(mellow music) ♪ If you give me the head of a horse ♪ ♪ And the wings of ♪ - Luke had a cowboy voice and a lot of his work reflects in his music.

(gentle music) - Luke had such a great year and things were going so well, but he was really struggling.

- Things can go on for way too long before being addressed.

- Looking back, I just think, "How did I not know that he was mentally ill?"

He would just hide.

- The stigma around mental health is largely related to this perception that mental illness is a weakness.

- Mental toughness is something, but it isn't just mental toughness, it's mental health.

- I realized Luke had to teach all of us how to be compassionate and caring.

Being severely mentally ill, it's the loneliest existence there is.

(gentle music continues) (ethereal music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by: The Hughes Charitable Foundation, energized by love and faith and inspired by the vibrant community around us.

Hughes Charitable Foundation supports organizations in helping those across Wyoming who need it most.

A private donation from Jack and Carole Nunn, providing statewide support for Wyoming citizens in body, mind, and spirit.

The John P. Ellbogen Foundation, empowering the people of Wyoming to lead healthy lives in thriving communities.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, proudly providing funding for education to raise awareness of the mental health crisis in Wyoming and connect people to available care that promotes positive mental health and hopefully saves lives.

(insects rattling) (dog barking) - I grew up on a ranch in Shell, Wyoming.

I'm a fourth-generation ranch family member, daughter of Stan and Mary Flitner.

(gentle music) My parents were loving parents, but they were busy running a ranch.

- The ranch name is the Diamond Tail.

Been in operations for five generations, I guess it is.

- 1977, we were in deep debt and we split it and then the '80s came along and it was tough times.

The bank used to tell us, you know, "You need to sell it and take what you can," and we didn't.

- It's a calling for them and they really believe you carry the knowledge of the landscape, generations of knowledge, and you have a duty to pass that on.

- Wyoming was founded, all these small towns, were founded by settlers who had to fight their way across the country in order to get here and survive.

And I think that there's a lot of pride in that.

- People in the Mountain West are very unique.

There's a grit and independence to them, that you don't find in other places.

A streak of desire to forge their own path, going forward when other people were more afraid to, which is beautiful, but also a sense of community that can only come together when you have adversity.

- We always had chores from the time we were probably 10 or 11.

We worked really hard.

My dad watched too many John Wayne movies when we were kids.

We just were expected to be tough and not whine and complain.

(cows lowing) - Ranch life is very attributable to seasonal work.

Spring, like everywhere, starts with little newborn livestock and calves.

And summer is, the cattle have been moved to the high country when the grass is ready, that follows the elevations.

- Wyoming is a very, very independent and proud state.

You know, making things happen, problem solving.

- You have to have some persistence and determination to even get through a day, whether that's through the weather or through tough conditions to get to work, right?

You have to have the sense of independence.

- So when I married my husband in 1981, he had a 7-year-old daughter, Sarah.

My son, Luke, was born in 1990 and my daughter, Jane, was born in 1992.

(tender music) We lived in Cody, Wyoming.

I still helped mom and dad in the summer a couple of times a week.

My son Luke definitely took to ranch life the most.

Here's Luke feeding a bum lamb.

I'm holding the bottle and helping Luke hold the bottle.

Luke was a kid who, from a very young age, loved costumes and, you know, cowboys are romantic figures.

- Luke spent summers with us and he worked hard.

- Here, this was teenage, he was helping us at a branding.

I think all of these, he was.

Yeah, there he is.

He knew how to do all that stuff.

- [Stan] We were very close to Luke.

- He thought he could do anything and he usually could.

He could usually figure it out.

- This is Luke and Jane, like first day of school picture.

Probably he's a senior or a junior in high school.

You know, Luke was always a quirky kid.

Once or twice somebody asked me to get him tested ADHD and I felt like, "Why would I do that?

He's getting B's in school."

When he went to college, it was halfway through his junior year and he came home for Christmas and he had like C's and D's and we were like, "This is not okay.

You need to snap out of it."

- Instead of going to school, he was down there there learning how to play the guitar.

- And he said, "You know, I've been thinking about quitting school and becoming a musician.

I think I'm gonna move to Austin."

But David and I were both horrified.

(rowdy music) That's the craziest idea ever.

And we felt like he could kind of play the guitar, but at that point he was not a singer.

♪ Way down below the Mason-Dixie Line ♪ ♪ Down where the honeysuckle's are entwined ♪ ♪ That's where the southern winds are blowin' ♪ ♪ That's where the daisies growin' ♪ - [Mary] He liked good old cowboy music.

He valued the old-time cowboy lifestyle.

Really valued it.

- When he started sending us songs that he'd written, it was obvious that he was talented.

♪ Blackbirds on the telephone wire ♪ ♪ In the ditches of my seat ♪ ♪ I thought I'd have a bad day ♪ - This, this was the advertisement for a Kickstarter fundraiser that Luke did to produce his very first CD when he was in Austin.

♪ Friday's cashin' checks at the grocery store ♪ - This was his first one, I think this was his first one.

- His dad, he was pretty quick to get on board with Luke's music career.

And there was a joke around town that if you saw David Bell coming after his Kickstarter CD came out, you should turn the other way 'cause David would make you sit in his car with him and listen to Luke's CD.

David was Luke's biggest fan.

♪ What it rise, watch it fall ♪ - And then when he got connected with some prestigious country music producers came.

This one, which was hugely successful.

That was when his career was just starting to really roll.

He was known everywhere, which we didn't know.

We didn't know the kind of success he was having.

- And this was just an article before Luke opened for Willie Nelson in Atlanta.

And actually Luke opened for Dwight Yoakam in Virginia.

I would say his most fruitful years were probably like 2012 through David's death in June of 2015.

♪ I'll sing a little song ♪ ♪ And again, I lay me down beside you ♪ - Luke was 25 when David died.

David was sick, but David had told the kids he was just gonna be that one guy in a million who got over pancreatic cancer and they shouldn't worry about it.

And I think they just figured he was their dad, he said he was gonna be fine, he'd be fine.

(somber music) - [Mary] It was a huge shock.

He was a relatively young dad.

- A lot of stuff was really coming together for Luke at that time.

But he was really struggling.

After his dad died, he just really started drinking way too much.

He would kind of get out of control and then he'd kinda reel it in or quit for a while.

I was really stressed, worried about his drinking.

It felt scary.

- We began to notice that Luke, sometimes he was just his good self, other times couldn't stay on a subject.

And looking back, I can see now that he was just losing control of his own life and his own destiny and his own purpose.

- The stigma plays a big, big role in a cowboy culture.

The mentality is saying, "I'm gonna go and reach out to talk about how I'm feeling."

It's a way to show weakness because it's just learned that way and it's just not how you learn how to deal with your health.

- If you need help, if you can't manage your symptoms or whatever you're going through independently, that's a sign of weakness and we should be able to do that.

- I think Luke especially wanted to make his grief easy for other people.

So he just didn't, he didn't do it.

He didn't grieve.

I would say, "You need to come home and rest, go work for your grandparents for a while just," but he had this big tour coming up and he didn't wanna come home.

- What we tend to do and how we tend to cope is how we learn.

So if the stigma is pretty strong, that's probably going to continue unless something drastic happens.

- [Carol] The fall of 2016, I got a call from somebody.

He was in a psychiatric holding cell at the hospital.

He had alcohol-induced psychosis.

- By the time I knew that he had a problem that was that serious, it was too much.

I don't think anybody recognized it till was too late.

And I think that's the sad part about mental illness.

- Had we known what we were looking at, maybe we could have helped him.

Maybe not.

- He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar II with psychotic episodes.

He also had a liver disorder.

It's a genetic disorder where your liver doesn't process toxins properly.

And it had become really obvious that drinking was a trigger for psychosis.

- Mental health and addiction go hand in hand.

They are connected.

There's a lot of evidence to show that individuals who struggle with addiction have trauma backgrounds and trauma history.

Someone meets criteria for an addiction-related diagnosis and some other mental health condition and they're both very real and they contribute to each other.

- I don't think that people are more depressed or sad in Wyoming than they are in any other area.

We have rural pockets of the state that don't necessarily have access to the care they need or access to the education around behavioral health that they need.

- A frontier state can be a hard place when it comes to crossing over into mental illness.

If you're not educated on the realities, especially of mental illness, it can look fairly scary.

That can be really hard in a small town.

(desolate music) - He came home for a summer, you know, he was going to counseling, he was taking his meds, but he was also drinking.

And it felt depressing, like nothing good is happening here.

The meds weren't really working.

And what I remember is I would come home from work, the lights would be down low and he would be sitting in that chair right there reading the Bible, which was a very strange thing for him to be doing.

No one in our family read the Bible in that way.

And he would just be looking at me like, "Don't you say a word."

I think he got a lot of comfort from his faith and from reading the Bible.

And I said to Luke, "You either have to quit drinking or leave."

And he took off.

- He just started spiraling again.

He was not capable of making good decisions.

He hopped a train, he was homeless and MIA for three or four months.

He was hospitalized in Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Denver.

More than once he was imprisoned because he went to the hospital to turn himself in because he was psychotic and they wouldn't accept him because he'd been there before and they were short of beds.

So he would punch somebody and then he would get arrested and he would be taken to jail.

You know, where is a safe place for Luke?

He's gonna end up dead.

So when we made decisions about whether to hire a lawyer to get him outta jail, when he dies, how will I feel if I said no?

We had five years of Luke being really sick and trying everything we could think of to get him help.

- This is the last picture that was taken with Stan and me and Luke.

That was in August of 2022.

(cows lowing) Luke had come earlier in the summer from Nashville.

His sister Jane was being married in the late summer and he and some friends were kind of planning a road trip through this area and planning kind of around that event.

(gentle music) By the time he got here, he knew and she knew and we all knew that that wasn't gonna be a good idea.

He'd gotten quite reclusive.

- He was aware that he was a grown man from Wyoming where you're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get your ass in gear if you don't feel good.

And he was incredibly ashamed.

- He probably just wanted out of there as fast as he could get outta there.

'Cause it was hard for all of us.

- [Carol] They stayed here two days before the wedding.

- He made a point to spend time with Stan and me and Jane, his sister, Sarah's his other sister, and his mom.

We all just knew we probably weren't gonna see him again.

- You know, when he left he said, "Goodbye.

I love you, Mom.

It was so great to see you.

Thanks for everything."

And I said to his sister, Sarah, "This just seems really weird.

Like he's saying goodbye."

The wedding happened and I got a call, and I could see that it said Tucson so I picked up.

And the person on the other end of the line said, "Is this Mrs.

Bell?"

And I said, "Yes."

And she said, "Do you have a son named Luke Bell?"

And I said, "He's dead, isn't he?"

(gentle music continues) - They determined that fentanyl had been the cause of his death and whether it was intentional or accidental or if he was just looking for some kind of drug relief, we'll never know.

Or whether that was a desperate reach for help of some kind.

I don't know.

- His sisters and I had spoken more than once about the fact that this was probably how Luke's life would end because we do not live in the world where the help that Luke needed exists.

- I'm a realist and Luke's gone.

I can't help Luke.

But I don't dwell on that.

I don't get emotional about that like I do talking to you, (Stan exhales sharply) I do get emotional about things I can do, can help.

I think everybody needs mental fitness and it's my privilege to welcome you and say thanks.

And for bringing forth the opportunity for a conversation about learning about the topic of mental wellness.

We've met enough sorrows in our family and our community to recognize how important it can be to keep the balance that today's life and society requires of us.

(audience applauding) - So this is a mental fitness fair and it's designed to help people who don't know of the resources in the area.

Overall we're trying to end the stigma of talking about mental health.

- When we passed out posters, the people that I handed the poster to and they said, "Oh, we're so glad that you're doing this.

This is something that our community needs."

- Stan belongs to a group that has put together a seminar that attracts people to these conversations by making use of panel discussion and awareness.

- We had one in Shell, I think we had 125 people.

The town of Shell isn't 50.

I never heard one cough, nobody got outta their chair for an hour and a half.

Nobody talked, nobody dropped a pencil.

I'll guarantee people are hungry for mental health and people are just starting to recognize the need for it.

- The suicide rate in Wyoming is the highest per capita.

It hit personal in our family with our 17-year-old son Tyson who died just this last December.

We just hope that this doesn't happen to anybody else because it is so challenging to go through.

- It is a great turnout though 'cause we all have our own problems and I'm hoping that we can get help with whatever we're dealing with, yeah.

- I think having mental health fairs and just having conversations is helping people understand that it's not just them.

That this is something that everybody deals with at some point in their life.

- Someday, mental health is gonna be just like going to the doctor and talking about your stiffness or a chiropractor and get fixed, so.

I think that's what we want to do.

- We have to realize that the old ways are not necessarily the best ways anymore and to make people aware it's okay to ask for help.

(insects chirping) - Now, having lost my husband and then my son, I am regaining my strength.

(gentle music) Of course, I've been grieving the loss of Luke for five years.

While I was kind of struggling during Luke's illness to kind of figure out, "What am I going to do?"

I think my parents taught me this: meaningful work is a reason to get out of bed every morning.

I went back to school.

I'm a therapist, I've been practicing for a year.

I love my work, I love my clients.

I see their resilience, the hard work they do to get over things or to manage mental illness is inspiring to me.

Like Luke, they are my heroes.

I can't think of anything lonelier than being severely mentally ill in America.

And looking back, I think Luke's songs are about people pretending to be bulletproof when they are really afraid and hurting.

"Where Ya Been," that song is about having a psychotic episode or a dissociative episode and waking up in the morning wondering, "Where have I been, what happened?

♪ Where ya been ♪ ♪ Hey, mister in the mirror, where's my friend ♪ ♪ I went out on the town and I ain't seen him since ♪ - I cannot hear that song without crying because I know that Luke knew that he was losing his mind when he wrote that song, which in my mind is the last song Luke recorded.

(soft music) - Everybody has their own song.

That happens to be mine.

But I think that's mental illness.

I think that's what he was telling us.

- I just want Luke to know that I love him and that I don't blame him for being mentally ill.

I just want him to feel unconditional love.

And if I can make someone else feel like that because of the horrible way that Luke had to teach all of us how to be compassionate and caring for others.

- The United States can support mental health recovery and get out of this crisis mode just by being more open, getting rid of the stigma.

A mental health issue does not necessarily mean that you're a bad person or that you've done something wrong.

I think that would take a big step forward.

- Those are the things, the simple things that we could do that may prevent somebody like Luke getting clear off on the edge, then I think at least we can help the next guy.

- I think we need to continue to grow the conversation.

We need to increase our education and outreach efforts.

We need to reach into some of our more rural communities and get creative in terms of providing access to care for some of those places.

- Mental toughness is something, but it isn't just mental toughness, it's mental health.

And if you can't have mental health, you can't have good health.

- You do that by kind of expanding your definition of what help looks like, right?

And in a frontier state help looks like, a lot of times of, you know, help with getting your cows in from the pasture, et cetera.

But help can also look like going to your mental health therapist to get help with your emotional wounds.

- You know, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.

Really what it means is buck up.

There's a time and a place for that and that's okay.

Nobody's saying that you will forever need behavioral health services, but we're saying is let's help get the process started.

Let's help put one boot on and then get you moving forward.

- In an ant pile, one ant can't make an ant pile, one ant can't make much of a difference.

But a hundred people or a thousand ants can make a hell of a difference.

We can make a difference.

That's my story.

(no audio) (warm mellow music) (warm mellow music continues) (warm mellow music continues)