"If we had as many people dying from AIDS or other causes which weren't associated with mental illness, there would be a major uproar."

"We have to to try to understand why in the last thirty years or so we have seen this dramatic increase."

"People putting you down and my mom putting me down and saying I was dumb & stuff."

"I tried to kill myself when my own mother put me down, because I didn't think it was worth living anymore. I mean, your own mother putting you down...."

"I think she felt really isolated. Especially isolated inside."

Where were you when you took the pills?

And was there anyone else there at the time?

(I am not sure why he is asking these questions but I suspect they are not helping her feel more understood. Instead she probably feels interrogated. -- S. Hein)

"A lot of families say there is no answer out there or they couldn't have possibly known what was going thru threir child's mind when they comitted suicide."

"I'd like to challenge that by saying the answers are there. Quite often the answers are right in front of you. You've got to be willing to look at yourself and how you relate to your child; not just look at your child's life. And the answers are there, but they are not always the answers you want."

"I did not feel safe in any way shape or form in coming forth with what I was feeling."

I was sexually abused from 6 or 7 to about 11. That was probably the reason I tried to commit suicide."

"I don't just get depressed about what happened to me as a child. I look around at world politics. I look at the state of the environment. I look at the state of our economy and I get angry, I get sad, I get depressed. But most often I get angry."

The video shows this girl practicing a play. In her role she is shouting at her boyfriend. Here is some of the dialogue:

"Then why didn't you leave then?! Why didnt you leave then you stupid shit?!"

Her intensity is so strong that only someone with years of resentment could express it as she does. This is the kind of communication that children from abusive and societies learn. A person like this in real life is hurting, and has been hurt for years before she ever met her partner. She wants to hurt him to protect herself from being hurt again. The tragedy is that she needs him and is only driving him away by attacking and blaming him. So she will feel more alone and more bitter.

"Matthew was always more active. Getting into mischief."

"He wasn't thinking rationally that night. He just grabbed the razor blades and ran away from the house."

This mother blames the mental health care system. She doesn't say anything about what happened inside the house that night to trigger him grabbing the razor blades and running out. She doesn't realize that if she said things like "You are not acting rationally" when he was alive, it contributed to him feeling misunderstood, alone and suicidal.

I tried to commit suicide when I was 14. I had a lot of family hassles at one stage in my life. I just couldn't cope.

The locked me up for three days. It was a really horrible experience.

Racheal was the youngest of seven. She was very gifted. She was very bright. I think what triggered it was my parents went through a very bitter break up after about 26 years of a pretty unhappy marriage and Rachael was the only one at home. All of us had moved out. She was caught in the middle which was really tough on her.