This beautiful young Canadian girl, Amanda Todd, recently killed herself after horrible school and cyberbullying. Before she died, she had already tried to drink bleach and overdose on pills.
Back in junior high I had a year where I thought no one liked me and I was publicly taunted, I thought about killing myself a lot at age 13.
It got better for me and life moved on, but the emotional scars remained. For that reason, every time I hear about a young person killing themselves over school bullying, my heart breaks. I know that could have been me, that it is me.
Amanda Todd
Back when I was in high school, we didn’t have Facebook or Twitter, my God, I can’t imagine how humiliating and violating that kind of Internet bullying must feel in those delicate, emotional, formative teen years.
Amanda had fled several schools to escape the bullying, but the bullies followed her online, tagging her in Facebook photos of bleach, writing that they hoped she sees the posts and kills herself, calling her stupid for not killing herself the first time.
I keep asking myself what can I do to help? Since it’s National Anti-Bullying Month, the least I can do is to post the video cry for help Amanda made herself about her story.
We can teach our kids about how wrong and evil bullying really is, and we can try to reach out to help the next precious Amanda not fall through the cracks. I’m keeping my eyes open for him or her.
I’ll let Amanda tell you her own story, in her own words.
Love,
H.
P.S. You guys, right after posting this, I opened my personal Facebook page and there was a post from a woman I don’t know, taunting “Heidi, I can’t believe what you did in this video, ha ha ha, it’s all over Facebook!” etc…obviously a spam link, but the connection is not lost on me.
What a sad, tragic story. Bullying is so supremely damaging to anyone, but particularly teenagers. Back when I was a kid, no one thought twice about it. I remember being shoved and punched and slapped by random girls because I was small for my age, and my teachers always loved me (which is as good as putting a target for bullies on a kid’s back). I hope this poor girl is now resting in peace, and I hope that justice is served to her bullies.
Me, too, I really hope justice is served.
What a heartbreaking story. This poor girl. Something HAS to be done. Children shouldn’t have to kill themselves to escape being bullied.
Sharing this post on Facebook, and kind of hoping it pisses some people right the hell off.
http://spfldilstayhomedad.wordpress.com
Thank you for sharing it, she wanted her voice to be heard.
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My God…..I just……I don’t know what to say to this. It terrifies me….I shared it on FB also because I know several teenage girls who I hope will watch the video and gain strength from it….
http://gram-cracker.com/blog
Oh, good, it’s happened to at least two more girls since her and thank you for sharing it. I’m sure her family appreciates her message being carried on.