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the most common set of illnesses during childhood and Adolescence are psychiatric disorders or mental health
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disorders in fact 17.1 million uh young people in the United States 18 or younger will be have a diagnosable
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mental health Disorder so clearly adolescence is a risky time and it also means that you're more likely to have
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depression or anxiety and you're also more likely to be influenced by your peer group and what other people say so
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that you might do something foolish that you wouldn't do if you were a child or if you were an adult there's a real
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difference between the brains of teenagers or adolescents and that of children or adults but it's also a
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vulnerable time you're more susceptible to impulsive behavior and you feel everything such so much more intensely
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so that when you're hot you're boiling when you're cold you're freezing when you're distraught you're completely
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overwhelmed with Despair and that's because your brain hasn't completely absolutely developed the
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prefrontal cortex that part of your brain that's in the front of your head which does strategy that tells you about
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cost benefit ratio that says wait let's think about the consequences that prefrontal cortex doesn't start
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communicating to the rest of the brain until we're 25 and that by the way is the time when suicide actually starts to
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drop at for that age population I I think we should be very clear that you can't convince someone who isn't
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suicidal to become suicidal but when you're suicidal we have plenty of evidence that it is not a fixed feeling
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that we know from people who have attempted suicide and survive that they wish they didn't do it we have a lot of
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evidence by the fact that very often people attempt several times before they commit suicide that there's a gray Zone
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and that having the right person the right conversation the right mental professional the right support from the
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people who love you can change the trajectory of that attempted suicide so while Michelle could not force Conrad to
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kill himself she could enhance his risk of killing himself because he was already on his way and simultaneously
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she could have screamed out for help she could have called the police she could have begged to stop which might have
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prevented this deadly [Music] outcome