NARRATOR: Mental illness and PTSD are often taboo topics within families.

Media coverage often focuses on adults who are struggling to overcome their conditions.

Next on Our Time, filmmakers Bailey Francisco and Madison Goddard recount how their parents' PTSD and bipolar disorder impacted their own lives and how in that process they were forced to grow up quickly.

Then stay tuned afterwards for interviews with the filmmakers.

BOY: Why don't people understand me?

BOY: I'm tired of running so fast.

GIRL: I want to be heard.

BOY: Why are people afraid?

GIRL: I'm ready for change.

GIRL: I hear you.

BOY: I see you.

GIRL: My time...

BOY: My time...

GIRL: Our time is now.

NARRATOR: Major funding for this program is provided by the Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust.

Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf, and Betsy and Warren Dean.

Additional funding is provided by: The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation.

The Brenden Mann Foundation, Loo Family, the Moniker Foundation, the Buck Foundation, the CALM Foundation.

Half the Sky Giving Circle - in honor of Chris Beyer.

and Will Stoller-Lee.

A complete list is available online.

My name is Bailey Francisco.

I'm 17 years old and I live in Fountain, Colorado.

It's a suburb right outside of Colorado Springs, four miles away from Fort Carson military base.

A lot of retired vets and active duty soldiers live there.

A couple of years ago, my family was torn apart due to PTSD and traumatic brain injuries that my dad suffered while in the military.

It's a really rough time.

But as I got older, I realized that it's not really talked about.

And I just I don't want I don't want people to feel alone like I did.

Just want to get my story out.

MOM: When I was 19, I met this gorgeous, six foot tall, fierce soldier who just looked like stability to me.

And I fell madly in love with him.

He was the type of guy that everybody flocked to because he would help.

He would be there for anybody, give people the shirt off his back and all his money.

He is just a really good guy.

Through most of your early childhood, your father was fixated on taking care of you.

He would write you poetry.

He would.

He just loved you so much and he...

Wanted to protect you and be the best person he could be for you.

Your dad was serious about being a soldier.

We went to Germany while we were there.

Your dad deployed to Kosovo.

You would call and email and, you know, was very kind of controlling, where are you, what are you doing?

Who are you talking to?

And that was the first time I really experienced that with him.

And when he came back from Kosovo, we decided to have another child.

And so we had your sister, Eva.

Eva was born sick, and she only lived 10 months.

Your sister's death was really hard.

We had to use the do not resuscitate order and watch her die after we watched her suffer.

Dad deployed to Iraq for the first time less than a year after Eva died in August.

SOLDIER: They're still firing the two-oh-three's.

MOM: Whenever there's a bombing he had to go with the investigators and help catalog the carnage.

He saw a lot of dead children.

He's got shrapnel in his knee and he got a compressed spine so he has started taking pain pills.

He kind of abused them.

He was given a psychiatric evaluation and they recommended that he not be deployed for a third time.

And he overrode that and they let him deploy.

During his third tour in Iraq, he became increasingly erratic.

There are conspiracy theories everywhere.

His chain of command was out to get him.

He was driving himself crazy and he wasn't sleeping.

13 months in, he tried to commit suicide and they medevacked him out.

BAILEY: The Buffalo chicken.

MOM: Okay, I'm gonna get 12.

MOM: Well, when he came back, he was just dumped back in the house, he was on so many medications, I actually have a giant outdoor trash bag.

One of the black ones that you put leaves in filled with his pill bottles, and that was just for six months.

BAILEY: He would do really good for a couple of months.

And then just out of the blue, without any warning, he'd, you know, start messing up again.

My dad said he'd take me to Six Flags, supposed to be like a birthday celebration.

They start really cool.

We rode the Slingshot.

I saw him drinking and he told me that was non-alcoholic beer No, he just started getting like super drunk and I couldn't really do anything about it.

It was just me and him.

MOM: He got drunk and drove with you drunk all the way home.

And you would call me from the backseat crying for help, and I didn't know how to get to you or help you.

BAILEY: It was a really bad, bad day.

Really scary time.

MOM: He also started becoming very violent.

He came home, you were in the kitchen, and I heard a scuffle and he had attacked you and he was holding you over the kitchen sink and he was strangling you.

BAILEY: He had a knife to my neck.

And he was saying like stupid stuff, like, “You know, I wouldn't hurt you.

I love you, you're my son.

” Stuff like that.

But he had a knife to my neck.

He's like, ”Do you trust me?

” And I didn't know what to say.

So I was, I was crying.

And my mom came in and she was like, you know ”Get off of him ” MOM: He was punching walls.

He was punching the pass through.

There is blood everywhere.

He punched glass, he flipped tables, and then he decided to go after me.

Needless to say, cops were called in honestly, BAILEY: Honestly, it even...

It doesn't even feel like I had a dad during those years because he was just so out of it all the time.

And then when he was when he was like sober.

You know, it was just on the edge, like, are you like it was kind of like a constant state of paranoia.

Like 90 percent of my thoughts were about my ... about my dad.

MOM: He was taken to Penrose psych ward, and then two days later, the military took him to a lockdown facility in Cheyenne.

He stayed there for a few months at this point, I was done.

This is this is what I want from.

BAILEY: This is what I want for my birthday.

PHONE VIDEO: “Big hotdog!

Tired of the same old, “...traditional, tiny hot dog?

” BAILEY: I was 12 when all this stuff happened, so I was still pretty young and I was, I think I was the last person to forgive him.

I didn't, I didn't want him back in my life at all.

And it took a took a pretty, pretty long time.

DAD: The dog just ate your pizza BAILEY: Yeah, we dont have workouts at all next week.

And then got two more weeks of lifting weights.

I don't even think we talked about July 3rd.

MOM: We are not married.

I will never marry your father again.

But he is... he is my family.

I have known him since I was a teenager.

As long as he stays sober and is on the right track, then he is welcome into our lives.

- Fireworks?

MOM: I think it's been really hard for you.

Your life has changed very much.

It has.

It makes me really sad for you.

I think you look back at your childhood and think, oh, my God, it was so awesome.

And then it kind of just went crazy.

BAILEY: Yeah.

- Yeah.

BAILEY: Like, in your opinion, how has PTSD and stuff changed your life?

DAD: (laughs) Youre not who used to be.

And just dealing with that fact, You knew it was happening.

- I knew what was happening.

But like, did you, did you feel like you were affected like me and Mom?

DAD: No, not really.

And if I did, I didn't really care.

BAILEY: Yeah.

DAD: That's why, you know, we're divorced.

BAILEY: Yeah.

DAD: You know, it was to control me.

BAILEY: You working hard to get back on track?

DAD: Just gotta get back in shape.

BAILEY: Oh, how much you drink soda?

DAD: I don't know.

Yeah.

I drink a lot.

I'm just trying to eat healthier in general.

DAD: TV dinners.

BAILEY: , it's hard to... it's hard to get healthy.

DAD: But I know your mom cooks for you.

That's healthy.

BAILEY: But, like when I get hom from workouts I'm so hungry.

DAD: Make some eggs.

BAILEY: I don't like eggs.

This is what I want for my birthday: Protein.

Like protein shakes DAD: I'll just buy you a thing of protein.

BAILEY: Like I'm gaining muscle, but I'm not gaining weight.

I don't need to gain weight.

BAILEY: My dad went from the stud athlete, funny, just awesome, awesome dad to barely human because he's so whacked out of his mind.

I wouldn't trust just like some stranger who did something like this, you know, but it's my dad.

And, you know, no matter no matter what, he'll he'll always be my dad.

I wanted our relationship to be better.

Seeing him do good for such a long time, you know, you kind of have to respect that.

You know, he's a he's a he's a good guy again.

NARRATOR: The Youth Documentary Academy empowers young filmmakers to identify and craft their own stories through intensive training and mentorship in the art of documentary film.

MADISON: Going back as far as the Middle Ages, people with mental illness who acted strangely were always accused of being witches or sorcerers.

Historically speaking, people who have mental illness were never a part of society.

Most of the time they were locked up in insane asylums or they were imprisoned.

Moniz was the creator of the lobotomy.

He believed that mental illness was derived from a personality flaw.

A lobotomy is essentially the splitting of neural connections that they believe were causing the disorders.

They were unnecessarily brutal.

And a lot of the time the patients died or they were institutionalized for the majority of their lives Moniz won the Nobel Peace Prize in psychology.

This guy created something that ruins people's lives, but he won one of the greatest awards for it.

WOMAN: You cant keep me here.

NURSE: No?

WOMAN: There are people who will come looking for me.

NURSE: Do you think so?

We're going to get you cured.

WOMAN: Help me!

MADISON: There are so many movies and TV shows in which insane asylums and lobotomies are made popular like American Horror Story, Shutter Island.

MAN: All I know it's a mental hospital.

GUARD: We take only the most dangerous, damaged patients.

MADISON: This creates the idea that people who have mental illness are... A monster.

They belong in a horror movie.

Mental illness is hard to talk about because it's scary.

FILM CREW: And speeding.

MADISON: That means theyre rolling.

MOM: Oh, okay.

MADISON: Okay, well, I know you are a little nervous, but can you talk about what happened when you were 15?

MOM: You're going right into it.

When I was 15, I had a complete nervous breakdown where my brain shut down my legs so I couldn't walk for like four months.

And I was put in a juvenile mental ward.

MADISON: And what was that like?

MOM: Scary.

MADISON: Two years ago, my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

And before that, she was diagnosed with depression.

The depression was a misdiagnosis.

All the clinical physicians she went to see didn't take into account her mania episodes.

I was six or seven and my mom couldn't get out of bed and she was crying.

It made me feel like I was doing something wrong.

And so I always worked really hard to get really good grades and always stayed out of trouble because I just wanted her to be happy.

Because my siblings are older.

A lot more responsibility has fallen on me.

MOM: The one thing I didn't want was to scare my children.

And I know that sometimes when I would lose my temper, it scared them, and I know that sometimes when I went manic, it would scare them because they didn't understand why I was tearing the house apart and putting it back together again.

Down days where I did basically, Im not going to lie, I did the bare minimum that I had to do just so that the kids survives.

They.

They went through a lot.

MADISON: What's a cup look like?

Oh, I see.

MOM: See where these numbers are says one, two, three, four?

MADISON: I see it.

MOM: That's what it's called a ‘measuring cup'.

MADISON: I get it.

Thanks.

MADISON: When she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was the one who was around.

And so it kind of became like my responsibility to make sure she takes her meds and makes sure she goes to her therapy appointments.

MOM: Stir it slow, don't make a mess.

MADISON: I know how to stir, mother.

MADISON: When she's not on her medication, the switches are more rapid.

MOM: No, no that goes in last.

MADISON: I wouldn't say the medication is the Holy Grail and it fixes everything, but it makes it more understandable for her and it makes it more controllable.

And so now she understands when she's going to go into like a low day.

And she'll tell me.

MOM: When I have a down and you see it, you kind of help people leave me alone.

You'll do something silly just to make me laugh.

Like, I swear you deliberately trip sometimes just laugh Just to make me laugh.

Or you'll do a little, funny dance.

It's your way of trying to get me out of the funk.

You don't judge me for having bipolar, you don't treat me differently.

Unless you want something.

MADISON: Do you think I'm going to grow up to be like you?

MOM: No, I think you're going to go much farther than I ever did.

MOM: How long do you have brush it?

MADISON: I dont know.

Until its brushed.

I can feel the knots, mom.

MOM: There are no knots in your hair.

MADISON: I could feel it.

Ow!

MOM: You have hair for 10 people MADISON: Dont be jealous.

MADISON: I am a very active student and I work really hard to make sure that I have opportunities that my mom didn't have.

She had a child at 17 and she couldn't go to college.

And when I think that I have that opportunity, it makes me so excited because she always says she wants to live vicariously through me MOM: Where are you in your college apps?

MADISON: Georgetown doesn't accept the common app, so I have to fill out that application.

MOM: What did you write about in your essay?

MADISON: Just like growing up in a single mother household and what that was like.

The good thing is I have 10 colleges that I would be OK going to.

MOM: My biggest hopes for you are that you meet new people.

I want you to be happy.

And I know that going out of state is what you want to do.

I'll miss you like crazy.

I'll be calling you 50 times a day.

MADISON: My biggest concern about you is leaving you because I'm not going to be there to check on you every day You always know that you're not alone and you're not confined to your diagnosis.

You make sure people know that like I have a disorder.

Yes.

But I'm like this amazing person and all you have to do is get to know me.

I'm just really proud.

MOM: Know you know how to do it.

MADISON: All right.

So you do the dishes?

MOM: Don't look at me.

MADISON: He loves you!

BAILEY: You know, my mom knew I was into filmmaking and she's like, “You've got to do this!

” “This sounds awesome!

” It was definitely a very humbling experience to share it with others, because my whole life I thought like, oh, I had this horrible experience happened to me.

It's just happened to me.

Figuring out that it actually happened to, you know, a lot of people, a lot of my peers, it was like I mean, we could help each other.

I want to address the stigma and I want to address the changes that need to be made, because I was ignorant, too.

I didn't know what bipolar disorder was.

And so since she's gotten the diagnosis, it's like easier for me to understand her.

Her being able to talk about it means I'm able to talk about it I had to readjust everything I've ever learned, and you would think that was a difficult process, but it just took some understanding and it took some patience.

How hard was this to make for you and your family?

It was a lot easier making this film than actually living through it but getting it out there and getting such a positive feedback from everybody who's seen it.

You know, it's amazing.

BAILEY: When he first watched it he was embarrassed.

It's kind of like a collection of some of his lowest moments.

Eventually he became like very, very proud of the film.

He, he's always asking me for the link, like, “I want to show my friends this film.

” “I want to show people this film.

” He is the healthiest and happiest he's been in years That really, really makes me happy.

MADISON: Understanding that mental illness is just something that you live with and it doesn't decide who you are.

I think is really important.

NARRATOR: Major funding for this program is provided by the Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust.

Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf, and Betsy and Warren Dean.

Additional funding is provided by: The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation.

The Brenden Mann Foundation, Loo Family, the Moniker Foundation, the Buck Foundation, the CALM Foundation.

Half the Sky Giving Circle - in honor of Chris Beyer.

and Will Stoller-Lee.

A complete list is available online.