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Vancouver Area Teen's Suicide


sarah_444

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Amanda Todd switched schools three times to escape, and reached out last month through a YouTube video.

“Everyday I think why am I still here?” the teen wrote on cards, which she showed the camera.

Toronto Sun article

Edited by sarah_444
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That is horrible! I know that I moved my daughter from a school that said it had zero tolerance for bullying. It was a gong show. If you are going to say zero tolerance then practice it.

That is horrible! I know that I moved my daughter from a school that said it had zero tolerance for bullying. It was a gong show. If you are going to say zero tolerance then practice it.

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I couldn't watch that entire vid knowing she killed herself after she posted it. You can tell she was really pretty, you don't picture pretty girls getting bullied. Too bad for everyone involved. Her, her family, the bullies, the people who did nothing to stop the bullies.

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This girl was pushed down by her "friends" and peers for doing possibly the same sort of things they had done. Everyone makes mistakes, especially kids and teenagers trying to fit in and be accepted..it's part of growing up and living life. She was just pushed so far down that she saw no way out.

I do volunteer work at a boys and girls club. The kids I work with are pretty young, but I've heard of kids as young as 9 years old talking with the counselors about bullies. The older kids usually aren't as open to talking about it from what I hear but a few months ago I had a seventh grader and her friend knock on my door because a mob of kids were going to jump her at the corner. Why? Because she dyed her hair hot pink and stood up for herself against their ridicule. She needed as place to hide out so she could call her Dad to come pick her up so she resorted to knocking on a total stranger's door.

Bullying is definitely nothing new, but the way kids are constantly hooked into the internet makes it easy to target/be targeted 24 hours a day. Hopefully the loss of this girl will at least open some eyes and hearts.

Edited by sarah_444
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This girl was pushed down by her "friends" and peers for doing possibly the same sort of things they had done. Everyone makes mistakes, especially kids and teenagers trying to fit in and be accepted..it's part of growing up and living life. She was just pushed so far down that she saw no way out.

I do volunteer work at a boys and girls club. The kids I work with are pretty young, but I've heard of kids as young as 9 years old talking with the counselors about bullies. The older kids usually aren't as open to talking about it from what I hear but a few months ago I had a seventh grader and her friend knock on my door because a mob of kids were going to jump her at the corner. Why? Because she dyed her hair hot pink and stood up for herself against their ridicule. She needed as place to hide out so she could call her Dad to come pick her up so she resorted to knocking on a total stranger's door.

Bullying is definitely nothing new, but the way kids are constantly hooked into the internet makes it easy to target/be targeted 24 hours a day. Hopefully the loss of this girl will at least open some eyes and hearts.

We can hope. And I hope those that were responisble actually feel bad about it, not just push it off to the side. We need to change our laws so that victims like this have some recourse, whether it is forcing the parents of the bullies to take the bullies to councelling or be the ones who are responsible for their children's actions, be that charges or monetarily. If parents are responsible for damage that their minor children incure with B&Es or mischief, then they should be responsible in some way in these instances, too.

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bullying is the worst thing to go through when you're a kid. school is your entire social world and when you are hated and bullied within that structure you become seriously isolated and depressed. i know, i was relentlessly bullied in school, by everyone. even those who didn't know me knew i was the one everyone picked on so they did too.

i hated it beyond what i can describe, but i did not kill myself.

the reason i mention that is because i think there is something else going on that causes these kids to kill themselves. yes the bullying pushed them over the edge, but i can't help thinking there is a larger problem with young people that predisposes them to thoughts of suicide.

i think it has a lot to do with our society and the push for them to be smarter, better, grow up faster, be independent before they're ready, we as parents are unavailable, doing our own thing, and the daycare centers raise our children. latch key kids, absentee parents, no structure no discipline no boundries. i believe they desperately need to be children and there is no place for that anymore.

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Not saying Bullying shouldn't be addressed, and it's a huge issue.

But, other serious issues, such as depression and anxiety may have played a huge role too.

What I'm trying to say is, we should stand up to Bullying, but also look for signs of other problems as well.

Quite honestly, we're never going to remove bullying all the way.

But, the end result here is horrifically tragic.

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Not saying Bullying shouldn't be addressed, and it's a huge issue.

But, other serious issues, such as depression and anxiety may have played a huge role too.

What I'm trying to say is, we should stand up to Bullying, but also look for signs of other problems as well.

Quite honestly, we're never going to remove bullying all the way.

But, the end result here is horrifically tragic.

bullying can lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. If we can prevent bullying, we may be able to prevent or lessen the degree of mental, emotional or eating disorder.

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This is a tragedy, of that there is no doubt, but trying to remove bullies will not solve the problem, it is at best a practice in futility. You can talk as much as you want about zero tolerance but that will never solve the problem, at best it will just change the type of bulling, at worst make it far more of a problem. You can talk about punishing the parents but that will not solve anything either. All that would do is prolong kids learning about taking responsibility for their actions and getting the parents involved in a fight with the school and/or state.

Bullying is a part of human nature and you just can't remove or change it. Instead of wasting so much time, energy, and money in fighting a battle that can never be won the best and logical course of action would be to develop some kind of support system for the bullied. Instead of focusing so much on stopping the bully which can't be done, why not instead just focus on helping those who are bullied, especially those who are showing signs of suicide.

The kids who are committing suicide often have more problems going on then just bullying going on that need to be addressed and stopping the bullies won't fi those other problems. All of this targeting the bully stuff to me just sounds like a bunch of people who where bullied when they where younger and are out for revenge and don't truly care for the plight of those being bullied.

Edited by DarkHunter
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bullying can lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. If we can prevent bullying, we may be able to prevent or lessen the degree of mental, emotional or eating disorder.

i agree - i think my depression was due in large part to the constant bullying. we can lesson bullying, at least i hope we can, but it will not be eradicated completely in my opinion. it's part of human nature to be competitive and aggressive, although i will also agree that we should be able to teach people to use those traits in productive ways rather than striking out at each other. as for the depression. even when the bullying is ongoing, treatment and therapy for the depression affords an outlet and builds self esteem and confidence, all of which are beneficial to facing and standing up to the bullying.

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No, I don't think that bullying (between humans of all ages) will ever be eradicated, but I think it's worth the effort to raise more awareness about it though. Obviously kids who are bullied need more support, not only from their schools or communities but from the people close to them, because especially with cyber bullying, it's not just a "school problem". Raising the awareness of the effects of this sort of behaviour can help prevent it to some degree at least, and that's better then standing by and waiting until kids are already being tormented and in some cases, like this one, it's too late to offer support.

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I wish they could find this man that bullied her. I got the feeling he was a grown man and she was only 15. I think she had lots of issues going on between getting beaten and the online bully that needed to be dealt with by a professional. Poor girl.

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The RCMP has confirmed a full investigation has been launched into Amanda's death. Their spokesman also added that bullying ranks second, behind substance abuse when it comes to "concerning youth issues". Which is not very surprising, unfortunately.

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it's not just a "school problem".

absolutely right.

i think i was using the school system because that's where my experience was but now it's the internet every bit as much if not moreso

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It's a bit ironic, how everybody suddenly cares and the outpouring of support after she kills herself.

Edited by Imaginarynumber1
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It's a bit ironic, how everybody suddenly cares and the outpouring of support after she kills herself.

Yes, very true. I had a talk with my teenage daughter and asked her what she would do if she was in a drastic situation with bullying. She said she would tell me. That is the right answer, but for some kids, it isn't. I was bullied and when I told my parents, they said 'let it lie.' or 'just stay out of their way'. They didn't want to be bothered with it and have confrontations with the school and/or the other parents. When my girl was bullied in primary school, there were two girls who stepped all over the other kids. The school didn't do anything, so I talked to the parents. One dad was 'oh, really? we will be having a chat when I get home'. She never had a problem with that girl again. The other kid, her mom was like 'oh, not my girl, she wouldn't do that'. SURE she wouldn't. She was the most hated girl in the school. Parents, your children are not all little angels. I told my daughter if I ever caught her bullying someone, she would be punished. But, because she has been there, she stands up for the bullied child. Maybe some parents out there need to be parents. Interact with your child, KNOW your child. Maybe if we started at home, there would be a lot less bullying in school.

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Yes, very true. I had a talk with my teenage daughter and asked her what she would do if she was in a drastic situation with bullying. She said she would tell me. That is the right answer, but for some kids, it isn't. I was bullied and when I told my parents, they said 'let it lie.' or 'just stay out of their way'. They didn't want to be bothered with it and have confrontations with the school and/or the other parents. When my girl was bullied in primary school, there were two girls who stepped all over the other kids. The school didn't do anything, so I talked to the parents. One dad was 'oh, really? we will be having a chat when I get home'. She never had a problem with that girl again. The other kid, her mom was like 'oh, not my girl, she wouldn't do that'. SURE she wouldn't. She was the most hated girl in the school. Parents, your children are not all little angels. I told my daughter if I ever caught her bullying someone, she would be punished. But, because she has been there, she stands up for the bullied child. Maybe some parents out there need to be parents. Interact with your child, KNOW your child. Maybe if we started at home, there would be a lot less bullying in school.

Good points. In my experience, when kids are bullies you can trace it right back to the parents. Not always, of course.

What sickens me about this situation is that the girl was getting help. She was in counselling and had the support of her parents and teachers. Now everyone else wants to come out and say how awful it is, etc etc. Where they hell were they when this was going on? Mainly those in the media and what not. I cannot know what her friends and classmates were or were not doing.

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I saw this on tumblr. These kinds of posts are common and I usually don't reblog them. Not because I don't care because they're called "guit posts." Trying to get you to reblog and make you feel "guilty." (Which I find very low.)

By the way, I'm not saying these particular post isn't a "guilt post" they manage to get a lot of notes.

Edited by Princess Serenity
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It's a bit ironic, how everybody suddenly cares and the outpouring of support after she kills herself.

I was thinking a bit about this earlier today. She posted the video approximately a month ago. It's really sad things obviously didn't get better for her after putting it up.

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It's a bit ironic, how everybody suddenly cares and the outpouring of support after she kills herself.

Yeah. =.= This kind of thing annoys me so much!

Edit:

Found another post for Amanda.

Edited by Princess Serenity
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This is a tragedy, of that there is no doubt, but trying to remove bullies will not solve the problem, it is at best a practice in futility. You can talk as much as you want about zero tolerance but that will never solve the problem, at best it will just change the type of bulling, at worst make it far more of a problem. You can talk about punishing the parents but that will not solve anything either. All that would do is prolong kids learning about taking responsibility for their actions and getting the parents involved in a fight with the school and/or state.

Bullying is a part of human nature and you just can't remove or change it. Instead of wasting so much time, energy, and money in fighting a battle that can never be won the best and logical course of action would be to develop some kind of support system for the bullied. Instead of focusing so much on stopping the bully which can't be done, why not instead just focus on helping those who are bullied, especially those who are showing signs of suicide.

The kids who are committing suicide often have more problems going on then just bullying going on that need to be addressed and stopping the bullies won't fi those other problems. All of this targeting the bully stuff to me just sounds like a bunch of people who where bullied when they where younger and are out for revenge and don't truly care for the plight of those being bullied.

In knowing that you are a self confessed bully and the argument you take on the subject of bullies having a place in the 'grand scheme of things', due to a thread back in June this year, I felt the need to respond to this post of yours.

Your very first words to this are, "this is a tragedy" the rest of your post is nothing short of defence. Just so you know up front, i am not picking on you as an individual, but treating this as an opportunity to understand the mindset.

Your posted here -

You can talk about punishing the parents but that will not solve anything either. All that would do is prolong kids learning about taking responsibility for their actions and getting the parents involved in a fight with the school and/or state.

Punishing the parents - why not ? Statistics show that those who bully, often come from backgrounds where bullying is a form of control be it from a parent or sibling. If it comes from the siblings and the parents don't correct it, that it self has to raise flags ? maybe in some case they don't geniually know, but still. My suspicions would be that some parents feel it is ok to allow the alpha spawn child do the bullying if it means a more peaceful easier time for them. The fact is, children only learn to control others through regressive behaviour and pain, because they, themselves, have had it done to them.

So if punishing the parents is what it takes to make a family 'grow up' and get counselling, therapy, advice, help, support on how to relate to one another without resorting to powering down on each other, that has to be a positive thing in the long run, for the survival of that family unit and every relationship yet to come from those in that family unit.

Those who are embarrassed for the parents to be alerted let alone punished is simply a symptom of ego and fear. It doesn't make sense to try and defend this point ? unless you are a bully.

The kids who are committing suicide often have more problems going on then just bullying going on that need to be addressed and stopping the bullies won't fi those other problems.

Did you read the extent of what she had been through for the length of time she had? nothing of what had happened to her raises any sense of disgust of how disgusting and filthy other human beings can be ? no, obviously not. Just an excuse saying those that can't handle bullying must have more problems than just the bully. The answer is no one one can ever know that, bullying affects self esteem, confidence and self worth, in the adult world it translates as abuse and you will be jailed and lose jobs/ careers and your reputation for doing it if the person seeks to report you/has evidence.

Out right mental and physical attacks can affect a person's 'limits' in ways you may not ever know. You can't measure everyone on the same level as yourself, you have no idea what another persons breaking point may be, unless you have an ounce of empathy in you. Seriously don't be even more insulting than you are by trying to excuse suicide in this case for something else that must have caused it than the bullying.

Edited by bLu3 de 3n3rgy
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Yes, very true. I had a talk with my teenage daughter and asked her what she would do if she was in a drastic situation with bullying. She said she would tell me. That is the right answer, but for some kids, it isn't.

Sorry but don't ever rely on your child telling you just because they say they would. A bullied person goes into a different / altered mindset from their normal esteem level, a stress level that may see and dictate things differently. For many kids admitting they need help or asking for help from their parents is a complex stressful task. Depends on the relationship, but parents may be the last to know anything because the kid fears disappointing or causing the parent pain. It's talks regarding the more in depth emotions and mental states and plan of action on how the parent would react/support the situation that could make the bigger difference.

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In knowing that you are a self confessed bully and the argument you take on the subject of bullies having a place in the 'grand scheme of things', due to a thread back in June this year, I felt the need to respond to this post of yours.

Your very first words to this are, "this is a tragedy" the rest of your post is nothing short of defence. Just so you know up front, i am not picking on you as an individual, but treating this as an opportunity to understand the mindset.

Your posted here -

I will do what I can to help better understand the mindset.

Punishing the parents - why not ? Statistics show that those who bully, often come from backgrounds where bullying is a form of control be it from a parent or sibling. If it comes from the siblings and the parents don't correct it, that it self has to raise flags ? maybe in some case they don't geniually know, but still. My suspicions would be that some parents feel it is ok to allow the alpha spawn child do the bullying if it means a more peaceful easier time for them. The fact is, children only learn to control others through regressive behaviour and pain, because they, themselves, have had it done to them.

So if punishing the parents is what it takes to make a family 'grow up' and get counselling, therapy, advice, help, support on how to relate to one another without resorting to powering down on each other, that has to be a positive thing in the long run, for the survival of that family unit and every relationship yet to come from those in that family unit.

Those who are embarrassed for the parents to be alerted let alone punished is simply a symptom of ego and fear. It doesn't make sense to try and defend this point ? unless you are a bully.

First I am going to have to disagree with the statistics. I am not saying that they are wrong, but I think they are probably to limited to what many would consider the more traditional bulling. I highly doubt the statistics took into account what many would consider less traditional types of bullying such as mental, social, inter team, and so on.

I have a few problems with punishing the parents. First how likely is it that the parents will just accept the punishment for the actions of their children. To me it just seems that it would create extensive legal battles between the parents and the school/state. People already get into extensive legal battles for crimes and acts they clearly committed, how much more likely are they to get into an extensive legal battle that they did not commit, especially when fame and/or extensive money is more then likely involved. Second I see this being used by the state to advance into the home. Already the state likes to advance its control whenever a chance arises, so why would the state not like to further its power by telling adults how to raise their children. I just see more problems arising from attempting to punish the parents then any actual benefits.

Did you read the extent of what she had been through for the length of time she had? nothing of what had happened to her raises any sense of disgust of how disgusting and filthy other human beings can be ? no, obviously not. Just an excuse saying those that can't handle bullying must have more problems than just the bully. The answer is none one can ever know that, bullying affects self esteem, confidence and self worth, in the adult world it translates as abuse and you will be jailed and lose jobs/ careers and your reputation for doing it.

Out right mental and physical attacks can affect a person's 'limits' in ways you may not ever know. You can't measure everyone on the same level as yourself, you have no idea what another persons breaking point may be, unless you have an ounce of empathy in you. Seriously don't be even more insulting than you are by trying to excuse suicide in this case for something else that must have caused it than the bullying.

I did read the extent of what she has been through and sadly to say she brought much of it on herself. First she flashed someone she did not know and the consequences came back to get her in the form of the guy blackmailing her. Then she got into drugs and alcohol which probably didn't help her mental state at all, actually she says her anxiety got worse from that point unsurprisingly. The guy coming back was not her fault, but I would like to know how he came back so quickly, weren't charges pressed. Next she gets involved with a guy who she knew had a girlfriend. Lastly she stays on a social networking site even though it is causing her problems, which is bad enough, but she doesn't even use the block feature or take any steps at all of ignoring them. All of that is just from what she mentioned in that video which I doubt covers everything.

I do not have enough information to tell if she had other problems or not even though I have a feeling she does based on how she acted. I was speaking more in a general sense with that statement then this particular case since we know so little about her before the bullying started.

As for how bullying affects people in childhood and the adult world that thread in June shows clearly enough how I view that, which is nearly if not diametrically opposed to your view.

I fear that I may not get my point of view across as clearly as I hope to since it is rather late and I am rather tired.

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I will do what I can to help better understand the mindset.

First I am going to have to disagree with the statistics. I am not saying that they are wrong, but I think they are probably to limited to what many would consider the more traditional bulling. I highly doubt the statistics took into account what many would consider less traditional types of bullying such as mental, social, inter team, and so on.

I have a few problems with punishing the parents. First how likely is it that the parents will just accept the punishment for the actions of their children. To me it just seems that it would create extensive legal battles between the parents and the school/state.

Doesn't have to though. Punishment could be being made to go to family therapy sessions. The point is, while a child is still in the legal care of their guardian / parent, the guardian / parent take full responsibility for the child. If there is a bullying issue and enough evidence to support that negative, aggressive, anti social behaviour is rife in that family, no matter 'who' is causing it or being a role model for it, then it can only benefit the whole family to treat the issue as a family.

Then she got into drugs and alcohol which probably didn't help her mental state at all, actually she says her anxiety got worse from that point unsurprisingly.

It was the other way around, the drugs and alcohol abuse came as a result of experiencing severe anxiety, depression and panic attacks. She admits a couple of times to making a mistake etc, but no one can ever estimate the potential damage that can be caused emotionally or mentally. The drugs and alcohol abuse came as a secondary issue to try and self medicate the anxiety from the trauma of going through the bullying and being stalked the first time around by the male.. The whole example of this poor girls downfall, details exactly how poor self esteem and self worth goes on to affect judgements and the choices made but just because she was in a low place doesn't excuse anyone else's part in it or their bad behaviour for using her/ bullying her.

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Lastly she stays on a social networking site even though it is causing her problems, which is bad enough, but she doesn't even use the block feature or take any steps at all of ignoring them.

We don't know that, she could have blocked and ignored many things. I just wanted to add in here though, that even if she had completely deleted her account it wouldn't have stopped this guy, or man, or whoever he is from doing what he did. He went out of his way to create his own page about her with screenshots taken from his webcam, listing all of her friends and school information.

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