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I see these stories about a kid who commits suicide because they were bullied because of bullying them online to no end. The most recent example that I've seen involved a young girl who frequented the site Ask.fm who hung her self after being tormented by people on this site. Now I don't want to come off as trying to blame the victim, but why...It seems easy enough to just delete the account, or report the person, how is these kids get sucked into what seems like a black hole when there seems to be such an easy way out???
Also in these cases of children logging onto their computers and then onto internet sites where they feel tormented, I would wonder where are the parents?
Do parents today just turn their child lose with computers and fail to notice how the child is using them?
If my kid was acting weird after using the computer, acting sad, mopey, down, I'd be following up and even limiting the use of it. Don't the parents know how to talk to their kids and show them how to close programs and http to other sites?
What gets me about these cases is that the child has some strange need to turn the computer on, log in, navigate to a particular chat room and let themselves be tormented.
It's one of those crazy notions that the average teen has. She probably wanted to fit in the Ask.fm 'group' so badly that when she was rejected in a nasty way once more that she decided to make an end to it all. She probably had more problems at school or at home perhaps. 1 setback doesn't drive a person into absolute despair there is probably more to it. What I do know with 100% certainty is that the only knew who truly knew what was going on was the girl herself.
If you want to see a horrible case of cyber bullying, look up Christian Weston Chandler. This boy autistic boy has been tormented for at least 6 years by random people online. It's horrible!
I see these stories about a kid who commits suicide because they were bullied because of bullying them online to no end. The most recent example that I've seen involved a young girl who frequented the site Ask.fm who hung her self after being tormented by people on this site. Now I don't want to come off as trying to blame the victim, but why...It seems easy enough to just delete the account, or report the person, how is these kids get sucked into what seems like a black hole when there seems to be such an easy way out???
I agree with you, do you notice that most of the suicides are white teens? It seems they are the more overly dramatic bunch in the group. I will say this, I think it's pathetic. I could type a WALL of text of things that were done to me in high school, even college. To this day, I have few friends and when times get hard, I just pray that things will get better. I don't even have family that I can turn to either. I just think that if I don't go and off myself then they could deal with it as well, but they don't want to open up, they don't want to tell parents or teachers anything. I mean how are people supposed to help them if they don't open their mouth? That's why God gave them a mouth for so they can use it! I don't know..its just hard for me to comprehend why I should feel bad for someone when I came from a small town and trust me, EVERYONE knows your business there and I didn't commit suicide. So if I can tough it out, why can't they?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Lack of self-esteem is painful, especially during the teen years. Suicide rewards them with a sense of revenge, knowing that all but the most heartless bullies will feel guilt the rest of their lives. Parents need to force themselves to talk to their kids
and make sure they know they can ask when they need help. Still won't always work, but it may save some of them.
I agree with you, do you notice that most of the suicides are white teens? It seems they are the more overly dramatic bunch in the group. I will say this, I think it's pathetic. I could type a WALL of text of things that were done to me in high school, even college. To this day, I have few friends and when times get hard, I just pray that things will get better. I don't even have family that I can turn to either. I just think that if I don't go and off myself then they could deal with it as well, but they don't want to open up, they don't want to tell parents or teachers anything. I mean how are people supposed to help them if they don't open their mouth? That's why God gave them a mouth for so they can use it! I don't know..its just hard for me to comprehend why I should feel bad for someone when I came from a small town and trust me, EVERYONE knows your business there and I didn't commit suicide. So if I can tough it out, why can't they?
Because they are not you. And it's pretty close minded to expect others to be like you. We are all not the same.
Now I don't want to come off as trying to blame the victim, but why...It seems easy enough to just delete the account, or report the person, how is these kids get sucked into what seems like a black hole when there seems to be such an easy way out???
In two words, "teen angst". Combine that with the fact that anyone under the age of 25 probably isn't yet fully wired up in the brain in certain areas, mostly relating to impulse control and connections between actions and consequences, and you have a recipe for suicidal ideations. Teens and many young adults lack both perspective and patience; it's all about them and their need to have it all RIGHT NOW.
Besides, with respect to online bullying, it's NOT just a matter of closing an account. All their friends are on the same social media too, and the objective of the bullying is seldom to create a PRIVATE hell for the mark; it's to PUBLICLY humiliate them, preferably to their peers. At least one girl I read about who committed suicide HAD closed the account, and her parents were supportive enough to move to a different school district, but word still got around. She felt trapped and that there was no escape. A teen's social popularity and place in the pecking order is easy to destroy because it is not fact-based, it's all about gossip and superficialities. And most teens confuse their popularity with their reputation. And even reputation can be destroyed, if someone posts cleverly enough about your secret life as, say, a sl_t, no one will really fact check it, it's too juicy.
(Because of our increasing understanding of brain biology as per the above, increasingly, I'm opposed to granting carte-blanche adult status to 18 year olds. They are still vulnerable. In particular, HIPPA laws should not prevent parents from having visibility into the mental health care of their children just because they turn 18. I know many parents who are obliged to put a roof over the head of a 22 year old child who can't go to school or work because of bipolar disorder and anxiety or whatever, yet they have no real say in what meds or therapies that child is (not) getting, either. I know there is no one size fits all solution to this but it does need to be more nuanced than it is.)
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