Tragic & Heartbreaking: Vancouver Teen Kills Herself

[FunSugarDaddy]

Miss Bijou although I think you make some valid points and for the most part I think your posts are very informative and insightful. I think to a large degee you've missed the boat in this particular situation.

When you're a teen, especially a girl (I'm not a girl so I'm thinking about it from my daughter's perspective) what people think of you matters.

I know because every day I'm harping at my daughter to hurry up so she'll make it to school on make-up, she's putting on highliner, curling her hair or whatever else she does. She can't really pass a mirror without looking at herself. Fortunately for her she's been playing sports since she was 6 and so she's in very good shape and she pretty. But the bigger point is that what other people think of you matters a great deal at that age, especially if you're a girl.

Being humiliated over and over again having to change schools and not being accepted in this environment is very tramatic. If you didn't have an extremely high level of self worth to begin with, you really have nothing. You've basically been called a loser by all, or most, of your peers.

So it seems to me that wanting to die, or taking drugs, or cutting yourself or whatever, are symptoms to try and deal with this rejection, rather than the other way around.

Had no one posted a picture of her breasts, teased her, made fun of her, beat her up, isolated her, labelled her a loser, then likely she would have led a normal life. Hell the fact she changed schools as often as she did suggests she wanted a clean start, but her peers simply wouldn't allow it.

 

[lenny]

The one fairy tale I'd like to see put to rest is that "Highschool/teenage years are the best years of your life." I seriously don't know anyone who agrees with that one. Do you?

IME it's the AWE (After Wife Experience) years that are the best.

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

This is such a sad situation and as we know, not the only one. I feel so badly for her loved ones.

Teenagers are pretty self absorbed at this time in their lives, so every thing IS about them and WILL last forever. They don't have the years behind them to know any different. I do wonder about the adults and why there wasn't more help in that regard but each situation is different so who's to say.

I am glad that it's bringing more attention to bullying so that others in her situation can be helped.

The one fairy tale I'd like to see put to rest is that "Highschool/teenage years are the best years of your life." I seriously don't know anyone who agrees with that one. Do you?

I must admit my teenage years in high school were right out of a movie. We use to start our weekend at noon on Friday. My buddy would get the beer (cause he looked older than me.) and away we went. Course I ended up failling a few classes that took place Friday afternoon due to a lack of attendance, but I ended up making those up, and had a great, great time, during this period of my life. Far better than my 20's actually.

 

[connor666]

Sad.

She must have major self esteem issues to not realize how pretty she was and her bullies were just straight up jealous.

If she didn't kill herself and just waited till college, wow, the world would have been her oyster. Why did her parents/older relatives/older friends not explain this to her?

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

Sad.

She must have major self esteem issues to not realize how pretty she was and her bullies were just straight up jealous.

If she didn't kill herself and just waited till college, wow, the world would have been her oyster. Why did her parents/older relatives/older friends not explain this to her?

Yes connor, but how can you not have self esteem issues when everybody in 2-3 schools, and on your facebook page is dumping on you and calling you a loser. Not just for a month or two but over several years?

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Miss Bijou although I think you make some valid points and for the most part I think your posts are very informative and insightful. I think to a large degee you've missed the boat in this particular situation.

When you're a teen, especially a girl (I'm not a girl so I'm thinking about it from my daughter's perspective) what people think of you matters.

I know because every day I'm harping at my daughter to hurry up so she'll make it to school on make-up, she's putting on highliner, curling her hair or whatever else she does. She can't really pass a mirror without looking at herself. Fortunately for her she's been playing sports since she was 6 and so she's in very good shape and she pretty. But the bigger point is that what other people think of you matters a great deal at that age, especially if you're a girl.

Being humiliated over and over again having to change schools and not being accepted in this environment is very tramatic. If you didn't have an extremely high level of self worth to begin with, you really have nothing. You've basically been called a loser by all, or most, of your peers.

So it seems to me that wanting to die, or taking drugs, or cutting yourself or whatever, are symptoms to try and deal with this rejection, rather than the other way around.

Had no one posted a picture of her breasts, teased her, made fun of her, beat her up, isolated her, labelled her a loser, then likely she would have led a normal life. Hell the fact she changed schools as often as she did suggests she wanted a clean start, but her peers simply wouldn't allow it.

I think you might have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don't think I missed the boat at all because I absolutely do recognize how the bullying would have affected her. I am a girl : ) and my teens were over a while ago but not that long that I have forgotten how it feels. When watched the video, that's what I was remembering; how things seem so much more intense....permanent, as if nothing will ever change. I guess it makes sense because suddenly you're faced with new kinds of problems, disappointments, politics and you have no experience to draw on yet to allow you to know that everything eventually passes and no, these feelings aren't going to last forever. Lol At least that's how I felt, I always felt things were final, life's going to be this horrible from now on and I'm always going to feel that way. The hormones don't help, that's for sure.

So I totally understand the impact bullying must have had. But I bonded a sentenced of yours that is basically what I was saying - part of it anyway. " If you didn't have an extremely high level of self worth to begin with..." then it's likely there are also other events in a teenager's life that would have made her anxious (like any other teen) enough to self harm. That's all I'm saying.

Even without the extreme bullying, she should have been getting help and should have received it. We Just wouldn't be talking about it because we wouldn't have heard about it - whether she committed suicide or not. We are only talking about it because of the bullying, which is why this has been reported.

The bullying is important, I didn't deny it and I very much agree but the lacking self worth, self harming is very serious and actually a lot more pervasive but we're not talking about that or the teen girls or boys it affects. Its much easier for us to accept that the real and only problem was bullying and everything else can be blamed on the bullying because the answer is easy, we know who to blame and it ends there; deal with bullying, prevent it and this won't happen.


I'm saying, yes prevent bullying but it isnt a guarantee that this alone could have or would prevent suicide. The self worth/self harming IMO would have been there without the bullying and those were not caused by it. She definitely isn't unique or alone in that respect either and even without the bullying, this is something that is serious enough in itself to require help, which (presumably) she and countless of teens like her, never receive help for and no doubt results in some of them committing suicide as well.

I'm saying I agree that bullying had a role in her suicide but I also believe there is more to look at than Just the bullying. So I don't think I missed the boat at all: p

 

[jesuschrist]

OK I'm hoping I can write this and have it come across the way I mean it. I think that bullying is terrible and I don't think it should be ignored. I dont know if it is somehow worse or getting worse but I do think the internet has somewhat made it easier for bullies to reach their victims and harder for victims to get away from it. So I do think people should be talking about bullying. However a lot of people are bullied and while many of them may at one time or another consider taking their own life, the vast majority never actually go through with it.

And out of all the teens who commit suicide, most probably weren't bullied and do it for completely different reasons. I think it's a convenient way to explain something most of us find hard to understand: why does someone take their own life when they have so much to look forward to?

The truth is that her being bullied obviously did not make matters better for her, and possibly brought her over the edge but this young girl had some issues that were there to start. Cutting and drinking bleach are huge red flags that IMO indicate some far deeper problems than bullying.

So I think it's wrong to ignore that and blame all of it on bullying because it's easier to understand and provides someone /something that can be blamed. Meanwhile there are lots of other teens (or adults) who aren't bullied but still secretly cutting themselves, thinking about suicide and some of them that will go through with it. Ignoring that part as and focusing only on bullying doesn't do anything to address that and help those people while they're suffering alone and before it's too late to help anyone.

I wanted to write that last night but worried it would sound like I'm blaming her, which I'm totally not and I hope that's not how this comes across. I Just think there is something beyond the bullying that people (family, school, etc) failed to recognize - or perhaps they did and even tried to help the best way they knew how, I don't know - and we should also be talking about that and not Just blame bullying only for being responsible. Am I making sense? Lol




Filmgeek, to avoid confusing everyone on perb (apparently it's very easy because people don't read entire posts before they reply lol) you should put comments like that in a Quote bubble (OR whatever it's called ) you can either:

- highlight the text to be included using your mouse, then click the icon (it's got a picture of a Quote) which is on the left hand side at the top of your text.

- Or you can manually add

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at the start.

Miss BiJou, you make excellent points in a manner that is sensitive and careful to the situation. I have to agree with everything you said here. You're one of the few brave enough not to take the politically correct and easy prescribed road and simply heap sympathy on the victim in a black-and-white good vs. evil manner, for doing so does not make any attempt to understand and instead furthers lies and myths about such situations. Your insight attempts to make the world a better place, and thanks for posting what you did.

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

I think you might have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don't think I missed the boat at all because I absolutely do recognize how the bullying would have affected her. I am a girl : ) and my teens were over a while ago but not that long that I have forgotten how it feels. When watched the video, that's what I was remembering; how things seem so much more intense....permanent, as if nothing will ever change. I guess it makes sense because suddenly you're faced with new kinds of problems, disappointments, politics and you have no experience to draw on yet to allow you to know that everything eventually passes and no, these feelings aren't going to last forever. Lol At least that's how I felt, I always felt things were final, life's going to be this horrible from now on and I'm always going to feel that way. The hormones don't help, that's for sure.

So I totally understand the impact bullying must have had. But I bonded a sentenced of yours that is basically what I was saying - part of it anyway. " If you didn't have an extremely high level of self worth to begin with..." then it's likely there are also other events in a teenager's life that would have made her anxious (like any other teen) enough to self harm. That's all I'm saying.

Even without the extreme bullying, she should have been getting help and should have received it. We Just wouldn't be talking about it because we wouldn't have heard about it - whether she committed suicide or not. We are only talking about it because of the bullying, which is why this has been reported.

The bullying is important, I didn't deny it and I very much agree but the lacking self worth, self harming is very serious and actually a lot more pervasive but we're not talking about that or the teen girls or boys it affects. Its much easier for us to accept that the real and only problem was bullying and everything else can be blamed on the bullying because the answer is easy, we know who to blame and it ends there; deal with bullying, prevent it and this won't happen.


I'm saying, yes prevent bullying but it isnt a guarantee that this alone could have or would prevent suicide. The self worth/self harming IMO would have been there without the bullying and those were not caused by it. She definitely isn't unique or alone in that respect either and even without the bullying, this is something that is serious enough in itself to require help, which (presumably) she and countless of teens like her, never receive help for and no doubt results in some of them committing suicide as well.

I'm saying I agree that bullying had a role in her suicide but I also believe there is more to look at than Just the bullying. So I don't think I missed the boat at all: p

Well Miss Bijou, that's why I respect your comments so much. I agree wholeheartedly that the most important thing anyone can do is love themselves and don't let others define who you are. That said, it's hard to achieve that when all your peers are essentially calling you a loser and never letting up on the mistakes you've made. So it's a bit of a circular agrument. Yes you should have self worth, but you can't really acquire through a vaccum. The environment around you is bound to have some impact, which can either assist you or prevent you from achieving this.

 

[violetblake]

Sad.

She must have major self esteem issues to not realize how pretty she was and her bullies were just straight up jealous.

If she didn't kill herself and just waited till college, wow, the world would have been her oyster. Why did her parents/older relatives/older friends not explain this to her?

This may not be what you intended, but your comment sounds like if she was ugly, this would somehow be less sad. Pretty or ugly, no one deserves to be treated the way she was.

OK I'm hoping I can write this and have it come across the way I mean it. I think that bullying is terrible and I don't think it should be ignored. I dont know if it is somehow worse or getting worse but I do think the internet has somewhat made it easier for bullies to reach their victims and harder for victims to get away from it. So I do think people should be talking about bullying. However a lot of people are bullied and while many of them may at one time or another consider taking their own life, the vast majority never actually go through with it.

And out of all the teens who commit suicide, most probably weren't bullied and do it for completely different reasons. I think it's a convenient way to explain something most of us find hard to understand: why does someone take their own life when they have so much to look forward to?

The truth is that her being bullied obviously did not make matters better for her, and possibly brought her over the edge but this young girl had some issues that were there to start. Cutting and drinking bleach are huge red flags that IMO indicate some far deeper problems than bullying.

So I think it's wrong to ignore that and blame all of it on bullying because it's easier to understand and provides someone /something that can be blamed. Meanwhile there are lots of other teens (or adults) who aren't bullied but still secretly cutting themselves, thinking about suicide and some of them that will go through with it. Ignoring that part as and focusing only on bullying doesn't do anything to address that and help those people while they're suffering alone and before it's too late to help anyone.

I wanted to write that last night but worried it would sound like I'm blaming her, which I'm totally not and I hope that's not how this comes across. I Just think there is something beyond the bullying that people (family, school, etc) failed to recognize - or perhaps they did and even tried to help the best way they knew how, I don't know - and we should also be talking about that and not Just blame bullying only for being responsible. Am I making sense? Lol

I think I get what you're saying, and I partially agree. It could be she had a mental illness, but it's not a stretch to think that she could be totally normal and all the bullying drove her to this. It could very well be either, we just don't know. There definitely needs to be more help and resources for those with mental illness though, I'm in full agreement there. But since it could just as easily been entirely the bullying that led to this, there also needs to be every effort to stop bullying. And especially bullying that attacks women and girls for expressing their sexuality. It's so common, and it's so awful.

 

[Tugela]

Wow that is so sad. I Just wanted to hug her while watching that video. Such a waste. Really, really sad.

I wonder why the police didn't do anything about the guy who was basically guilty of producing and distributing child porn....

The internet made it possible for those kids to Just keep on bullying her even though she'd moved to get away. She must have felt like she would never be able to get away from it. It's really sad. Death is sad but suicide is somehow even more tragic because of how unhappy the person must have been to take their own life.

Very sad. Such a waste. Makes me angry too, violet. but thanks for posting it.

Probably because he doesnt exist. If you follow the story line it sounds more like a fantasy than something real. For example, why would the police show up at 4 in the morning if her picture was being distributed? There isnt a logical connection between the events she describes. IMO she is crucifying herself before the final act.

The more recent events are more likely reality. Just a messed up kid that got involved with someone else's boyfriend, and you know how girls are at school at that age when that happens. They can be downright nasty, but usually it doesnt last that long, they have short attention spans and move on. So you know that there has to be more to this than just that one thing.

Kids get bullied all the time, especially when they are weak or isolated. Being both of those things growing up (I have Aspergers) I have had plenty of first hand experience of that.

Most kids in that situation don't kill themselves though, or even consider it. IMO the ones that do pretty much allways have deeper psychological issues going on, and probably would have done it for one reason or another anyway even if the "final straw" did not happen. They are basically ticking time bombs waiting to go off. Looking at this girl's video it is pretty clear to me that she is fulfilling what she sees as her destiny (even if she doesn't understand that).

 

[Tugela]

Sad.

She must have major self esteem issues to not realize how pretty she was and her bullies were just straight up jealous.

If she didn't kill herself and just waited till college, wow, the world would have been her oyster. Why did her parents/older relatives/older friends not explain this to her?

Maybe because the bullying was not her primary issue?

 

[blazejowski]

She should have released her fury Columbine style on her bullies.

because that will solve everything

Videos like these are why i don't read YouTube comments. People are complete and utter morons on there...

 

[Tugela]

If you read the interview with her mother you will discover that "he" does exist. We have to remember that there may be many pieces to the puzzle and intricate details that we may not be privy to, for instance there may have be more why the police turned up at 4 am. What she presented in her video was just her life from 7th grade in a nutshell, not in it's entirety.

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/10/12/amandas-story-in-her-mothers-words/

I don't buy that. A phantom who lives in another country who noone can find, not even the police (who are pretty good at this), even though he allegedly was doing it again and again, and who mysteriously knew where she moved to each time she changed schools?

Yup. Very plausible.

 

[sevenofnine]

at the end of the day, you alone are responsible for yourself, deal with it suck it up.

that being said, i have no use for bullies the hurt they cause the emotional damage
every one agrees physical abuse is or should not be tolerated,
but emotional abuse is just as bad,

there are actually published scientific reports saying emotional abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse from a mental health emotional point of view. and even more so if you suffer the abuse alone,
bullies you have no idea the damage and hurt you cause some one, or perhaps you do,
and there are some on this board, i agree with some of the earlier comments about there being bullies on this board


but coming from a very abusive family i understand that well we all have a role to play, and a bully needs a victim to play their role
it only continues if every one plays their role.

an article in the paper today talked about people just passive just watching this all happen while doing nothing to stop it.
speaking from personal experiance when your life goes to shit.

we or i understand that there are bad people in the world my father was an angry man evil man just one of many bad people out there.
but what about the rest of you. no one gave a fuck,
and that is the worst part no one cared.

bullies are only part of it, standing by and doing nothing is another part.
playing the part of the victim is another

 

[wilde]

I think it's sad that some people just can't accept the story as it stands. The reasoning are so feeble. I got bullied as a kid and didn't kill myself. She got bullied and killed herself. Ergo she must have some other deeper issues. And not being able to track down an elusive cyber bully is proof of that person's non-existence. Yup. Makes perfect sense.

 

[violetblake]

I think it's sad that some people just can't accept the story as it stands. The reasoning are so feeble. I got bullied as a kid and didn't kill myself. She got bullied and killed herself. Ergo she must have some other deeper issues. And not being able to track down an elusive cyber bully is proof of that person's non-existence. Yup. Makes perfect sense.

No kidding. People prefer to blame the victim, because they're too weak to face the fact that maybe something this horrible actually happened. It's too hard for them to accept that some people really are this cruel, and this girl really was put through all that for no reason.

It's cowardly, just accept that these things do happen, cause they do, all the time. Putting up your defense mechanisms so you can't feel sad is understandable, but it's still weak, and it only allows these awful things to continue.

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

This whole thing is sick beyond words. If kids are celebrating her death then as a society we're barely better than the Taliban. Some major, major punishment is required and I hope the RCMP can scare the living crap out of these kids.

My god this is so sick it's hard to even contemplate.

If I ever caught my daughter acting like this she would loose her phone, internet access on her computer, and 3-4 more things I haven't even thought about yet. Safe to say she would feel my wrath like she never felt it before.

Maybe a 1500 word essay explaining the hurt she caused wouldn't be a bad idea either, nor would a written apology to the parents of this child indicated what her involment was and why she's sorry about it.

Every kid responsible for this child's death should have to do at least this much for fuk's sake.

 

[jesuschrist]

I think it's sad that some people just can't accept the story as it stands. The reasoning are so feeble. I got bullied as a kid and didn't kill myself. She got bullied and killed herself. Ergo she must have some other deeper issues. And not being able to track down an elusive cyber bully is proof of that person's non-existence. Yup. Makes perfect sense.

We should accept the story as it stands. I think those who try to dig something out of the details, or try to find omitted things, are missing the basic point - which is, she did something she wasn't supposed to do at her age with an older man on the internet, then the kids her age bullied her, she suffered, and she killed herself.

You talk about being bullied when you were a kid. I was a kid in this country, as an immigrant and living in a small Canadian town where I was the only non-white kid. That was 35+ years ago, and Canadian society was quite different back then (ie: nothing like the diverse cultural makeup of the Lower Mainland). I was bullied almost every single day!

There is a difference between the children of a previous generation and those of today. Bullying has always been around. But today teachers have raised bullying as an issue to be dealt with in the forefront. Today, bullying seems to affect kids much more than it did back then. In previous generations, we dealt with bullying on our own. We had our own resources within ourselves to deal with it. Today, children need professional counselling, the involvement of parents, the police, etc. to deal with it. Why?

It's not because of the internet and cell phones and other forms of mass communication. While such technologies make words spread faster and effectively amplifies messages, I don't think it would affect people of a generation older in quite the same way. People can still live private lives, or find other streams of society to fit into if they are outcast by others.

I think kids today have been raised to be over-sensitive and weak. The public school system, which parents have abdicated the role of parenting to, has been teaching kids values parents didn't know about but agreed to. Teachers today do not teach reading and writing first and foremost. Instead, they teach "self-esteem". A generation ago, teachers taught reading and writing and you got your self-esteem from achievement. Today, kids don't need to achieve anything and be told they are heroes. Today kids get out of high-school as total upstarts and think they can reshape the world with little effort. They expect to be given things without having to work for it. When I was a kid, the expectation was to earn everything and that meant earning a living and not living with parents when graduated from high school. Today it is not unusual for an 18 year old to live with his parents and have a job, and using all his/her money on expensive rims for his car or a genuine Louis Vuitton handbag. Today's generation expects to earn top dollar from graduating from college immediately. My generation expected to work from the bottom.

Amanda Todd's suicide is a tragedy of many proportions. While it was of course a personal tragedy for her and her family first and foremost, for the rest of society it is an indictment of the stupid way kids are raised by parents and teachers.

 

[wilde]

You talk about being bullied when you were a kid. I was a kid in this country, as an immigrant and living in a small Canadian town where I was the only non-white kid. That was 35+ years ago, and Canadian society was quite different back then (ie: nothing like the diverse cultural makeup of the Lower Mainland). I was bullied almost every single day!

I was in a boarding school so the bullying was almost 24/7. I got out of it by fighting the bullies, I think they respected me for actually standing up to them and left me be after that... People react differently, some fight and some flight. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to either approach.

In Amanda's case, I think she lost all hope. When you don't have hope, it's much easier to just give up.

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

I think those who try to dig something out of the details, or try to find omitted things, are missing the basic point - which is, she did something she wasn't supposed to do at her age with an older man on the internet, then the kids her age bullied her, she suffered, and she killed herself.

I think the basic point is she was a 12 year old girl who had a momentary lapse of judgement. Turned into a death sentence.

It's not because of the internet and cell phones and other forms of mass communication. While such technologies make words spread faster and effectively amplifies messages, I don't think it would affect people of a generation older in quite the same way.

The internet and cell phones have completely changed the dynamics of being bullyed, only the uninformed would think otherwise. I think guys are more prone to physical violence when it comes to bullying and girls to psycholocal abuse. When you're a teenage girl, I suspect the later is much worse. In this situation she was a victim of both. She tried running she just couldn't get away. We as a society all lost something when she committed suicide, because we as a society let this poor girl down.

But I do agree with the rest of your comments.