shrekfan246 said:
AzrealMaximillion said:
shrekfan246 said:
RedFeather1975 said:
It's not really selfish of her StormShaun.
She didn't belong on a world that didn't care for who she really was.
She was made to hurt for it. But now she can't be hurt anymore.
Congratulations, this is probably the nicest thing anybody has said in this thread.
That comment ignores the fact that her parents tried to help by moving her from school to school. In her situation and with the way that schools handle bullying, its pretty much the only thing you could have done for her.
It also ignore the fact that she was going to counselling on a monthly basis. There were people that cared for her and people who were legitimately trying to help. Suicide like this is selfish to a degree.
Now people have shut down the Facebook of a guy known as Corey Hartstone due to rumours of him being the blackmailer. Death threats and all. Turns out it was really a guy named Kody Maxson. See what blind sympathy can do?
Overall this was a sad situation, but suicide is always a choice.
Suicide is a choice, yes, but this girl didn't "bring it on herself" or "deserve it" because of one stupid thing she decided to do. She didn't "get what was coming to her" by way of all the bullying she received, and she wasn't "weak" because she couldn't overcome her bullying like everyone else in this thread apparently could, bullying that, by the way, for everyone else I would imagine didn't involve getting mocked over showing your genitalia over the internet.
I never said that she deserved it or any of that.
But you have to admit, saying that she committed suicide because she was bullied over a nude pic is incorrect. The nude pic was a non-issue in the recent events of her life. It may have been the catalyst, but she didn't kill herself due to something that happened 3 years ago. The nude pics destroyed her self esteem. She seems to have killed herself because she thought no one cared about her, though we'll never know for sure. The notion that she committed suicide due to the nude pic ignore the fact that she moved schools multiple time to get away from that drama. She finally did, then she slept with a guy who was in a relationship. She got caught and beaten up for it. That comes with the territory. She became disliked for it, again it comes with the territory. Her drinking bleach the night of he getting beat up was not the way to deal with it, but once again, her self esteem was shattered by a guy she thought liked her and being at a school where she sat alone at lunch until she slept with a taken guy. My point is, saying that she committed suicide
because of the nude pic, is stretching the issue and ignoring 3 years of events.
Do people honestly think it wouldn't be humiliating for a young girl to discover that everyone she knew had found out that she flashed somebody, and had seen the picture that was proof? I don't know what world The Escapist lives in, but generally teenagers are extremely self-conscious about their bodies, and teenage girls even more so. Yeah, she may have set all of these events into motion herself by doing the flashing in the first place, but that doesn't mean that she deserved to be mocked and ridiculed, beaten and used, and pushed past her breaking point (because newsflash, not everyone is a "strong" person).
Understood, but that doesn't mean that other teenagers who are also self conscious about themselves won't take any opportunity to make themselves fell better by picking on someone else. Her event was a massive opportunity to do so. This, unfortunately is one of the more prevalent examples of the saying, "kids are cruel". She didn't know the ramifications of flashing someone on the internet, and those who bullied her don't know what excessive bullying can do to someone. They're not inherently horrible people, they just don't know any better. You have to remember, the people bullying her were kids at the time too.
I wasn't giving her blind sympathy. I was merely stating a fact: If I had been a person in her life over the months she began spiraling down the drain, I would have attempted to help her out of it. I don't give a damn what the blind mob does in response to this story, I just give a damn about all of the people who brush this off with "Eh, happens all the time." Yeah, Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimer's, and the various types of Influenza happen all the time, too, does that mean we shouldn't try to figure out the root problem and reduce it as much as we can? People getting shot, stabbed, mugged, raped, or into driving accidents happens all the time too, does that mean it's not an issue?
See, I can't take that at face value. Maybe I've just experienced too much, but every time I see someone say that they would have helped a person in mental peril, I have the urge to call BS. No offense to you personally but I've seen people who say exactly that, go back to making fun of the weird guy in the corner of the classroom/workplace within a month.
That and how in the hell do you know that you can just pick out the people with mental issues? You can't, they hide them well. I have friends who are on anti depressants due to mental illness tell me that they were once suicidal. I would have never known had they not told me. Mental illness isn't like visibly diseases. People with mental illnesses hide them from the world because they don't think we understand. Some of them get help. Amanda Todd had help. She was in counselling and on anti-depressants. Still was not enough.
As it stands right now, I always think it's a shame when a person with a full and potentially productive life ahead of them has it prematurely ended, and I'm horrified by all of the cold, callous remarks being made in this thread in regards to her character or how the bullies aren't the ones who should shoulder any of the blame.
You call them cold and callous but those remarks (at least the ones that have legitimate points) are the other side of situations that no one wants to talk about. They need to be said, it helps us understand why people do things like this to themselves. If we didn't have remarks looking at more than just blaming the bullies, people with mental issues would have a much worse time in this world because everyone would be treating them like glass instead of trying to understand them. Amanda Todd must not have known how to her feeling into words that would help others understand her plight, because that would have helped miles beyond posting a YouTube video on cue cards. I'm sorry if I sound cold but that is the honest truth. You're talking to a guy who in the 3rd grade literally saw a man shoot another man dead in the streets near school. A person who has helped suicidal friends stay alive. A guy who had one of his old friends murdered only one year ago. I'm not saying I'm more qualified than you when it comes to situations that are grim, I'm just more used to them. So I feel no shame talking about what the parents, schools, bullies, blackmailer,
and the victim did to result in this. This is a tragedy, nothing but.