Losing Her Son to Suicide: She Chose to Save Other Youth (CW: Suicide, Self-Harm)

0:00 [Music] 0:04 My name is Julie Taylor and I am the 0:06 president of a 501c3 nonprofit company 0:09 called the Sam Taylor Foundation. It's 0:12 named in honor of my youngest son, Sam. 0:15 Uh Sam 0:17 was a great kid. He grew up and uh great 0:21 grades, never gave us much of a problem. 0:24 Every teenager gives you a problem, but 0:26 not much of a problem. He went to the 0:28 college of his choice. Came home for 0:31 Thanksgiving after I in his first 0:34 semester in college. Had a great 0:35 Thanksgiving with his brother and came 0:38 home for Christmas. 0:41 And 3 days before Christmas, 0:43 we lost him to suicide. 0:47 And we didn't know why. And we never 0:49 knew why. And we will I will live the 0:52 rest of my life never knowing why. I can 0:55 look back now and say maybe there were 0:58 signs. He did sometimes isolate himself 1:03 uh with his laptop in his bedroom. He 1:05 sometimes didn't want to go out and do 1:09 the things that kids in high school do. 1:12 Um 1:13 but at the time we didn't see the signs. 1:16 So we started the foundation in 2021. 1:21 And at first our goal was suicide 1:23 prevention. we're going to prevent it. 1:25 And then we realized we had no idea what 1:27 we were doing because neither no one in 1:30 my family is a counselor. 1:32 And we finally figured out that the best 1:35 way to try to prevent it, not always 1:37 successfully, but to try was to make 1:40 sure that kids, teenagers, and young 1:43 adults could get the mental health 1:44 therapy they needed when they needed it 1:47 before it became a crisis situation. So 1:51 we established the foundation with two 1:53 goals. One was to provide um free mental 1:57 health counseling for teens and young 1:59 adults um without the need for insurance 2:03 uh without having to explain why you 2:05 thought you needed it. Um and uh we did 2:10 that through a partnership with an 2:12 organization called Better Help and it's 2:14 been very successful. Um, we also 2:18 decided that we should go into schools 2:21 and at events to talk to young people 2:24 about mental illness with the final goal 2:28 of uh of really lessening the stigma of 2:32 mental illness and the stigma of suicide 2:35 so people could talk about it and kids 2:38 could understand when and how they could 2:42 get help. The key to this is education. 2:45 Key to this is education to kids about 2:50 what are the warning signs and 2:54 how and when to ask for support not only 2:57 for you but let's see you see the 2:59 warning signs in a sibling or in a 3:01 friend at school. How do you approach 3:05 that? How do you work with that? How who 3:08 do you go to? And I when I'm in high 3:10 schools, I always tell the kids, the 3:12 conversation you have with your friend 3:14 is the hardest conversation you're ever 3:16 going to have. It's the most awkward 3:17 conversation you're ever going to have, 3:20 but it is way better than the 3:22 conversation you're going to have at 3:24 their funeral with their parents when 3:28 you knew or you might have known and you 3:30 didn't take the next step. Mental health 3:32 is health. It's health. That's what it 3:35 is. And if you're going to take steps to 3:37 treat your health 3:39 on a medical health basis, then you need 3:42 to know how to take steps to treat your 3:45 health or somebody else's health on a 3:46 mental health basis. And it's not more 3:48 complicated than that.