The nominee on the other side ends up being donald trump, the potential is he ends up making the case for her. That certainly has been, if you you look at the polls in recent, they voted last week and she won all five. It surprised me that her campaign was based off of women moving toward hillary. We will have to see if she can actually make that case. I think the bottom line is, if youre willing to go for the jetski, how are you going to pay for . There is nothing that outlines things from an Economic Policy standpoint. Theres nothing that connects all those dots. Does the expectation for equality have a larger push for more women in power . Are they going to be giving up more . Thats an interesting question. So this generation is actually frighteningly doesnt run for office. They dont vote, they tend to vote less, they definitely do not get involved. They are very civic in the generation and that the hallmark of their generation. But they dont get involved in Public Policies and decisionmaking. Build a lot a nonprofit stuff and working for a green company. They really disdain washington. I think thats a real problem for the gains women have gotten in washington because of you dont have a next generation that believes that you will see those gains retreat. They are much stronger in the private sector, the millennial woman than they are in the public sector. Maybe we will see more gains in that sector. They are much more vocal and upandcoming. Taylor swift is standing up at the grammys saying i want my recognition and Jennifer Lawrence is standing up saying i want equal pay. There are women finding their voices and thats very helpful, but it is striking there are so very few Millennial Women in public life. Millennials in general, especially College Students have been hesitant to go vote. Theres a fundamental shift looking at all the ones that are actually in interested. Stay involved, stay tuned, volunteer on campaigns because if you get that buzz early on in a campaign, you are going to be hooked. You really can make a difference. Any other questions or should we call it a night . Thank you, i thoroughly enjoyed being with all of you. She is a great friend. I think you so much kay for coming tonight. It was great to have your insight. [applause]. Thank you all. [inaudible conversation] this weekend on after words, the mother of one of the columbine shooters discusses a junction between violence and Mental Illness. Shes conversations the organization on Mental Illness. In 1999, your son dylan and eric harris took the lives of 12 students and one teacher in their high school and then their own. Twentyfour others were wounded. It devastated those families and affected really the whole nation. I think one of the questions people have is why did you decide to write this book now, 17 years later . Well probably because it took me that many years to try to understand it and feel that i was ready to write a book. There was much learning that had to go on my part and healing and i just think it took that long. Its a very powerful book. It covers such a range of emotion, grief and anger and fear. You talk about those emotions and was their progression . It seemed as you learned more things changed for you. Could you talk a little bit about that . Yes, there is always a progression after after a loss of any kind. The progression that i am most aware of in looking at it from the distance, from the distance of time was in the beginning i was certainly feeling very much a victim of the tragedy. I was bewildered, i didnt understand what had happened or why. I couldnt make sense of any of it. I was humiliated and grief stricken. I was terrified. As time went by and i began to understand a little bit about how he died, a little bit about his own suicide, i learned that i became more of a survivor. Identified with other survivors of loss from tragedy or suicide or murder suicides. I became a little more active and interested in all of our welfare together. I began volunteering and trying to raise funds for Mental Health and how to prevent suicide. As time went on i became an advocate. I became someone who was determined to make a difference to write some of the wrongs, to use funds to try to make it possible so we could have Brain Research to occur. There really was a progression and im sure im still in it. There are things you talk about in the book and people want to know, how could you not know. Then over time you come to say there were some warning so signs that had you known what you know now you mightve picked up on that. Can you talk about what you knew then and what you came to know . Right. Unfortunately i had no idea. I had no idea he was suffering and having suicidal thoughts and that he was cutting himself. He wrote about that in a journal entry that i read long after his death. He did have some trouble in junior year of high school. They had stolen something from a parked van. He was assigned to a juvenile Diversion Program and at that time i was baffled. I couldnt understand why he had done such a terrible thing and i remember asking the diversion counselor, does this mean something . Does this mean he needs help her counseling and at that time, nobody seemed to think that he did. He was given an assessment which was the only tool they had at the time to use. Dylan was asked to check off his own feelings about himself and he checked off nothing about feeling suicidal or homicidal. The only thing he checked off was that he needed the job and had financial concerns. We spoke with him and had the support program in place. Dylan promised us he would get his life on track and he did. That is what was so confounding about all this. He continued to go to school. He had a job, he applied up for colleges and was accepted. Over the next 1414 months of his life, he did demonstrate to us that he was doing okay and doing well. There were times when he was moody. There were times when he spent time in his room, but he continued to function during all that time and he had friends. He did activities. We had no idea of the level of suffering and this disorientation, this filter through which he was seeing the world. We werent aware of that until long after his death. What are some of those warning signs now that you would tell other families to be looking for and watch out. I would say a change of behavior for someone or something that seems out of character. At the time, friends friends and Family Member who knew him didnt believe that was significant because they believed so much in his goodness and the fact that he was a teenager and he was experimenting and things would be fine. That is one thing that i would say to people, if suddenly you have a child who gets in trouble as dylan did, he also got in trouble at school about the same time. Those are warning signs that something could be terribly wrong. We have to do a much better job, certainly i wish i had done a better job of asking more probing, openended questions and to listen without judgment or trying to fix things, but to really try to listen to understand what he was feeling. I think some people would say these are typical teen behaviors. How do you think people should look at it to know the difference between a typical teen behavior and what needs to be looked into more carefully . Thats the conundrum. Typical teen behavior can often be the same behavior that one might have if one is depressed. Sleeping patterns that change, eating habits that change, behaviors that change. Its very difficult sometimes to tell and thats why, as parents, we cannot operate under the delusion, as i did, that everything is fine because we have a child that we love and we trust. We believe in their goodness, we believe in their health and ability to make good decisions. I think all of us have to be aware that someone we love may be struggling, struggling with life and death thoughts and they are working very hard to hide those from us. Simply that awareness will change us as parents and the way we interact. I think thats the question people have. Why . Why did dylan do this . I know you talk in the book about lots of theories about that, media and others, but im interested on how you would respond to that question. A child that you have that could take part in a school shooting, the chances are one in millions. This is not something that every parent needs to be worried about the far more dangerous thing for our children is how many of them have thoughts of suicide and selfharm . If we look at a murder suicide, such as the columbine tragedy, murder suicide is a small subset of suicidality. My recommendation is that we focus vy much on trying to understand suicide and trying to prevent suicide. We dont want these things to abrupt into a terrible tragedy. You talked about why it happened and in the book i asked what i think is a more effective question and that is how did this happen. How does ones thinking deteriorate. The way i have come to explain it to myself is a medical model. If we look at suicide inconsiderate to be a health risk, as we would Heart Disease or diabetes, we know there are many factors involved that our personality and how the person interacts and views the world. There are biological factors. It can show that someone has a tendency to think or act or eat or live in a certain way. There are environmental factors and thats not just the home, but it can also be the School Culture or the national culture. Especially with suicide, there are are triggering factors. There are things that occur in ones life such as bullying or arrests that can impact the thoughts that one is having. What happened to dylan is a very rare set of circumstances that overlap perfectly if you want to look at it in a diagram of overlapping circles. Everything came into play of meeting a friend who was very disturbed and very controlling and very angry. Allens own vulnerability and his own wish to die. The pain that he was in, his psychological pain, bullying that they experience together in school, all of of those factors came together in what turned out to be the horrible perfect storm. You talk a little bit on the book on this issue of Mental Health and you call it brain health you say he was experiencing depression and this contributed his desire to die by suicide. You also talk a lot about something that concerned me as someone who advocates for families affected by suicide and Mental Health and that is the stigma. The view that somehow there is a link between Mental Health and violence and that prevents people from getting the help they need. You say here that you do not mean to imply that dylans brain Health Issues made him capable of the atrocities he would enact but to be aware of the millions of People Living with depression. You go on to talk about the research around violence and Mental Illness that it is a very small risk. You talk about dr. Jeffrey swanson and his research. Can you talk a little bit about the research you documented in the book and why it was important to you to point out that this link is not generally accepted as if you have a Mental Illness you would be violent. In fact, the general rule is people with a Mental Illness are not violent. Its 4 of people with serious Mental Illness have a risk factor. Its a risk factor in 4 of incidents. Can you talk a little bit about that . Yes, im glad you asked that. Certainly. This is one of the most difficult things about writing this book. I didnt want to make it any more difficult than it already is for anyone who is struggling with a Mental Health issue. There is certainly enough stigma. There is certainly enough fear and i didnt want, in any way, to make anyone assume that someone who is even feeling suicidal is necessarily a risk to other people. It isnt true. They are a risk to themselves. I have said before were really talking about a small percentage of someone who is suicidal, who might then go on and kill other people. I feel there is a very delicate balance in this discussion. This is one of the most difficult things in writing this book cause i believe someone who is struggling with the Mental Illness is really at greatest risk to him or herself. Knowing that someone is having thoughts where they are in pain or wish to die and they want the pain to stop, this does not necessarily make them dangerous to other people. When all of these factors, as i mentioned before, are happening in such an unusual way, then they can become a risk to other people. That is not the case. That is not what happens most of the time. What i would love to see is, i think in the Mental Health community, there is there is almost a fear of having this conversation of when does violence against oneself or others play a role when someone is ill, when someones brain is not working properly. They dont have the tools for selfgovernance. What is that place where violence becomes a reasonable option . I wanted to raise that discussion simply because i feel too many people do harm themselves when they are feeling badly and they are suffering and in distress. We have to find a way to help people and also acknowledge that sometimes suffering does lead to violent acts against oneself in particular, but also against others as well. We cant be afraid to have that conversation and try to understand what is happening and intervene before it comes a stage iv situation where somebody dies. You talk about how the media talked about the story and of course it was a story, it was something that was news worthy and you talk about why its important to talk about this responsibly. Can you tell us a little bit about that . The media, i feel, plays a huge role in inadvertently perpetuating violence. Even we know with reports on just suicide, there are protocols that schools can follow so they dont increase contagion. I believe we really need to have much clearer standards on how to report on violent issues. When columbine happened, it was a world phenomenon. One of the reasons it was perceived to be a phenomenon was that it was beginning to be more news coverages with images of people running from the school and images of dylan and eric wearing their clothing, wearing guns, showing their names and faces. There was a fight to let people observe what they planned and what they said. They indicated to me and certainly i support this and believe us that this is very dangerous. When we disenfranchised youth who are observing these events and seeing all of the attention that the perpetrators get, it is titillating and something that makes them want to do this more. One of the things people tend to forget about columbine is that columbine itself was a copycatted situation. Dylan and eric referred to this event in their own communications with the each other as an bk which stands for Natural Born Killers and it was a movie. They were doing a lot of modeling off the movie they had seen. I think these images repeatedly showing these images and talking about them is very irresponsible on part of the media. The book itself is about your journey and your thinking over time and reflecting on it. Can you talk to us about the journey and your reflections you said in the beginning it took you 17 years to process what had happened. Talk about what you learned and what you want people to know that youve learned from the journey youve been on. Well, this is going to sound fragmented but they are somewhat disjointed. One of the things i learned is that love is not enough to protect someone we love from illness and that illness might be a Mental Illness or a brain and homeless. I think i always believed in my heart that you could love away someone bad thoughts. That was very naive in my part but there is something that i believed. That is one of the lessons i took away. We have to do much more than just love someone and be there for them. Much more has to be done in how we communicate and how we support. Also how we can find access to good health care. Another thing i feel i learned is bad advice but that is never trust what you see. What you see might be a lie. Someone you love might be working very hard to wear a mask that hides what youre thinking and feeling. Always be aware of that. I think things i learned about myself, perhaps more than anything else, i learned from the nature of a tragedy such as this one. It was very hard to focus on the loss and peer grief of my son. That was something i had to work very hard for in their p. Dont focus on your humiliation and your fear of being sued by all these families dont focus on your life changing and coming to an end as you knew it. The real work in all of this is to find your way back to the person you loved who did such a terrible thing. Ive found that focusing on that love, the important thing is to remember that the way they died is not who they were. You talk a bout a lot of mail that you got, boxes and boxes of mail. You talk about how it really helped you to have letters from people, families who families who had a loved one who died by suicide. Hearing their stories really helped you. Can you talk about why that is helpful to you . After Something Like this happens you dont understand whats happening to you. I felt like i was living on one planet and everyone else was living on a different planet. When i spoke to people who lost children to suicide or had loved ones who were incarcerated incarcerated, it was comforting to me to know that i wasnt the only one trying to sort that out. To see that they were going on with their lives and productive human beings, they had not let this destroy them. It was very heartening to see that was possible and maybe someday i would have a life to. I might have a normal life again, whatever that means. You talked about how you could give back by listening. Can you talk a little bit more about that . We find that too, when we listen to someone else and help someone else it can heal them. Can you tell us how that affected you . That was, to me, and important marker of my own healing. After a traumatic loss, we have a need need to talk about it. We all do. Its like that old poem, the rime of the Ancient Mariner when the old man wants to talk about what he experienced and tell everybody, i think by retelling our stories and talking about what were experiencing and thinking and feeling, it takes the stain out of it. It allows us to be desensitized to it, to get used to hearing it that it is our lives and thats what we need to live with. When we get to a place to listen to someone else and not interject and say yes that happened to me, i know how you feel, when, when that need is gone thats a marker that weve come a long way in our own healing. I was so filled with joy when i found i had gotten to a place where i no longer needed to talk about my loss and my story but i was able to listen to someone else. When you give someone the opportunity to talk and tell their story and you dont judge, i think thats the greatest gift we can give to a person. You talked in the book about how you wish you had listened more to some of the things that were going on, his perfectionism and other characteristics. Can can you talk a little bit about that . What you wish you would have listened to and what you think was important to have heard . I talked to us a coyote psychiatrist and he said heres what i think every parent of a moody teen should ask and i wish i had this question to ask when dylan was living. It was this, tell me something about yourself that no one understands but that causes you pain. Then listen for the answer. Dont try to talk them out of it. Dont try to say yes but or dont say because youre a teenager. Just listen. When they have completed answering the question, then say tell me more about that. I share that with everybody i can because its a perfect example of an openended question. It is a way to ask something that give someone an opportunity to speak and hear what they have to say, to listen without judgment, to experience empathy for what their experience is without trying to jump to what to do about it. You say in the book as you talk about these things, youre not excusing what your son did, do you want to talk a little bit bit about that and your feelings about the tragedy . I didnt want anyone or anywhere to think that i was simply concluding that dylan was depressed therefore he became a murderer, because thats ridiculous and untrue. I cannot ever fully explain how dylan could get into a place where he would willingly consider killing people, or in this case, blowing up an entire school. No matter how hard i tried to understand and how all these pieces fit together, that is still a question that is very hard for me to understand and accept. There is no way i can justify this. Yes he experienced a toxic culture at the school and he had an influential friend. Everything will take this a little closer to understanding but i dont think i will ever fully understand how it could happen. There are many answers we need to find and thats why i want to continue looking for ways to increase prevention. You talked about the dynamic between the two of them that contributed to the tragedy. What are your thoughts on that . I had quite a few experts that i talked about and they did support and substantiate that belief. I believe, whatever reason, reasons i might not understand in my lifetime, there was a chemistry between them. There was an interdependence. Somehow dylan was willing to go along with the plan to blow up the school and kill people and i dont know what it was in dylan that made him able to do that. I believe the impact of that friendship was a significant causal factor. Have you spoken to erics parents or have they talked about the book with you at all . When i get asked questions about the harrises are my own family i usually try to back off from that question a little bit because individuals who lose Family Members in suicides, from what i have met, most often dont want to be in the limelight. They dont want to be recognized or talked about. Its too difficult for them to even accept what they did or face what they did or be reminded over and over again. So im going to protect the privacy of individuals who have been associated with this and simply say that yes i have been in contact with them from time to time. Do you feel the same way about talking about the families of the individuals who died at columbine . Have you spoken with them or do you prefer not to talk about that . I have communicated with some of them and with a few more as a result of the book publication, but i would not share much of anything about conversations because i want to protect their privacy as well. What about dylans friends. I know you talk in the book that this is difficult for them. You have any words about friends who are experiencing something and have to live with the aftermath . Well certainly, what happened in the tragedy was like a pebble in water and the circle kept widening of how it affected people. Some of dylans friends did experience difficult times. One of them did require hospitalization. So yes it was terribly difficult for his friends and in many ways they were experiencing what we were, just complete disbelief and unable to put the pieces together so they make sense. I think its true that every victim of this tragedy is processing this in a different way. There is no victims response point of view. Each and every every one of us is making what ever mean we can and construct we can to live with us and go on living. One thing you talk about in the book is the fact that people look for someone to blame. You talk about that feeling. Can you address that issue and how you came to understand, that it didnt affect you the same way it did in the beginning. It was very difficult for you and over time you worked through some of that. I dont think i will ever work through it completely. It is still very hurtful to hear some things that are said, it is difficult for us as human beings to be rejected and judged and criticized. Its not just difficult because of this one situation per look at the example of road rage where our anger takes over and controls how we behave. I dont think it will ever be something that is easy and comfortable. I certainly understand peoples need to feel anger. A lot of that stems from some of the early reporting tragedy when so many things were said that were false. There was misinformation. A lot of people took that as fact and still believe to this day, some things like they were nazis or god or goffs. And some implied that the parents had something to do with this as well. Im sorry i think maybe i went off track. One one other thing i will say is when people do horrible things that when we see Something Like that in the news, all of us want to believe that such a thing could never happen to us so we had a need to believe that the other person or the other persons family is very different from our own. That. That is a coping mechanism for people to deal with the fear and trauma they have. I understand how it makes people feel better to believe that he was a bad person or i was a bad mother and that could never happen to them. Do you want to take a few minutes to talk about dylans growing up in your family life . Right. Certainly, every family has imperfections. Ours did too, we had struggles but basically i believed always that i was a good mother, i love my children dearly. I had been a teacher so i was always thrilled, i think one of the things that thrilled me most about dylan was his brilliant little mind. He was precocious and playful and loving and it seemed to me as parents that every decision we made was to do what was in the best interest of our children. Certainly we talked them right from wrong. I used every moment that i could find to teach morality and goodness and treating other people as we would like to be treated. I honestly dont believe that the environmental piece of what went on in the family was a causal factor of his part in the tragedy. I did a lot of searching and i was in therapy and i had did a lot of i wish i said this or did that and my therapist would remind me, you did that and you said that. Over time time i began to try to forgive myself for being the mother and not knowing what dylan had experienced. I still struggle with that. You talk in the book about how dylan was a perfectionist and got very upset when things didnt go quite the way he expected them to go and you say you should have, thinking back on it that this was important to you. Can you talk about that and how that affected your views looking back on the tragedy . Yes, dylan was a gifted child he was in the gifted program. He was so bright and learned things so quickly. He had a very significant capability to stick with something until it was completed. He experienced a lot of frustration around that. I can still remember hearing him banging on his keyboard because he was a beta tester for microsoft project. He would get frustrated but he wouldnt quit. That is one of the things i like most about him. When he became an adolescent and started having a little trouble in school and things werent coming quite as easily for him, i saw that as a good thing. I saw that as a lesson in life where he would have to loosen up a little bit and accept that life isnt perfect. You can always make it be the way you wanted to be. When he would be unhappy with a particular incident or something that would happen, i didnt see this as a negative experience in his life. I saw it as something that indicated he was growing and becoming an adult. We have to go through negative experiences in order to mature. Later as time went on, you saw signs that were much more troubling, looking back on his growth as an adolescent. Can you talk a little bit more about how you changed your views of some of that from positive to things that should have concerned you . I mentioned earlier, one of the things that was an indicator of something that has gone terribly wrong was in his senior year when he had a spell of trouble and he got in trouble at school for hacking into the schools computer system. He he was one of the computer technicians at the school. He scratched a locker as well. I was concerned. I wanted to know should he see a counselor. We had no other indicators that something was strongly a miss so we took his word for it and he promised he would do better. He did and that was the shocking thing. It was how hard he worked to get his life on track and get into a good college. One of the other things that occurred was, something within a few months of his death, ed teacher indicated his grades were slipping. At that time, the math teacher said he is sleeping in class. It was a morning class and we knew how busy her was. He had also been accepted at the university of his choice. We thought this was a senioritis , the behavior seniors get when theyve been accepted to colleges they slack off. We thought thats what it was. Than the english teacher told us he had written a disturbing paper and we asked, what does this mean. What should we do . Is this something we should be concerned about . She said i will counselor if he thinks there is a problem and they will get back to you. I never saw the paper. It was something that slipped my mind because i didnt see it as a significant issue. After his death i saw it was a very dark and disturbing paper. At that time, columbine had had never happened. The parents, nor the School Counselor looked at the issue of a violent paper is something that was indicative of the possibility of some real deterioration in thinking. Those are some of the regrets that i have. Thats why ive come forth and said to people if you have anything in your life that is a concern, never assume that its just teenage behavior. It could be something quite serious. As an advocate for people with Mental Health concerns and families, we tell people to check out and get help early, but we know there are a lot of barriers to early intervention. Can you talk a little bit about those barriers, getting Mental Health treatment and getting the care you need . You talk about the counselor that didnt follow up with you. Are there other barriers out there . I think there are all kinds of barriers. Theyre planted within all the different systems that we interact with. For example, the criminal justice system, simply from being arrested, he was at a greater risk for suicide. The system was not aware of that. We we were not aware of that. That would have been a significant point of counseling where someone could have said to us, you take a kid like dylan when he gets in trouble and his life gets out of control, that is a dangerous time for that family and that child. We werent aware of that. School systems, same thing. There are barriers there. Very few schools have Suicide Prevention programs and protocol. If there was a School Discipline issue or an arrest, lets get a closer look at this child. There are also financial issues. The counselors have to work on schedules and college issues. Theyre not there to serve the psychological needs of the students. One of the greatest barriers, especially working working with youth is that perception about counseling and they dont want to go. They dont want to get help. I know more individuals than i can count who are struggling with Family Members who have issues with Mental Health, addiction and the Family Members they refuse to get help. I think thats one of our most challenging barriers. You talk about the Police Officers and their assistance to you and we know the trauma that some of these Police Officers also encounter when theres a tragedy. Can you talk about any other insight you have into that topic. My experience with mom enforcement is certainly a very unusual one. I cant draw any conclusions. The day that columbine happen, everyone was out of their comfort zone. Nobody knew what was happening to you. The situation was that at our home, a swat team came, a bomb squad came, detectives came and they were all from different districts. It was an all out help from across the state. Help from the police perspective, im im sure it was a nightmare for them. Fast forward 17 years and i think what is happening now is there was a greater recognition that anyone in law enforcement, anyone who is going to intervene in a situation should be cit trained. They should have crisis intervention training. Very often situations that are lethal can be handled and brought down to a level of safety because of that training. I continue to hope that individuals will begin to understand a little bit more how the mind functions when it is traumatized. We have a need for better selfcare. Absolutely. Weve seen that here too that some of the Police Involved need the health care as well because of the trauma. Can you talk about the community and the trauma to the community and how that has affected people. We were perceived to be, by many perpetrators or collaborators. We were very much cut off from the post columbine. We stuck close to our families and friends. The magnitude of the effect on the community is something i cannot even begin to comprehend or explain. I only know that every time i work walk into a room or doctors office, i didnt want anyone to know who i was. I was afraid of being associated with the tragedy or with dylan. To this day, i continue to meet people who work in the school or in the room where the teacher died the trauma that they have lives on. They are still experiencing ptsd from that day. Some people sustained injuries in these injuries continue to limit their life, causing great pain. It causes expense and hardship. Its too huge for me to even begin to comprehend. Can you talk about yourself and your own journey and where you are now. In light of what youve experienced, the journey youve gone through, where are you today. Can you talk you talk about where you are now . I tend to believe that the dylan that was there that day and died that day because of some kind of pathology and because of that pathology he was a victim of the tragedy just as all the others were victims of the tragedy. I believe this is also true for eric. Some people find that a very difficult thing to hear. They dont want to hear it and i think they feel that im making an excuse for my son, but it is what i have come come to believe after all the research i have done. I believe, when we lose a child, in particular, it is a very difficult a very difficult kind of grief. I dont think, as moms, we ever get over it or get past it. I have found my own construct that something made dylan very ill and very vulnerable and that contributed to his death just as if he had cancer that was undiagnosed or just as if he had a heart condition or genetic disorder. That is the way i process it in my mind. That is the way i live my life, something happened to my son, he became very ill and because of that illness, because of whatever was happening in his mind, he died and before he died he killed. Thats what i try to live with and learn from. I think one of the major things that has changed in my life is that i have almost no judgment. I dont judge other people. I seem to have a belief system that horrible things happen to many people. Many of us love people who hurt themselves or hurt other people and our work is to continue to love them and love ourselves and care for ourselves. I know youve gone on to do advocacy in the area of brain health. Do you want to talk a little bit about that . Why do you use the Term Brain Health and why is that advocacy important to you . One of the experts that i interviewed use the Term Brain Health and i thought it was a very wise thing to do. That is because, when we use the word Mental Health, someone has a Mental Illness, for most people, certainly not for you, but for the general public, people dont understand what that means for they dont understand the range of thoughts and behaviors and perceptions that can occur because of that. When we think of Mental Illness, most of us think of something that is an intangible difference that people have. If we think of a brain malfunction as a physiological thing that is happening, when someone begins to have persistent thoughts of suicide, that is a a symptom of something malfunctioning in ones mind. Its more likely than not has to do with the output of serotonin and the ability of the brain receptors to receive the serotonin and process it. I believe it helps people to understand and think about when our thoughts are in control of us and our thoughts are selfdestructive, when they are terrifying, when they are confused something is going wrong physiologically. It is not a character flaw. It is not because we are not a good person or we dont try hard enough. Its because somethings wrong and i think a brain brain illness or brain dysfunction better describes what is occurring. You talk in the book about how we really have a Public Health crisis when it comes to suicide. You give some of those statistics. Can you talk a little bit more about that. You say people tend to focus on other conditions, but what what were looking at adolescent young people, young people need to think about suicide. Can you talk about why that was important to point out and how you want people to look at those issues . One of the things that i learned from all this, i talked about the rarity of what happens in dylans case, a double suicide, murder suicide, mass shooting, its a very rare incident. The. The chances of that happening are very limited. But, the chances that someone we love may be feeling suicidal and having thoughts of suicide or is making a plan of how they would like to die, and i dont mean to use the word like today i, i dont think they want to die, they just want the pain to stop. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for use in this country. The number of High School Kids who have thought about suicide or done something to harm their body or have had a plan, the numbers are astounding. Its a very significant problem and i believe that we have got to start putting some money into research on Suicide Prevention because it is the second leading cause of death. I dont generally get into a topic of gun safety, but i will mention in the state of colorado, 76 of our death by firearm are suicide. A lot of discussion has to occur about how does one recognize in himself or herself when one is at risk .