Photo: Alvin Kean Wong; PBS
A number of years ago, asKen Burnstells it, his father-in-law — a psychologist — pointed out a meaningful undercurrent in the famed documentarian’s work: “He said, ‘You makeAbraham LincolnandJackie Robinsonand Louis Armstrong and Benjamin Franklin come alive. You wake the dead…Who do you think you’re really trying to wake up?'”
At a time when more than4 in 10 high schoolershave reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless, the need for help is great. The film provides an unflinching look into themental healthstruggles of 20 young people, including 14-year-old Maclayn of Billings, Mont., who, at the age of 9 after coming out as gay, experienced depression and suicidal thoughts. “I was really good at masking it. I put up my smile and nobody really knew what was going on,” Maclayn tells PEOPLE. “It was just kind of ‘I’m alone in this. No one else is going through a similar path that I am, and this is kind of it.'”
Alvin Kean Wong
In making the film, “we wanted to stare mental illness in the face, literally, and say, this is what it is, this is what it looks like, this is how it feels — and let’s stop pretending you can just get over it,” says Erik Ewers, 53. “It’s something you manage. It doesn’t go away. It’s a part of you, but it doesn’t define you.”
For Christopher Loren Ewers the project was literally life changing. “Because of the interactions we had with these incredibly courageous youth, the light bulb went off over my head,” says Ewers, 44. “It wasn’t until then that I recognized my own lifelong mental health struggles and I was diagnosed with general anxiety and depression. And life has been so much letter since.”
Watching the kids tell their stories “You’ll look into their eyes and you’re going to say, ‘That’s me,’ " says Burns.
It triggered so many things for him. “I suffered so much even before my mom died,” he says. “I had anxiety, I had stomachaches and I couldn’t go on school trips. Later a psychologist told me, ‘It’s because you didn’t want to be apart from your mom. You didn’t want something bad to happen when you were away.’ "
“So whether it’s the effects of a divorced family or alcoholism, or specific mental health things like anxiety, but before the grace of God goes everybody. And we’ve got to talk about it and be willing to help. These 20 kids are so brave to not only have overcome the thing that held them down, but to share their stories without shame and with such searing honesty. We have to bring sunlight into the situation.”
For Maclayn, being part of the project helped him understand he wasn’t alone — and that there was strength in revealing his pain: “I realized that there are people who have walked similar paths of life that I have. I really wish little me could see me now. It’s just kind of amazing how many good things I have in my life now.”
source: people.com
