect those dots.

- [Jaye] Manny had experienced profound loss.

His mother died from a long illness, a rare blood condition, when he was in high school during the COVID pandemic.

- The natural thing for any other parent to do is to say, "Oh, well that's why."

Well, if you take COVID, a parental loss, and then you could list three or three other things and you go, "Okay, that's why."

And I wouldn't argue that.

For Manny, that's why.

As I'm now in this club that no one wants to be in, and I've had the opportunity to meet other dads who have had this story, every kid's reason is different.

I was taken aback.

- [Jaye] Determined to prevent another family from living this, Ben began researching.

He found awareness, he found resources.

What he didn't find, how to have the conversation.

At Manny's graveside, he gave his mission a name.

- But by you being here today, you are hereby conscripted into Manny's Band.

Apparently we need a new set of skills, and the only way a new set of skills is to practice.

- Allow the person to talk freely.

- [Jaye] Manny's Band chose an evidence-based approach called QPR, Question, Persuade, Refer.

Simple steps designed to help anyone recognize the signs and intervene.

- Hope is actually what saves a life from someone who's suicidal.

You offer them hope, They continue to live.

- [Jaye] The goal, to take these conversations out of clinics and into living rooms.

House to house, parent to parent.

Because recognizing the signs is only the first step.

Knowing how to respond, to connect someone to help, may be what saves a life.

(upbeat rock music) On the first Thanksgiving after Manny's death, a concert to launch Manny's Band.

♪ Never be the same ♪ - Thank you, guys.

Thank you so much.

- [Jaye] A thousand students, many home for the first time since leaving for college.

(upbeat music) In between songs, a different message.

- But in Manny's 18 years, I never spent one hour talking to him about mental health.

- [Jaye] Turning grief into something that moves.

- [Dorian] Suicide needs to be a topic that all parents ask their children.

- [Jaye] Emory clinical psychologist, Dorian Lamis, wrote a book on college suicide.

The transition to college can be one of the most vulnerable periods in a young person's life.

- They are dealing with financial pressures, school pressures, and all these things together without their safety net that they had at home with their high school friends and parents.

That's gone pretty much, and it's just this perfect storm.

Sadly, Manny's story is not unusual, especially young men are really good at masking their suicidal thoughts because they sometimes view this emotional pain as weakness or they feel like they're a burden on other people.

- [Jaye] Which is why you have to ask the question to your children.

- Asking your kid directly, asking them are they having thoughts about suicide, are they having thoughts about harming themselves, opens up the line of communication if they are having these thoughts.

- How do you work with that?

- [Jaye] A question many parents are afraid to ask.

- One of the most persistent myths in suicide prevention is that asking someone directly about suicide is somehow going to plant the idea.

And really it's the opposite.

It opens up the door for communicating.

It shows that you care about this person and you want to get them the help that they need.

- You wanna be an active listener when you're talking to somebody about suicide.

(gentle music) - [Jaye] QPR works and anyone can do it.

- It is evidence-based.

There's a lot of research behind it showing that it does effectively decrease suicide among many populations.

- [Jaye] Lamis says colleges should do universal mental health screenings, noting that fewer than half of those who die by suicide ever tell someone they're struggling and fewer than half receive treatment.

- Another reason why QPR is so effective because it catches kids who are outside of the mental health system already.

- [Jaye] A conversation that may feel hard, do it anyway.

(gentle piano music) - Flat out, look at someone you love and you say, "You know, you maybe don't seem like yourself and I'm gonna ask you a question.

It's gonna be awkward, but I'm gonna ask you 'cause I love you.

Have you thought of hurting yourself or suicide?"

- [Jaye] It could be the most important conversation you ever have with your child.

- [Ben] We talked to our kids today about sex and drugs and fentanyl and drunk driving and all sorts of dangers that were once things you never talked about.

There's one more to add to the list.

(gentle music continues) - Anxiety disorders affect millions of children and often go unseen.

Our last story this week takes you inside a unique camp, where experts are using an evidence-based approach to help kids face their fears.

(gentle music) - [Counselor] All right, but now we're gonna pivot to our first like fun activity of the day.

- [Jaye] It looks like any other summer camp.

- All right, welcome back, everybody.

- [Jaye] Kids laughing, (child laughing) playing games, making a mess.

- We are making vomit.

- [Jaye] But the reality here is different.

Anxiety is now one of the most common challenges facing kids today.

Nearly one in three will struggle with it at some point.

- It's not something that we need to make go away.

- [Jaye] And for many, it can take over.

- They find it weird that I care so much about school 'cause of the anxiety that builds up about school and danger and family and how to cope with it.

- This is hard.

I might not like this.

- [Jaye] It can show up in different ways.

Fear of embarrassment, fear of getting sick, fear of contamination of food, fear of doing something wrong.

- It's kinda like you have this super sensitive alarm system or threat detection system where all of a sudden lots of things can make you feel worried or scared, and you can be kind of on edge or alert.

- I don't know what my anxiety looks like.

- [Jaye] And often it's invisible.

- It's like if you see someone with a broken leg, you would probably run into a person with a broken leg because you can see what they're going through.

But when you have anxiety and all this stuff going on, you can't see what they're going through.

- [Jaye] At Emory University- - So we're gonna go through a couple of different strategies.

- [Jaye] Two child clinical psychologist, Rebecca Schneider and Allison Lopilato- - He looks tense.

What do you look?

- [Jaye] Are trying something new.

- We are not going to be teaching you how to get rid of your anxiety.

- [Jaye] Creating Camp Cope with Courage.

- We are trying to bring evidence-based therapy techniques that we know that work, that have been tested rigorously by science.

But then we're also trying to translate them in a way that kids can respond to and is actually, I don't know, more effective for how they learn.

- It's cool 'cause it's this intensive dose of therapy, you know, where you're getting hours of support in this one-week format.

- [Jaye] 10 kids, one week, dozens of real life challenges.

It starts with learning what anxiety actually feels like.

- [Rebecca] So tracing the body is really an activity to try and help kids first understand where their anxiety shows up, what it looks like, what it feels like.

- [Jaye] Kids trace their bodies, then map their anxiety.

- I drew clouds in my head, my throat locks up, my shoulders go up, my stomach feels nauseous, and my knees lock up.

- The lines here and there are for like, I just need something to fidget with.

- Germs and the bugs, if you hit them, then you'll have to start over.

- [Jaye] Butterflies in the stomach, a racing heart, a mind that won't stop spinning, a sinking ship.

- What else do you think you miss out on?

- [Jaye] By tracing, they can see it, and once they can see it, they can start to face it.

At the core of this camp is exposure therapy and evidence-based treatment.

- Exposure therapy is taking a very intentional approach to having people face their feared experience, situation, stimuli, and to help really retrain their brain that this is not something that they need to be afraid about.

To kind of create that new learning pathway that says, okay, this is safe, or I can handle this.

- What else do you have here?

- [Jaye] Here, fear is not avoided.

Kids afraid of food sit down and eat together.

(all cheering) Kids afraid of embarrassment perform in an anti-talent show.

This may or may not be real vomit.

- [Jaye] Kids, afraid of germs play games covered in fake vomit.

(person laughing) - I can cut.

- [Jaye] And then one of the most powerful lessons.

- So we are about to play tug of war with your anxiety monsters.

We get really caught up in kind of fighting with our anxiety, our anxiety monsters, and we're battling back and forth with it, trying not to let it pull us under, trying to get rid of it.

- [Jaye] Fighting harder, trying to win.

- And a lot of times it's a brand new idea, to think about this idea of I don't have to fight the anxiety, I don't have to make it go away, I don't have to get rid of it.

I can actually coexist with it and choose how to live my life and spend my time.

- [Jaye] Sometimes the way forward is to stop fighting, to drop the rope and realize.

- You can battle your anxiety, but it's really just wasting your time and you can spend your time doing other things that you love if you ignore your anxiety, - Anxiety battles you and anxiety's like saying, "No, don't do this," tug.

And you're like, "No, I can do this."

But when you let go and just run and do what you wanna do, anxiety is like, "Whoa, whoa.

What just happened?"

- Everyone get with your counselor that you're coaching.

- [Jaye] But the most unexpected moment at this camp wasn't the kids facing their fears.

- The ultimate goal is for them to like hold a cockroach in their hand.

- [Jaye] It was the kids helping the adults face theirs.

- [James] With cockroaches, it's easier, like if you're really gentle, like if you don't move your hand fast.

- A very significant fear.

- [Jaye] Some of the therapists terrified of the cockroach handling activity, and James guiding them through it.

- They're very kind.

- So once I like showed her like the steps of like, feel the cockroach and then try to hold the cockroach, she became a lot more comfortable - [Speaker] The way they were coaching her through it with like such care and gentleness.

If they can develop that and use that on themselves, they can get through anything.

- [Jaye] The hours of fun, rigorous evidence-based therapy pays off.

- It feels great.

I mean, I can do things that others can't do because, you know, I'm not scared of it anymore, and I have like a lot more opportunities.

You know, I can share food, enjoy stuff, where I was before, I'd be scared to.

- I used to have a fear of not having a good impression, like a good first impression.

I don't really have that fear anymore.

- Usually I would just like get so mad that I would just yell and it'd become, pile up and it'd be worse.

♪ Stop, freeze time ♪ ♪ Let the moment rewind ♪ - [Jaye] Those small moments mean everything.

- It feels like that.

Like you just got the birthday gift you've wanted for like a year.

- [Jaye] Because untreated anxiety doesn't just stay in childhood.

- If we can kind of get in there and build this mindset of approach, I have to approach these things, I'm gonna live a full life, even with anxiety here, we're changing really the entire trajectory.

Not just how uncomfortable you feel and what you're doing here in the fourth grade.

It's really changing what you're gonna be able to do at 24.

- What if people don't like me?

- [Jaye] Changing trajectories, opening possibilities.

- I felt really proud and excited.

You know, really wanna cheer it on and help them realize like, wow, you just did this really amazing thing.

- Why did the chicken cross the road?

- [All] Why?

- To bock to the other side?

(all laughing) - [Jaye] At the start of the week, many of these kids could barely say what they were afraid of, and now they're in the anti-talent show, to do something they're not good at in front of everyone.

♪ Love is an open door ♪ (all cheering) - By the end, they're not just facing their fears, they're helping each other through them.

(all chattering) (upbeat music) And that's gonna do it for us this week.

See you next time on "Your Fantastic Mind."

(upbeat electronic music) (upbeat electronic music continues) - [Announcer] "Your Fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Sarah and Jim Kennedy.