News coverage of young people speaking about living with depression.
REPORTER: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teenagers, after traffic accidents. The CDC says about 4,600 young lives are lost to suicide each year. The past week, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued new guidelines to help doctors identify at-risk patients and urge doctors to screen patients for suicidal thoughts. We spoke with four young adults who have been battling anxiety and depression, including one woman who survived several suicide attempts.
Young people are giving an interview.
WOMAN 1: It's this feeling of being completely trapped in your own body.
MAN 1: You literally feel like you are losing your mind.
MAN 2: I don't know. It's sort of like a weird funk.
MAN 1: Anxiety and depression, unfortunately, is something I've always struggled with.
The text on the screen states that according to National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S. over 3.3 million people suffer from depression, while 40 million suffer from anxiety.
WOMAN 1: I had my first panic attack when I was 13.
WOMAN 2: I first tried to end my life when I was 11-years-old.
The text on the screen states that according to CDC the suicide rates in girls 10 to 14 triples.
MAN 2: And I just wanted to think about how bad I felt my life was.
WOMAN 2: I tried to end my life by overdosing on anything I could find in the medicine cabinet.
The text on the screen states that according to CDC the U.S. suicide rate is the highest it is been in 30 years.
MAN 2: I had kind of lost my faith.
WOMAN 1: I didn't know what other way of escaping this other than to die.
WOMAN 2: And so, at eight, I wrote in my diary that my life was over.
MAN 1: Dreading the day that I would have to tell somebody that I was gay. You get taunts about acting girly as early as age four.
The text on the screen states that according to CDC LBGT youth are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers.
MAN 2: Throughout history I mean as a human society, we haven't handled mental issues very well.
WOMAN 1: I actually have quite a few friends and family members, immediate family members, who do not get it.
MAN 2: It's seen as a mental sort of malady.
WOMAN 1: Oh, she has anxiety and depression. And it's like, no, I have anxiety and depression the same way a person has hypoglycemia or diabetes or anything else.
The text on the screen states that according to National Institute of Mental Health up to 70% of suicide victims suffer from major depression or manic-depressive disorder.
WOMAN 2: So it's been 10 years since I last attempted to end my life, and I'm thinking about how I might have changed mentally. And I've found ways to cope.
WOMAN 1: The therapy aspect of it is huge, and I have made improvements.
MAN 1: I'm on antidepressants, and they're good for me. They help me. If I weren't on them, I would be back to being suicidal.
MAN 2: I decided that I would try my best not to try and let life affect how my mood felt.
The text on the screen states that according to the Health and Human Services of Mentally Health African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population.
WOMAN 1: There's still a lot of work to be done. I'm not able to keep up with everybody else sometimes, and that's OK.
MAN 1: I don't enjoy feeling negative emotions, but I welcome them because I know they're a part of life, and they're a part of who I am. So I let me feel those emotions to the fullest of my extent, and then I move on from it.
WOMAN 2: I think that it's also given me more of a desire to continue living, that there is something to live for and that there is a meaning to my life, and that there is a reason why I didn't complete any of those attempts.
REPORTER: The brave faces, and the voices of an epidemic.
Video provided by BBC Worldwide Learning.