Great Barrington — The Berkshire International Film Festival, in conjunction with the Austen Riggs Center, held a screening of part of the documentary “Hiding in Plain Sight, Youth Mental Illness” at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Sunday, November 20.
The documentary, produced by Ken Burns and aired on Public Broadcasting stations, includes first-person accounts from 23 people ages 11 to 27 years old who live with mental health conditions. It also includes accounts from their parents, friends, healthcare providers, and mental health experts.
The November 20 event was titled “Shine a Light” and included representatives from local mental health organizations providing information to attendees. “We all know that there is a crisis in our community and our country,” Berkshire International Film Festival Director and Founder Kelley Vickery told The Berkshire Edge. “We feel that it’s important to shine a light on the issues about mental illness that lead up to suicides.”
Representatives from The Berkshire Coalition for Suicide Prevention were at the event, including Coalition President Brian Berkel. “We need to help reduce the stigma of mental health by starting to have conversations about it,” Berkel said. “Films like ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ helps to generate conversations that we need to have with one another so we can reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. Mental health and suicide have always been things that nobody wants to talk about. People assume that mental health is their own individual problem. But it’s a cultural problem and it is everybody’s problem. We need to work together to help people who are suffering from mental illness and recognize that one in four people will suffer from mental health issues in their lifetime. It’s a very prevalent issue.”
Berkel said that it is important for people to know that there are resources out there to help them. “They should feel confident to ask for help because one of the bravest things you can do is ask for help,” he said. “Asking for help is not giving up. It’s refusing to give up.”
After the partial showing of the episode, the audience was treated to a showing of the short public service announcement “Up On The Roof” created by Stockbridge resident Katherine Morris.
Morris was behind the creation of the PSA that was unveiled during the summer which showcased teenagers from across the country singing the Carole King classic to spotlight mental health awareness.
The video is also a fundraiser for the Chicago- and California-based Find Your Anchor organization, which focuses on suicide prevention, awareness, and education.
Find Your Anchor founder Ali Borowsky was present at a panel discussion at the event, along with “Hiding in Plain Sight, Youth Mental Illness” director and producer Erik Ewers, Brenda Butler from Berkshire Health Systems, Director of Research from Austen Riggs Center Katie Lewis, and psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Jane Tillman from the Austen Riggs Center.
As part of Find Your Anchor’s mission, the organization has created a box that includes information on resources and hotlines for those in need, along with a card set entitled “52+ Reasons to Live.”
“These little blue boxes that we sent into the world are at the core of Find Your Anchor,” Borowsky said. “There’s a whole bunch of good vibes and resources which I created out of my journey. I’ve survived multiple suicide attempts. Through it all, I was navigating the mental health world which felt incredibly corporate, cynical, and cold. I felt like kind of a barcode shuffled through a system.”
Borowsky said that the first time she was hospitalized was when she was in eighth grade, and the last time was when she was 26 years old. “Everything just felt so sterile, and I thought ‘where’s the color in every sense of the word when it comes to mental health?’” Borowsky said. “So I thought, I’m a graphic designer and I’m going to create what I wish I would have had. Putting that love into the world and filling it with my soul has evolved to 48,000 boxes. When you’re in a better space, you add things to the box. Things that help you to be in a better space. And then playing it forward to someone else in need, just having that tangible resource to help and support others.”
In speaking about his documentary, Ewers said that by speaking about their experiences, the subjects of “Hiding in Plain Sight, Youth Mental Illness” have helped others. “These 23 young people gave of themselves so that the viewing audience, however big or small, could benefit from their stories,” Ewers said. “That was their goal in sharing some of the most private and scariest moments in their lives. But in doing so it empowered them and gave them strength. As we started in the process of making this, we realized that it was our mission to empower the voices of our young people in this country. [The documentary] is not pretty and it’s not fun. But it’s very important that we finally stop and say: ‘What does mental illness look like? How does it feel? And what can you do about it?’ We’re telling the whole journey and the hard stuff. But we’re also showing the hopeful and positive stuff. This is a message that we hope will help transform our thinking and move the needle forward towards a better world and a better country, so we can all think about this and put it at the forefront.”
