[gentle electronic music] [somber music] NARRATOR: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 10 to 24.

Coming up on Our Time, Madison Legg and Tea Santos tackle the issue head on, revealing what happens when they break silence around the issue of teen suicide.

And stay tuned afterwards to hear interviews with the filmmakers.

[upbeat music] MAN: Why don't people understand me?

MAN: I'm tired of running so fast.

WOMAN: I wanna be heard.

MAN: Why are people afraid?

I'm ready for change.

I hear you.

I see you.

WOMAN: My time.

MAN: My time.

Our time is now.

Major funding for this program is provided by: The Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf and Betsy and Warren Dean.

Additional funding is provided by: The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation The Brenden Mann Foundation The Loo Family The Moniker Foundation The Buck Foundation The CALM Foundation Half the Sky Giving Circle, in honor of Chris Beyer And Will Stoller-Lee A complete list is available online.

[somber music] MADISON: November 2, 2014, 7:00 p.m.

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday, and to kick it off, my brother Jacob posted an image on Facebook saying he was going to end his life.

The picture of him was with a cut on his right wrist and a cut on his neck.

[emergency sirens blare] Around 10:30 p.m., the police showed up at our house looking for my brother.

I heard one cop saying my brother had mental issues.

I'm grateful my brother didn't end his life.

The sick thing though is I knew he was suicidal.

11:22 p.m. No, just, if you're referring to me, say you.

You.

Okay, but Maddy, you can't talk to me like this with gum in your mouth because I can't understand you.

MADISON: I feel like that I got rid of it.

I don't know.

[man laughs] My name is Rachel Legg, and I was a teacher for 35 years, and now I am retired.

We decided to adopt three children, Ana from Guatemala, Madison from Cambodia, and Jacob who is from Guatemala.

We had just arrived in the United States.

Here was this scared little 20-month-old baby boy who was going with this strange woman.

And then we got in a car and came to a strange home.

Took him into the house, and there were two little girls standing in the kitchen, waiting for Jacob to come home.

And I set him down on the ground, and he stood there almost paralyzed until Madison, you, walked over and put your arm around him and walked him into the living room.

And then he had big smiles on this face, and it was all right.

It was okay.

So, you know I love you.

You're my brother.

Do you love me?

Yes, yes.

Really?

Very much.

Aw, yay.

So I may say rude comments about you, you know.

That comes from the heart.

Oh, that's good to know, thanks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, no one in the family wanted to talk about, and you didn't wanna talk about it at first, so I know you were sort of reluctant.

So I'm very happy you did this.

I don't know, I just kind of wish people didn't play it off as if it never happened because it did.

And though it is in the past, you know, you shouldn't act like it isn't there 'cause it always will be.

[gentle ambient music] MADISON: What even brought you to the decision to harm yourself in the first place?

JACOB: There was a point at the junior high where I'd always eat lunch by myself if I was even eating lunch 'cause I would always like to by myself during that time.

When you don't know your origin of where you came from, you don't know yourself.

People who are not adopted, they know themselves because of genetics.

I might have gotten this from my dad.

I could have gotten this from my mom, but I don't know.

MADISON: Is that the reason you wanted to kill yourself?

I had gone through this really bad breakup.

I found out that she cheated on me.

She said, Jacob, it's true.

I did find someone better.

It was pretty overwhelming for me, and I just really didn't wanna live with the pain.

We would go down and try to get him to talk to us, and he wouldn't, and he would keep telling us everything's okay, everything's okay.

Your dad and I knew that was a big red flag, but you can't make a kid talk to you.

You can keep trying and trying and trying, and they said he seemed to be happy at school, so we couldn't figure out what was going on.

I had gone down and told him goodnight, and he seemed very happy.

And I went upstairs to go to bed.

And the next thing I knew, there were policemen knocking on the window, which we couldn't figure out what was happening.

We thought it might be something around our house, not inside our house.

And so when they told us about Jacob, I was in total disbelief.

It's crazy almost losing a life, then celebrating another a couple hours later.

At my dad's birthday dinner, we pretended it didn't happen.

It was a circus, and my brother's suicide attempt was the elephant in the room.

What does it mean to fail at trying to kill yourself?

After I realized that I'm not dying, that I know I'm going to live, it kind of told me that it's not my time yet, that I need to keep on living.

So, has it ever been a reoccurring thought of you wanting to kill yourself?

No, but I've always thought of what would happen if when I attempted suicide and actually succeeded with it what would have happened.

What do you think will happen?

Did that stop you?

Yes, it did because during the process, I started thinking, what are you doing?

Okay, this is gonna hurt so many people.

Why are you doing this?

I remember a cop came down the hallway and said you had mental issues, and it made me really mad 'cause you don't, I don't think.

And they kind of just wanted to send you off, and I couldn't do that 'cause you're my best friend.

The cops really didn't know me.

They just made assumptions, but with the parents, it's kind of a different story.

And with what they said kind of just showed me I'm very important to them, that they don't want to lose me.

But they also really still don't know me completely.

I just said, are you okay?

What can I do for you?

What's going on?

What's bothering you?

How come you didn't talk to us before this?

There was no indication whatsoever with Jake that he was going to do anything like this.

I just really never know how to bring up this kind of conversation with them 'cause with Dad, he'll cut me off and say no, no you don't.

Or say well, no, instead of doing that, you should do this, and think he's right.

Granted, there will be times he is, but there are times where he isn't.

And I'm not really explaining myself.

If I talk to him face to face about it, that's what's gonna happen.

I really haven't told anyone else.

If other people didn't wanna bring it up, then why should I?

Yep.

Thank you for telling me 'cause I'm happy to have my best friend 'cause you're like my twin, basically, and I don't know what I would do without you.

I need you.

I just was so happy that you're right in the other room, and you're there in present, and you're happy.

You know, it makes me feel like I didn't know you were thinking that.

I mean, I knew that you must have had thoughts about that line, but I never really knew what they were.

And now that I know, it's kind of, I'm glad to hear it.

You're needed a lot.

A lot of people adore you.

So, I've been debating through this whole entire interview whether I should tell you or not just because, of parents and stuff like that.

The day you tried to kill yourself, that was the last day I cut myself.

That's not blame at all to parents or anything like that 'cause you don't know it's gonna happen, but it's so easy to get blindsided.

I do know how you felt.

And we didn't talk to each other.

And we did have a lot more in common than you thought.

I'm happy I told you.

I didn't really know that you had cut yourself in the past.

And, I'm just kind of glad that I actually know.

A lot of people are good at putting on an act.

And you don't know that they're hurting themselves, or you don't know that their whole world could be crashing down just like how it felt for you.

The way I see it, the first step is always the hardest, and that first step is reaching out to at least one person.

[upbeat music] My life is better, and I don't see myself going back to that place.

But if at some turning point it does, you will be one of the first people I talk to about it to get help.

I think I wanna be surprised.

I'll take a big box of tissues though.

I have a question though.

MADISON: Oh, okay.

Did he ever wonder if he was loved by us?

Was that ever a concern of his?

MADISON: No.

Good.

I've seen a lot of difference with him.

I think his world right now is okay.

He's very open, talks to your dad.

They have lots of long conversations, which is very healthy.

He has you.

I'm very, very thankful for that.

NARRATOR: The Youth Documentary Academy empowers young filmmakers to identify and craft their own stories through intensive training and mentorship in the art of documentary film.

[dreamy music-box music] I walked into high school, and the first things I heard from everyone who passed by is I'm gonna kill myself.

You know, behind every joke, there's truth.

Hi, I am Tea Santos.

You were very happy, bouncy, excited about everything.

I am just informing you that, well, I'm pretty famous.

When you were born in 2001, we found out that you had a congenital heart defect.

It became apparent that it wasn't gonna heal itself, and that eventually they told us that you would have to have that surgically repaired.

You developed asthma.

You were diagnosed with failure to thrive.

When you were about five, you went to Venetucci Pumpkin Patch with Nano, and he came home and said I know she's got a lot of stuff going on, but she had a seizure in the pumpkin patch.

So then we took you for testing, and they told us that they you had a brain tumor.

[soft ambient music] That was the first round of epilepsy.

I remember they put me in this weird zip-up bed, and I was screaming a lot.

There was this kid next door named Kennedy who also had epilepsy.

And they had to take him away.

The other room over was Sarah.

She was on life support.

Sarah passed away.

I don't think anyone on my hall lived other than me.

I mean, it's hard to manage all of this stuff 'cause I wake up, and it's just in my head.

And it never stops.

WOMAN: In April of 2006, you had brain surgery.

You healed for about six months, and then you had heart surgery.

For you to have experienced that at such a young age was too much.

TEA: I really look back at it now, and I'm like, I definitely was not a normal child.

[somber guitar music] People ignored me when I came back and had these weird ugly stitches on my head.

I was bullied all through elementary school 'cause people said I was ugly, and they made fun of little things.

I went into my freshman year of high school, and I was diagnosed with epilepsy for the second time.

It was really stressful.

It kind of just was like a snowball effect.

You started to drift away from everyone.

You seemed very distant, which was very unusual for you.

I could see anxiety.

I could see you retreating into your room.

The lights were off, but I really thought it was kind of getting acclimated to high school.

[dramatic music] I remember cleaning your room one day, and you and I had started this gratitude jar from Pinterest, and I saw it on your desk, and I thought wow, you know, it must be going pretty good these first couple of weeks of school because the jar is full.

And then I kind of sat down, and I pulled the first little index card out of there, and my heart kind of stopped.

And it said stuff like, I'm ugly.

And I pulled the next one out, and it was like, people think I'm annoying.

And I pulled them out and pulled them out, and I think I counted 27 of them.

And they just got darker and darker and more desperate.

We took you to a therapist.

She just felt like you needed to be in the hospital, and that she wasn't the right resource, that you needed more acute help.

I remember in the lobby you crying like, please take me home.

I wanna go home with you and daddy.

And so we took you home, and then I don't know how long it was after that I got the call from your high school.

I remember driving from work, and I pulled up.

And there was an ambulance there and a fire truck in front of your high school.

They asked me if had ever had any suicide attempts, and I said yeah, in the bathroom, down the hall.

I tried to hang myself.

They put you on the gurney, and I walked out to the back of the hospital, and I watched you put them in the back of the ambulance.

And I just watched them shut the door, and I just said I love you, Tea.

I was looking out the back, and I was like, I have no clue where I'm going.

[somber ambient music] [somber ambient music] For the first few days, I didn't wanna talk to anyone.

I mean, I didn't wanna be there.

But I felt like everyone just wanted to throw me away But I felt like everyone just wanted to throw me away 'cause they couldn't handle me.

I mean, my school didn't want me to be there.

And it's like, if I'm not going to school, where am I going?

I guess a mental hospital.

There was a kid who talked about how many times he's tried to kill himself in his lifetime.

The nurses all smoked.

The nurses all smoked.

You could smell it on them.

WOMAN: When we talked to you, your voice sounded different, heavy.

You were talking slower.

It seemed like the medications they had you on, you seemed even further away from yourself.

you seemed even further away from yourself.

I've been in hospitals, but, that's not a hospital.

That's a prison.

Both my parents have said that it was a mistake to send me away because I came out of there with, things that would have been safer if I didn't know about.

[somber guitar music] The day I came home, my dad was the one who picked me up.

Having you back was like a gift.

It was very exciting.

When Daddy brought you home, I remember your arm being wrapped, the whole arm, from your elbow down to your wrist, in gauze and medical tape.

And then you took the gauze off, and I remember seeing like, I don't know, seven or eight long, fresh, raw slices.

I was just like, I don't understand.

She was in a hospital.

How did this happen?

And then you said that you had learned it from somebody else, another inpatient.

My family felt like they didn't know what to say because they were afraid it would trigger something in me.

And it was like that this past year too.

They didn't know what they were allowed to say to me.

[thunder roars] I've relapsed so many times it's ridiculous.

You either choose to go through treatment and get out, or you just kind of, fade away.

[somber guitar music] There's movement, but there's no resolution.

MAN: I think the things that have helped you with recovery has been your friends.

WOMAN: The theater has really been a great release for you.

Will you please take this thing to evidence?

Let's go, old man.

[audience laughs] Once I got up there, I was like, I can use emotions in this instead of kind of keeping them bottled up.

Okay, so close my eyes, and then just draw.

TEA: Scribble it throughout.

THERAPIST: Just scribble.

Getting new friends, a psychiatrist, my dog.

Okay, actually, that's the only therapy I need, my dog.

My dog is actually my life [laughs].

I would not consider myself a survivor because I'm still surviving.

I crawled my way out of the dark, and somehow I'm still here.

You're not a survivor until it's over, and it's sure as hell not over.

[hopeful piano music] I was nervous about, yes, exposing my family in a very public way.

But at the same time, we wanted to be reminded that we were there for each other, and we have a very strong connection.

So I wanted that portrayed through the film.

I know there's a lot of people struggling, and I feel like if they did see the film, that more people would kind of be open to talking about it.

But my school's afraid to show it.

That should not be an issue.

I really think they should be seen in classrooms.

And when my film was shown the most was when there's an incident.

That sucks.

I think it's positive if there's a conversations afterwards though, so that's the impact and engagement.

And so I really do think that teachers should take an interest.

And maybe bring in a therapist who specializes in that sort of stuff.

People see therapy as a weakness, and it's not.

Therapy can be very helpful, and there's a lot of different forms of therapy.

I love hearing about other people's stories just 'cause I constantly wanna be helping other people.

And this is just a really good outlet to do that.

I know most of my friends have dealt with suicidality and suicidal attempts, so it is a rough patch, but also, I don't know.

At some point you have to address things that no one else is addressing.

[upbeat music] Major funding for this program is provided by: The Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf and Betsy and Warren Dean.

Additional funding is provided by: The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation The Brenden Mann Foundation The Loo Family The Moniker Foundation The Buck Foundation The CALM Foundation Half the Sky Giving Circle, in honor of Chris Beyer And Will Stoller-Lee A complete list is available online.