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I can't shoot with this light. - It's too pompous
Out of the way. Here we go.
Good morning World. Good morning Evan.
Mikey. A beautiful shot of Mike. Good morning Mike.
Good morning D. - Good morning Michael.
Where do I stand?
Here? - A little backwards.
A step backwards. A big step.
Now I'm mad.
See you later.
Look at the sky.
I'll interview you, Mom.
How do you like the trip?
I love the trip, but I don't love it more than you do.
Are you sure? - Paradise. - I like paradise.
Dad, what do you think about the trip?
I'm really glad you asked me that question, Evan.
I like this trip so much. You know what it makes me do?
What? - It makes me want to jump right over you.
Very impressive
Now we're going to get the house.
This is Michael's room.
We're getting closer to Michael. A sleeping baby.
How do you like the trip, Michael?
And now you have me, your cameraman
Am I good or am I bad?
I have that in 5.5 seconds.
I was in my room in my boarding school
when my dad called me and told me that Evan had jumped out of his window.
It was a sort of the third week of school, I think,
he shows to take his live.
I went into my mothers room.
I realized the sentence, that had to come out my mouth.
I had to communicate to them why, I was coming in there
and was reaching out for them and
I had to say "Evan has killed himself."
One of the things you do, I think, at least that I do, unconsciously
to avoid things that are really to painful to confront
is just block them out.
How can you understand, doing that? It doensn't seem possible.
What on earth happened, to make your son so miserable,
that he doensn't want to be there anymore?
We'll never know what was in Evans head that night he killed himself
The mystery will always be what his thought was, when he was on the edge.
as he put one foot over the window and made that decision.
Maybe he started to realize that his mental illness was so powerful
and that he couldn't win.
He that raised up Jesus from the dead will also give live to our mortal bodies.
In the sure and certain hope for the resurrection
to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ
we command to Almighty God our brother Evan
and we commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Amen
How is it possible, that I found myself at his funeral
holding my baby for the last time.
The day that Evan was born, was the happiest day of my life.
It is indescribable
It was an indescribable happiness to finally see him
because if you are pregnant, you start to get a relationship with the baby.
It's moving around. How are you? Knock, knock, who's there?
And then he comes out. and Evan was particular pretty.
I was so in love with him. Right away.
I actually filmed Evan getting born.
I was very excited. I recall, I gave the camera to the doctor
and he did a shot also.
I was 26 when Evan was born.
Hart was 42. He already had a son from a previous relationship.
but Evan was my first.
Hart and I are filmmakers and at that time Hart was shooting away a lot.
He was gone a lot at the time.
So Evan and I ended up alone together.
He was young, I was young.
We were like two little creatures trying to help each other out a little bit.
We want to have an interview with the mom. Mom, what do you think about your kid?
Kid? Oh yeah. this thing.
Well, I think that it is the most special thing to give big kisses
I think that's the best part.
I remember the first time I met Evan.
Dana had come home from the hospital.
I think I'd actually been away with my mother while he was born.
Dad came and picked me up at my apartment.
I was living on Mercer Street with my Mom.
and he said "We're going to meet your little brother"
There is this photograph of me, taken during my first encounter with Evan.
and my expression sort of sums it all up:
"What the *** is this?"
holding this baby in my arms thinking "Where did he come from?"
Who is your brother? - Nicky.
Do you like your brother Nicky?
How old are you, Evan? - I'm older.
How old? - Way old.
Look at daddy's camera when you say that. - I am way old.
How old is he? - Big old.
Are you big? How big are you?
Real big? Big as a dinosaur?
The first word that he used over and over again was 'no'.
We used to joke it was no because he so heard the word No so much.
As soon as he was walking around he would get into everything.
Oh, how cute.
No, Evan.
No, gentle.
Come on, please let me punch him in the nose.
I think I understood from a early time, that he was a challenging kid.
Getting dressed in the morning I knew was a challenge.
He wouldn't have the right outfit.
You're weren't leaving the house, for a very long time.
One summer we were in Nantucket and
we were trying to leave the beach at the end of the day.
I think it took us 45 minutes to get the towels in the baskets
and start walking home from the beach
because Evan wanted the towels to be folded a certain way
and put in the basket a certain way.
and if they weren't he would dump them out on the sand and
he would say "Start over. Start over". That was his big phrase.
He was a perfectionist and this persistent throughout his whole life.
If he wasn't absolutely the best at something then he'd get frustrated.
Discipline was pretty much impossible.
The way we used to handle it was:
We said: "Okay, you have a time-out" and we put him in his room.
Put him in his room for timeout, it's like Keith Moon in a hotel room.
The TV set is out the window, bookshelves crashing over.
And when you come in the room is totally destroyed.
Do you think he is at all, you know, feels bad about it?
No, it's like: Okay, so put me in prison. I want to go to prison.
There is no doubt in my mind that he had psychological issues.
It's the best way I can describe it as that he lacked emotional shock absorbers.
and because of that, would react to situations that you and I would see as insignificant
in a really really big way.
Oh really, it was almost like there were two Evans.
He would be on one hand tantruming and being complete impossible to reach
At the other hand being wonderful, vibrant vivacious kid
What is your name? - My name is Robocop.
What's yours? - Nobody.
Well I'm pulling you over, Nobody, because you're speeding,
ease up on the throttle.
Okay, good night, how's big dreams go by.
He was so much fun to be around.
and when Michael was born, Evan was trilled.
He finally had a playmate. They were roommates. He adored Michael.
Hi, it's me, Evan. That's my little brother and that's my Mom.
And what are they doing?
Mama tries to talk to somebody.
Michael is sucking on his pacifier.
I couldn't take them out, because that was to hard to open.
What is Michael saying?
He is saying that: "I want to get that dog." That is what he is saying.
Evan, do you want to film now?
and that is Formula.
That's a green shirt. Guess who? It's daddy. Four eyes.
Oh, that's inside the toilet. and there's under the bed. Let's go see.
We see red gloves. We see some socks.
Ready? - I'm ready. Okay, Action.
He learned to read very quickly.
He loved books He loved talking about what he was reading.
Yeah, he was a great companion.
When you were doing something. Going on a trip
He was a guy, you know, he was good for an adventure.
It's a big one.
Let's see the *** fisherman. Nicholas.
Evan, what do think? - Goody! My camera.
Oh, poor baby boy. Needs to go to Mommy for help.
Evan was incredible affectionate, very physical very cuddly. Always cuddling up
Ev, are you the little baby still in Mommies tummy?
You even haven't been born yet, have you?
You have to take that intense sweetness and sensitivity
and just completely upended it into the darkest, scariest
Scary, scary. That is all I can say.
Scary person Scary soul The darkest of souls
When Evan was in kindergarten,
I got a call from the after school teacher.
she was really concerned about him talking about suicide.
I met Evan when he was five. He came to our program Performing Art School.
He was probably the cutest kid that I have ever seen.
You try not to have favorites, but sometimes it just happens and
he happened to be all the teachers favorite.
He was just one of the most loving, creative kids I have ever met.
He was very righteous and everything had to be fair.
If someone was giving anyone a hard time
he would be the first one to break it up
and say: Do you think that was fair? It wasn't fair.
But when he is five and in the younger group, he was obsessed with dying.
Jumping out the window and saying: I'll kill myself.
and he said a relative had done that.
Every day in group he would bring that up.
and he would say: I want to jump out the window.
but said: I don't care if I die. I don't care.
and I asked: What about me?
He said: I'd feel bad for you or my parents,
but I wouldn't mind, because I won't feel anything.
and he would sit on my lap and have his arm, you know, around me
and he would talk about: 'No, I would jump out.'
Without being upset, just being loving and affectioned.
I said Evan, that's just weird talk. That's just weird.
I have seen depressed kids and I've seen hyper kids
but not kids who talk about dying.
He was just curious about death and even obsessed with it.
Thinking about Evan's obsession for death.
Was that it was so matter of fact. A lot times it was just casual.
We're in Hawaii. We were just snorkeling.
We saw an eel.
Now we're gonna go look at some whales.
Maybe we can see Moby ***'s son
Like I remember one time in Hawaii
we were just there, snorkeling or something
he says something like 'By the way I got a rifle.'
Do not say that at home.
So? What. - I got a rifle.
You got a rifle? - Yeah Where do you need a rifle for?
To shoot you.
and you just go: What? What do you mean? To shoot me.
It's not really funny
It's not expressed in a way that would seem attention getting.
It seems like: Yeah, this is where I think about.
1997 Evan Perry.
Perfectionist. Obsessive
Do not like to have things... I stopped writing there.
Good athlete, popular.
When he was five we did start seeing a psychiatrist.
Doing well in school. Last year: fighting etcetera.
and very early on he diagnosed depression. and having them put him on Prozac.
We talked about Prozac September 25, 1997.
That was the hay day of where people were
just really discovering depression in children
before I don't know when, when I start out training,
people didn't really think children had depression.
Children don't get depressed, period.
Forever I remember when you prescribed Prozac. I was pretty surprised.
I'd never heard of that. - That was like a really big thing.
Positive strong family history of depression on both sides.
Shall I say this part or skip this?
Parental uncle committed suicide age 21
Your brother, yeah. Talks about death and ***.
He was just scary. I don't know what to say. He'd already did a suicide attempt. "
Which one?
'Ran to window and threatened to jump in front of parents.' I wrote.
'Defiant, rebellious, banged head, threatened to kill parents and brother'
'I want cancer.'
He was such a baby in the beginning. He had such a baby face.
He was just kind a of pink kind of baby kid.
And then there was that visual contrast between the demons inside him
and that kind of sweet look.
At one point I'd say Evan was about maybe seven or eight,
he and I were home.
and once again he started to talk about wanting to kill himself.
There were a lot of times where he would tell me specifically what he was gonna do:
He was gonna jump out the window
He was gonna jump of a building He was gonna cut himself.
or in this particular occasion he was gonna hang himself.
He took this pillow thing with a strap on it and climbed upon his bunk bed.
and he fixed it up there.
and then he put it around his neck and
he showed me how he was gonna jump of the bunk bed.
He is gonna show Mom how he is going to hang himself. Right in front of her.
and I didn't let him, but
I'm tired of trying to explain to people
what I am hearing at home
and I'm just gonna record those.
I always felt so guilty about taking those pictures.
but I was so tired of explaining to people my son wants to kill himself.
I just needed some kind of proof that this was really happening.
Because it was so impossible to belief.
Oh, God.
Is this the one he tries to hang himself? - Yes
You know, there was a
idea that children could not be suicidal.
because they could not understand, that death is irreversible.
I never really felt like I knew Evan very well.
He was the scariest kid I ever saw in my life.
I've never seen a kid who was this intend on death.
It felt to me always there was a mask or something there.
And I remember that look going over him, that unreachable look.
If Evan had a mood swing, his whole body changed, his face changed
His physical attitude changed, his ability to communicate changed.
and you could literally saw in his face. He became unreachable.
Hart and I started to call it the fugue state.
The physical change would be like a slackening of his face.
It just wasn't engaged. Something receded.
and what you had was this kind of thing. This façade.
Some whales are real curious they come right up to the boat.
Some whales turn the other cheek and leave essentially.
There was a tone of voice that went along with it too.
Very flat tone of voice.
Do you see the whales - There was one, and over there.
Pretty exciting to see the side the whale, wasn't it?
He could be very sullen.
What do you think about this?
What do you mean?
Are you happy for Uncle Chris? - Yeah I am.
How many weddings have you been to?
This is the sixth
He definitely acted like a teenager at a very young age.
Are you hungry?
I wanna peanut butter sandwich
Where is my *** control,
What did you say? - God.
No, that is not nice.
He seem to skipping a kid and going immediately to being an adolescent
How was the football game yesterday? - Sucked
That is the kind of thing you expect from your 15 year old.
You're not the boss of me Come on, give me the car keys.
Where are you going? - Out. What did you do in school? - Nothing.
I mean that seems normal. In a 7-year-old it doesn't seem normal.
He was very teenage. Along with it he was also very sophisticated.
He did not have a Britney Spears phase He did not have a Backstreet Boys phase.
He went straight to Dylan, Neil Young, Nirvana.
He wrote a lot of songs.
His lyrics touched on things that
you can't imagine a kid that young would even think about
you'll think it's all frees.
if I could be cutting myself on the neck
threaten you with my knife singing you're gonna die tonight.
Stop!!
that's because I'm depressed.
nothing less curious, furious.
So somebody kill me, please
Standing on my knees.
Somebody kill me please.
Pretty pretty please I'm standing on my knees.
it's because I'm depressed.
Okay, that's it.
When he was maybe eight or nine, he kept a journal
and I saw it took it out and start reading it.
There are these poems in it essentially saying:
I'm prepared for death, I'm not afraid of death.
This really deep poems.
I was probably 15 or 16 years old going through my moody fase
and I remember thinking: Wow, these are thoughts I'm having right now.
I felt there was something really powerful going on in his mind
he had a sensitivity a maturity
that was way beyond his years
There's one play that Evan wrote
and his character was a depressed kid, who just saw the negativity in everything.
Hey,kid. - Yeah?
It's not raining anymore.
Just give it some time. It'll start up again.
When he was ten he said:
Let's do a play about someone dying, a boy dying.
I said: What kind of story is that?
He said: What? It's just a story about a kid dying. And all his friends miss him.
How am I suppose to live without you? You're my big brother.
Who's gonna take care of me? Walk me to school?
Calm me down when I'm upset?
Please, don't leave me. - We'll be there for you.
It'll be ok. I'll walk you to school. - I can't leave him.
and then he came up with a story that didn't make any sense.
Just someone died and that they cried.
You said you would always be there for me.
Well, I need you more than I ever have right now.
I think he wanted the play to be about the boy dying
which obviously was his character
And to be able to see it in a play that everybody loves him.
When you leave it's like, that's when everyone gets together
and they miss you and they honor you.
He is always with us. You don't have to look here or in heaven.
Look in your heart and he'll be there.
So we just had to do the show and that's when
Evan attempted or came close to attempting suicide at PS 11.
The fall semester of 2000 when Evan was in fifth grade
he communicated to the principal of his school that he felt suicidal.
Do we got a letter and of course: I suggest a psychological evaluation.
Well I'm already in therapy
Seeing a psychiatrist, he's already done that. I don't know what to do.
And three weeks later he made an attempt at school.
I got a call at my office
This is Mr DelManaco from PS 11. It's about Evan
He said: It is very serious. You need to get here.
and I'm like, you haven't told me what is going on.
He said: He is up on the roof of his school and it's probably six stories.
and he took a chunk of pavement about the size of a hamburger
and threw it down onto the playground where the other children were.
One of the teachers went out on the roof. and there was Evan perched on a ledge.
and Evan told him, that he wanted to kill himself. That he was going to jump.
The teacher told him that life was worth living and what was good about Evan.
and that he was loved.
and eventually, Evan came down on his own.
By the time I got there, he'd been brought down to the principals office.
We where there in the principals office
and we decided to go straight from there to an emergency room.
One of the residents asked him: Do you know what it's like to be dead?
He says: Yeah, everybody gathers around and talks about how great you were.
and for me it was like, this is my worst fear He is like my brother
My younger brother Scott committed suicide by asphyxiate himself in a car.
Because of the experience with my brother I wasn't going to full red.
We had Evan involuntary committed to a mental institution.
because we were very very concerned about his suicide attempt.
We took it very seriously.
The place he went was called Four Winds It is outside of New York.
It is a lockup psychiatric facility.
Evan was brought in by ambulance after having an incident in school.
He was brought to the Deerfield unit, what is the unit I was working at the time.
which is for kids 8 to 12 and immediately assessed and evaluated.
We were able to establish a pattern.
and saw that he definitely met the criteria of bipolar disorder.
You know, known historically as manic depression.
It is a chemical imbalance a chemical illness in the brain.
Some kids have more of a propensity towards depression
and some kids have more of a propensity towards mania.
In Evan's case it was definitely more depression.
Bipolar depression is definitely more severe than just depression.
That's why, suicide attempts are more common in kids with bipolar disorder.
That's why it's scarier.
Because you do not know how far he'll take it.
You do not know if he actually would have jumped of that ledge at school.
He had the tendency to blame other people or other situations.
In stead of being able to say: Ok yeah, I get it I did something I probably shouldn't have done.
It scared a lot of people and that's why I'm here.
He just sort of said all he wanted someone to listen.
He just couldn't understand that his behavior
the measures that he took were scary to people.
He didn't think that if he went stood on the roof of the school
that anything would happen.
So when he ended up in the hospital where it is locked down
and they watch you every second
and you're not allowed to do anything unless it is part of the schedule.
and these other damaged kids and your parents can only visit once in a while.
He just broke down. He just fell apart. He fell apart.
He was destroying property on the unit. He was very very angry.
At one point I remember he drew all over his the walls in his room.
and we had to have him clean his walls.
He also was tantruming a lot. He was angry a lot.
He was banging his head with his arms up against the wall.
When he was in the troes of a manic episode or a depressive episode,
you couldn't reason.
and you can't reason with a kid that is bipolar.
Visiting Evan at Four Winds was agonizing.
Here is the kid who was in a lockup psychiatric facility
for seriously mentally ill kids.
And coming to terms
that your kid who seem to have behavioral issues, but
he could have just be like an adolescent. That this is something you go trough.
because he had so many really charming bright qualities.
Four Winds was a real body punch.
Evan was given a variety of medications.
Depakote was one of them. I've seen him really doped of.
and then they suggested that he'd try lithium.
Lithium is a mood stabilizer and it's used to level of the serotonin in the brain.
It's supposed to having the highs and lows kind of even of the chemistry.
He did start to respond to lithium. It was pretty remarkable.
but he was so profoundly ill.
So the question became like: What will we do after this?
PS 11 would not take him back
and there was no place for him to go, except for this very expensive alternative.
which turned out to, I think, saved his life for a number of years.
Suzanne Hanna who was the therapist recommended this place called Wellspring.
which was what they call 'milieu therapy'
Everything is an opportunity to learn how to live in a group.
From doing the dishes,making meals to taking care of animals.
to taking care of younger children, to chores and thing like that.
Evan came to us from Four Winds hospital.
They were pretty adamant that
the bipolar disorder was managed medication wise.
and that he was on their proper dosages.
That seemed to be the case on some level we saw.
and then right away within a few days Evan decided to venture of campus.
The obvious question at that point was 'was it really controlled'.
Three days in, he decided that he wasn't gonna have it
that this whole thing about the adults being in charge, really wasn't for him
He made it a little bit more complicated than he had to
like build in a dramatic effect
he went out a window he could went out the door.
The doors are not locked.
Oh, I see, so he went out the window and then went on the roof and then jumped down.
It's like just had the bolts undoing.
Dana gets a phone call from Evan.
that he's climbed out a window and
is escaped from Wellspring and is in some guy's house.
Of course we had to go to Juvenile Court
the guy whose house he broke into, pressed charges.
I think the neighbor, whose house he was in was quite unforgiving.
Luckily, he did no do anything with that man's house that day.
He is trying to get a rise out of his parents to come rescue him
show them how much he is suffering
and he'll go home and stir it all up again
and be back in the hospital again within another year
It was as if he was in a game.
That was an important event.
It really kind of marked that need for a the switch
Evan really needed to be held accountable
for the relational damage his was doing.
It was a microcosm of what had happened in his life.
He wasn't being held accountable on some level for the damage he did to you all.
That was the first night we were here. We sat right here.
Larry Bolden, we asked him first and kind of keep full heads up.
and then Evan came in and was fixing us on our laps.
You told him you would talk to him really honestly.
It was like this incredible relieve,
because I had permission to say what I was feeling
without being afraid of breaking him.
I remember, I knew you were like: Really?
Yes, Well if I tell him I'm afraid I'll find him dead, he'll explode
and the world will end and all the stuff will come rushing out.
it will be poisonous We'll not able to survive
I think that to all our amazement
we not only survive but starting building on that
Finally he started to work with the therapy at Wellspring
and slowly bit by bit he started to come around to their philosophy.
We came frequently for sessions
where we learned to communicate as a family. With Evan and his unique needs.
It's like learning a new language.
They basically say
that the children are responsible for their actions.
Let's put it really simple If you make a mess, you clean it up.
whether it's a physical mess like you spilled something, you need to clean it up
Or an emotional mess
Well we're coming here to see
Evan working on that stone wall over there.
For a child to think they cleaned up their mess
and they made something a little better.
Rather than the feeling like you were punished
or that you had consequences or whatever.
but in this case you get the feeling he really repaired something
and made it even better than it was before.
It think what happened at Wellspring is that they encouraged Evan to be a boy.
I think a lot of their philosophy is to let children be children.
When he came he was kind of running the show.
He was in adult conversations.
and he would much prefer being with the staff
than he would with the other kids.
He really needed to be a kid again
have fun and relax and forget about those bigger issues.
Especially for Evan who was really acting as such a teenager at such a young age.
It was a miracle to see him get past that facade of unto cool
and just be a pure boy.
and I remember a time seeing him at Wellspring
playing in the yard with pure boyish
that boys essence. which is what you need at that age.
It's a beautiful day, You're throwing a ball with your friends.
Early on let's say in the first four weeks or so,
he began to earn weekend passes.
So the weekend of Michael's birthday he finally did get released.
He was at the birthday party.
I remember looking at him and thinking: He's just like a boy.
The old Evan would have been too cool.
He would have been turning up his nose and even sneering
He wouldn't have in a million years let the clown paint his face. Ok, never.
He let himself to be a kid.
I saw this little layers peel away.
and a lot had to do with how strict the counselors were.
They weren't having it.
Evan could try to talk his way out of anything.
And Dan just said: I'm not going anywhere.
Remember Bipolar disorder is not just a disorder of moods
it's a disorder of judgement.
and that's so debilitating if the adults do not hold them close
and make them responsible.
What he needed to know, is that you guys are in charge.
and then he can build from your judgement.
That's what he allowed us to do first.
because he looked around and said: Ok, I'm not getting over on these guys.
Who won't let that happen.
and then we obviously bridged that to you.
He's one of the shortest stays we really ever had
for a boy with so much going on in his life.
Three months is really an unusual time
to get all that done.
By the time Evan finished at Wellspring, the lithium had definitive kicked in.
Along with the therapy it was working.
and you couldn't have one without the other.
He seemed well enough reach in our family.
The whole family went to Wellspring and we all learned.
And when it was over here we had this kid again.
What we do with him?
So we decided to see whether we can get him into a mainstream school
which was sensitive to kids who had issues.
So we got him into a school called York Prep.
and suddenly everything was different.
He'd get a report card and was like one of the best students in class.
The teachers were saying: I wish all my students were like Evan.
He got the prise to the science project.
What's this? - My science table.
It's about how to make a hologram.
Did you get a ribbon?
A ribbon.
One great things about Evan going to York
is he found such a great group of friends.
It took a while for him to like gain your trust and stuff like that
after a while he was one of those people I can talk to about anything
and come to him with any problem.
Once we started hanging out sort of figuring out interesting toys.
and I really liked toys, toys was my thing and toys was his thing.
and cartoons was his thing and cartoons are my thing.
He was definitive different from all the other kids we hung out with.
Nobody seemed to have strong opinions like him.
He was really setting his ways.
and once he had a idea he wasn't gonna let it go.
This stuff people say at high school. They don't really mean it.
They just try to be popular.
but Evan just would go right into it. He wouldn't hold back.
What I liked about Evan that he was really creative and
was interested in a lot of things like not just TV
like a lot of kids just watch TV. He was making TV.
Evan had various movie ideas.
When he was younger he wrote me into shooting them
Guys, shut up.
Ok, ready? Three, two, one. Action.
Hi, I am Adam Lupe
and I am here to host a new reality TV show titled,
"What it takes to be an astronaut? '
A certain amount of chaos was involved in the creation of them.
All right a redneck and Gabe, you have to say something.
You are Chinese ADD. Don't forget.
I go to space all tea time. In space is no glavity.
Ok, I'm not Chinese, because it is too hard to be Chinese.
You have ADD? What's the ADD like?
ADD, no Chinese.
Do you know how long it took us to get through these three lines?
Who are you supposed to be? - At this point, it does not matter.
I want to do the whole thing over again.
What do you mean the whole thing? - Because...
All the films we made are all disasters.
We were just too excited about them, because we had microphones, and a nice camera.
We liked talk about it and talk about it and then we wouldn't finish it.
There was a summer Evan went to the New York Film Academy
and asked me to be in one of his movies.
The assignment was to shoot in black and white and no sound
He made a movie about me waking up in a world,
with no sound or no color.
I never knew that there was anything wrong with him,
he took medication. I had no idea.
He never brought it up. Never talked about it.
Sometimes we got a little suspicious,
because he could be really quiet for a long period of time.
We used got accustomed to it, because he did it a lot.
He missed school every now and then.
I could tell, I knew, I would tell him he was on his period.
because he is like, he looks he had a month where he's moping around
and then he would have a month where he's really happy really happy.
He'd tell me like: The more happy I get, the more pissed-off I'm gonna get later.
One time I think going out the roof.
I remember him sitting on the ledge.
He really like scared me.. He just seemed to be completely fearless.
He was willing to just walk. Like walk on the edge.
I jelled at him, "Get down from the edge. " Not something you do.
He kind of distanced like that
It was almost like showing me I don't really care.
He talked about it a little but he always brushed through and
He sort of said: But I am over that now.
We all thought he was pretty good and he always acted really great.
There were no real signs of real depression or anything.
I was totally optimistic about his health and the direction that he was gonna go.
When I come home from school and spent holidays
I remember remarking to myself
Now, this is a much more warm loving household, than it was two years earlier.
I guess that is what I saw after Wellspring.
Dana and my father really showing him
that within our family lies a really strong foundation that he can trust.
And during that time it really did seem like everything was under control.
As years went by after Wellspring and
he continued to be the top student of his class.
He continued to have good friends. and there weren't any big issues.
I thought that maybe he was cured.
Maybe he's gonna get a life.
I go with Evan to his older brother in college.
Evan was looking at college and thinking: I can do it.
I can have a live like this.
As the years preceded I wasn't thinking that maybe the telephone was going to ring.
I was thinking, Hey, this kid is different from brother.
He's got a shot.
My brother, there never really have been a diagnosis.
He was a successful suicide.
and that was my big fear with Evan.
From an early age both Scott and Evan were overwhelmed by their emotions.
With my brother I learned how to be his guide.
We went to the same school. We went to the same college.
and we were very close.
I've been my brother's keeper,
up until the point really where he started living with Martine, his girlfriend.
Scott was fun. He was brilliant.
He is very creative. He was a great skier. He was a athlete.
We went skiing together.
We really had a lot of fun and I was totally seduced when I met him.
I knew he was taking medication all along and
I knew he was seeing a psychiatrist. He was getting some help.
I had absolutely no experience with depression
before I met Scott.
So I knew that there was a problem, but I didn't really see it.
because Scott always optimistic and was very outgoing.
I think I began to start noticing something after the first year.
He had mood swings, He had ups and downs
In the second year
he tried to kill himself a couple of times
while he was with me.
I was supposed to get up in the morning and find him
dead next to me.
He was amazed when he woke up
I assume that he hadn't taken enough.
He was trying to overdose with medication and maybe with drugs, ***.
After his two attempts, he was really able to talk about it and communicate about it.
and I could really understand as much as I could the depth of the desperation.
He said he was in a hole, in a tunnel.
There was no way out.
The pain was so profound.
He could not imagine going on with it and living, even though I was there.
It did not matter. Me and his family were not enough to keep him alive.
At those moments of such despair and pain the only way out was to die.
I don't like to think that maybe I wasn't really clue-ed in to what was going on.
I probably wasn't.
because I wasn't going to accept the fact
that anything so terrifying to me could be on the way.
and in particular because Scott did not seem like an unhappy person.
All it tells you is that there is so much more to know about people you love
than you can ever really uncover.
What happened that weekend when Scott died?
I do not know.
I don't have the faintest idea. Not the faintest idea.
You found him. - Found what?
Who found him? - You found him.
I found him? I don't remember doing that.
What's more I think, I can get along without memory.
I don't remember it all.
I think it was a Saturday.
We came for the 4th of July weekend.
Scott was totally normal, fun, nice.
Suddenly.. It was a beautiful afternoon, we said: Where is Scott?.
Scott was not around. I knew something was wrong.
So I said to Beati:
Well, I'm going to go to the caretaker's house and see if the gun is still there.
Because I knew that the caretaker had guns and Scott knew that he had guns.
So, I went there. and Beati went in another direction.
I couldn't get inside the house because it was was locked.
I do not exactly remember but I knew he didn't have the guns.
When I came back, I saw Beati.
who came back and her lipstick was smeared around her mouth and
then she said, 'I just found Scott.
She found him the Jeep near the carriage house.
What he had done was, take the hose from the vacuum cleaner
and put the hose from the exhaust pipe inside hung in the car.
When my brother died, I decided to make a film.
It was too painful for me to like really deal with his suicide.
So I made a film about a sculptor friend of my mother's,
who came from Spain to make a sculpture for the grave.
I documented the process of making of the sculpture and the installation
I thought that maybe in the course of the making of the film
I could find some meaning about my brother's suicide.
It took me about 7 or 8 years to come back to normal.
I was mutilated when he died. I was mutilated. Half of me was dead.
Completely dead.
My parents were shattered. It was like broken glass. Shattered.
What did happen to him?
He obviously committed suicide.
Why do you think he did it? - Why did he do it?
Well, he was in a terrible state of depression.
What brought him in depression I do not know.
I do not know. I do not know.
I can't tell you.
There words don't exist to tell another person
how destroyed part of you has been.
They just don't exist,
I can't tell you, but I can tell you
that it's something you'll never recover from.
What true is that life goes on
but not the way you wanted it to and not the way you planned for it to.
but you do not recover. I don't think.
I thought if Evan was going to kill himself
it would be similar to my experience with my brother.
It would be a slow decline,
but Evan seemed actually doing pretty well.
Give me a beer. - Light?
So, why are you out so late? - I've been seeing a Kiss concert.
He didn't pay. - He just took it.
Evan was never an over the top effervescent happy kid.
but from all the markers, is he getting into trouble? No, not at all.
Can you do the fish?
I can do the snake. - I can do the seizure.
We've seen the Police and we certainly did see the police
for a number of occasions before Wellspring.
No police.
Evan was doing so well, it was like a miracle. You couldn't believe it.
Is this the same kid?
I mean here he is and he is growing, he is popular,
he has this lovely friends and they have a wonderful time.
Suddenly there is hair on his jaw, he is firmer and he is taller than I am.
He is a man. He is a young man.
Very handsome, very popular with the girls,
but not really all that interested in them.
His voice went from this [..] to this [..].
He hated being sick.
He didn't want to be different. What teenage boy does?
That roof incident. - Oh, are we talking about this again?
Evan says: I'm not like that anymore
Is it better now? - Much better.
A lot of the time he seemed really out of it to me.
I really tributes that to his drugs.
because I remember going through a turnstile door with him.
and in search of stopping in the middle
or not really paying attention to what was going on around him.
I thougth: What is it with this kid?
Oh, I said, he is taking lithium.
We've been talking for a while trying without medication.
because it made him tired and made his mouth dry.
It was really something you didn't want to do.
So we said: Ok. You really want to try this?
and he really did and the doctor said: Ok.
So, he gradually with down in lithium dose over a course of four to six weeks.
March 30, 2005
Lithium .56
Now sub therapeutic. 1,200 milligrams.
Didn't take meds for a few days, became quote: more talkative.
At first decreased lithium, was difficult, now fine.
He feels better on lower dose.
After a while I wasn't even that convinced
you know, that he really was.. I mean, I knew he was bipolar,
but he seemed so fine.
Also I remember we talked to him head on: Do you have thoughts of suicide?
"Do you want to kill yourself? Do you want to harm yourself?
and he said: No, I don't.
Kids know that if they say certain things or they do certain things
they're gonna be stopped.
Especially if their parents who are attentive to what's going on with them.
So if a kid really doesn't want to be stopped, he's not gonna say anything.
Evan may have gotten to the point
where he got really just better at masking it externally.
but internally, it's a lot of suffering.
And this was just the beginning. I mean, it had started when he was much younger
and it wasn't going away.
We went on vacation for two weeks in Nantucket.
and he seemed depressed, he seemed subdued.
Didn't seem to happy. He wasn't doing good.
Then school started He was sullen, he's depressed.
As the weeks unfolded in September,
he started to be more anxious about his homework.
At one point he came to me and said very seriously: Mom, I need your help.
I need you to stay after me.
We contacted his psychiatrist and tried to make a meeting as soon as possible
to increase his dose of lithium.
We said: Let's get him back on the lithium, this experiment didn't work.
So we made an appointment with the doctor for the following Tuesday October 4th.
We hung out with him that Friday night.
We went to another teen, who called me and Nick
We invited Evan to go, but he just didn't want not.
It might have been his curfew or whatever He just didn't want to go.
and we didn't think is was that big of a deal.
We said: Whatever, he wants to go home and chill.
So, there's nothing really beforehand that we could have seen.
I think if someone is that sure that they want to that to themselves
they gonna hide it for someone.
The night that he died, I came over for dinner.
It was a Sunday evening.
We were all eating together.
and I know Evan had some homework that was unfinished.
He was being little obnoxious about not wanting to do his homework.
He started putting his feet on table and you know.
His Mom was nagging him about his homework.
and they had a tiff and he was mad.
The fight was very intense as it often was.
Deeply intense.
I was doing the dishes and I was hot. I was tired of this.
and he goes up the stairs and said: "Mom, I hate you."
He closed the door. He locks it.
Leaving that night I didn't think anything of it.
He wasn't behaving in any way that would make me think
"This child is gonna end his life tonight. '
Not in a million, million, million years.
On my good days, I acted worse than him at dinner.
By this it was ten o'clock.
and I went into our bedroom with Mikey and we were both reading.
Treave a little bit and I go to check in on Evan.
and he's unlocked the door.
I go in. He was sitting in his underwear on in bed with his computer.
So I came over and I say: "Well, how are you doing? What's happening?'
He said, "I'm fine, Dad. I'm doing my homework. "
At his computer looked as if he was doing his homework.
I go back to read with Mikey for another five minutes,
You know, it's Mikey's bedtime.
So I brought Mickey into the room and Evan was not there.
I immediately thought that he'd jumped out the window.
There was an air shaft, so you couldn't really see anything.
Mikey shows up with this little penlight. I shot it down the shaft.
and I think I see something, but I was hard to tell.
I feel pretty concerned at this point.
I ran downstairs to to find the super.
He had access to the air shaft.
I was downstairs and
about to recline watching TV. I was half asleep I guess.
Nothing unusual, I just heard a noise.
and I thought nothing of it.
I thought maybe the girl upstairs dropped something.
Nothing, nothing
I do not know how many minutes later someone came banging on my door.
We were all with Roger, we had the lamp.
I had a cell phone and keys.
We went to this 'labyrinth' for some kind of way. and Hart get there first.
and Evan was there.
He was lying on his back and there was blood.
I thought he might be alive.
I felt his pulse and he wasn't.
So, it got pretty chaotic.
I was screaming, "Evan. Evan... "
Heart was in front of me and said:
"Get out of the way. I want to give mouth-to-mouth. "
"Move. Out of the way."
Hart said, "Dana, the paramedics are coming."
'Go upstairs.Take care of Michael.' He was very calm.
I called Nick to come and look after Mikey and Dana.
because I had to go to the hospital with Evan.
I was comforting Michael and we were praying.
I thought maybe he'll life.
maybe he has only broken bones and he will life.
At one point, I don't know when, Nick showed up.
We pulled up in front of the house. There were police cars outside.
I thought, 'This is *** real. This is real"
I walked into the apartment. There were Police officers downstairs.
They looked at me and started approaching me and said "Who are you?"
and I pushed them out of the way and just ran Dana.
Michael was so amazing.
He kept saying, "Mommy, it is gonna be ok. Mommy, it is gonna be ok."
We just holding each other
and then Hart called. I just knew immediately what happened and he was dead.
I could not believe it.
So, Jean drove me to the hospital. St. Vincent's.
that's where he had been there before.
and I was taken into the room, where he was on a stretcher.
You know, he wasn't cold and he had his boxer shorts on.
I took the sheets off like this. I held him.
and I closed his eyes.
That's it.
and then I got a call from the car. From Nick.
He said: "I found his note."
I remember the officers asking me, whether there was a suicide note.
and I hadn't even thought about that.
We looked around his room and there was nothing.
and then he pointed to the computer.
and opened it, touched the screen. It turned up.
A letter came up.
To be honest the gist of the letter was,
what every *** 15-year old thinks about them self:
"that, I'm not good enough." "No one likes me."
"Things won't get better."
The difference is: Evan felt that 20,000 times stronger
than any normal 15 year old.
and he believed more strongly
that it wouldn't get better and that there was no future.
and that living was too painful, too difficult
and that death was the only answer.
But it was verbatim, I could have checked of that list.
If he had showed me that note before he had made his decision
I could have gone through with him and said "thought that, thought that,..."
I realize they're all untrue for me They're definitely all untrue for you.
Some of the qualities about yourself make you feel different right now.
You're gonna learn in five years, that those are your best qualities.
and those are what will set you apart from people and make you interesting
and attracted others to you.
But
that opportunity did not arise.
So, what do you make of that?
I think that he foresaw
He must have been getting a glimpse of adult life.
and that he for saw that he was not going to make it
in the way he wanted to make it.
You know in psychiatry Bipolar is our cancer.
It kills people
You do everything you can but some people can not be saved.
and probably we could have save him,
definitively we could have save him. For a while.
But he would have gone of his medication All these kids do. They all do go of them.
and when he was off, he went so fast.
Maybe his illness was changing.
in the type where people do get crazy.
He didn't talk about any of those? He denied feeling it.
Never did he say anything like he didn't trust his friends?
But this is crazy talk - It's crazy but, but it is done so sanely.
numbered, so precise.
It makes me so mad with all the portrayals
of mental illness on TV and movies.
Raving, crazy, foaming at the mouth.
Not sanely sitting there, hyper sanely.
typing this horrible thing out.
Just methodically, all ready knowing he was going to do it.
That's insanity.
On behalf of the congregation of this church,
I like to welcome all of you to a mourning passing of Evan today.
When I went to Evan's funeral
I felt that I was going through the same thing again.
It was like a repeat. It was the same church, it was the same family.
It was that little boy, 35 years later.
and Beati was with me.
Scott's mother, Evan's grandmother and Hart's mother.
was sitting next to me and was hanging on to me.
and she would say during the ceremony
"Martine, why did Scott die? Why did Scott kill himself? '
She knew that she had a son had committed suicide,
but she could not remember.
I was briefly trying to explain to her that it was the same disease
that he died for the same reasons as Evan died.
I feel relieved to know that Evan has found peace
Remember the vehemence of wane is take on pain.
through his memory, we realize
the extreme precariousness and preciousness of life.
Let's cherish the Savior of the life and the relationships we enjoy
as much as we can as long as we can.
A lot of time, before I go to sleep
sometimes I just can't help it thinking about him.
You do not want to make everything depressed by talking about it everyday.
but it is always there and you can't not talk about.
When I read his note, I could tell that it was the spirit of the moment.
and hopefully at least he didn't mean what he said.
His note didn't come from the Evan, I knew.
Depressing.
the horrible stuff that he said.
not having friends.
I know, he didn't mean it.
In thy hands, Oh merciful Savior, we command thy servant Evan.
Receive him into the arms of Thy mercy
into the blessed rest of everlasting peace
and into the glorious company of the Saints in light.
Amen.
What is the problem?
They forgot to dig the hole.
We have everything but the hole
They have forgotten to dig the hole.
Anyway who would have told them where to put it?
I do not know how these things work. I do not know
Someone has to mark where it must be. - We do it.
Oh, You.
He's laughing. - O, he is laughing all right.
He's roaring over this one.
He who raised up Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies.
In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ
we command to All mighty God our brother Evan.
We commit his body into the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes dust to dust
Amen
When somebody is that deep and far into depression
and in such incredible pain, there's nothing you can do.
The survival is really very difficult.
But anyway you do the best you can.
What is there?
You know that there isn't any choice.
If you found a 'Believe me' theory, pass it along.
Because there is no choice.
There isn't choice to cope. There isn't.
I have a family and people I love and people love me,
and you really have no choice, than get up and put one foot in front of the other.
Basically I think, the thing I think about most is,
such I can not believe it.
I can't believe this. I can't believe I'm sitting here.
I can't believe
that I gave birth to the boy and I raised him
and have buried him.
I can't believe it. It's just a sense of disbelieve.
I do not know if I will ever really understand that it's true.
I can't believe it really happened. Tell me it's a dream.
I can't believe it. And I can't believe that the days continue to go by
and the world continues rotate without him.
I hope that this tree grows, strong and proud and beautiful,
to remind us of Evan
and always provide beauty and shade for future generations.
and every time we see it, we think of how much we loved him
and how we always remember him.
That is the part that is gonna, I guess, change
which is that as the time passes, I'll begin to believe that's true.
Basically what I have left with him is those fifteen years that we had.
and that there was beauty and joy.
Maybe there is a lesson or maybe we can learn something
or to communicate something.
But in terms of coping it's just, you know, it's our choice:
I don't have no choice. There is none.
Even though we lost this battle,
we'll never forget the experience we had at Wellspring.
I volunteered to make beams for the barn of Wellspring.
I have a farm and a sawmill.
and this is a way to give something back to Wellspring
that had given us so much.
And that's gonna be a building where other kids
are going to be able to get the kind of therapy that Evan got.
These beams here, these are are ours. All the side beams.
And look at the inscription over there.
Here was an opportunity to make something physical in memory of Evan.
If people say: 'Who's Evan?' It does not matter.
What matters is that
somebody loved Evan enough to
want to remember his name.
English -transcript-: BABL