The third leading cause of death for teenagers isn’t disease or violence or something unpreventable: it’s suicide.  Every year, around 4,600 people between the ages 15 and 24 commit suicide, and 10 times that amount attempt it unsuccessfully.

Amanda Todd, at the age of 15, took her own life.  After years of being bullied and subsequent bad decisions, which only lead to more serious and harmful bullying, she killed herself.  Todd would have slipped through the cracks, like most teen suicides, if it weren’t for what happened after her death.  The bullies didn’t stop.  And they still haven’t.

Browsing through my own Facebook, posts about Amanda Todd are everywhere.  Students from Niles West have been continually posting about this girl.  Pictures of someone holding a bleach bottle and calling it “Todding,” with comments like “lol, she should have tried a different brand.”  The illicit picture of her has shown up on my newsfeed more times than I’m willing to count.  The whole thing is despicable.  Is anyone paying attention?  She killed herself.  Even before, any level of bullying would be messed up, but now?  A week after the NAMES Assembly, students from our school continue to make fun of a girl who killed herself because of that same treatment.   I thought we were better than that.

Think of the effect that you posting a picture like that can have on girls who are already depressed, who already self-harm.

“This sort of behavior can harm people– especially girls– who are already at risk.  By seeing peers posting negative posts about Amanda Todd it may lead them to think people would think the same of them.  It’s disturbing,” said social worker Jennifer Hahne.

Of course, Amanda didn’t just suffer from normal bullying.  This type of thing would never have happened to a guy.  At its heart, Amanda’s death was a result of misogamy.

Amanda’s Facebook page contains comment after comment about how she was, “…an idiot and a whore who made this mess herself.”  Even those who sympathize with her say she made horrible life decisions.  Amanda was only 13 when her problems started.  She was 13, naive, lonely, and hopeless when she met a guy online.  He told her that she was beautiful, perfect, stunning, whatever.  This guy was older than her; he knew she didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation and he took complete advantage.

When he asked her to show a group of people her breasts in a video chat, do you think she would risk losing the only people who liked her by saying no?  Do you honestly think that a 13 year old would understand how serious the situation would become?  He started by asking Amanda to show her breasts during a group video chat, to a group of people she trusted but didn’t know, to a group of friends she’d never met in real life.

It took a year for the blackmail to start.  An anonymous person threatened to show everyone the pictures of her, and by doing that he started what would become a huge pattern in her life and death: slut shaming.  This person meant to make Todd feel like a whore, he meant to start the feeling of self-hate.  And the thing is, it’s when Todd didn’t comply with the blackmailer, when she didn’t give this horrible person a “show,” he followed through.  Screenshots of that one video chat a year before began to circulate the internet.  Even more sickening, no one responded with sympathy, instead she became completely ostracized by her peers (even farther than she had been before).

Despite several moves, depression, anxiety, and self-harm became hallmarks in Todd’s everyday life.

She made other bad calls.  She slept with a guy who she knew had a girlfriend, for example.  A week later, she was chased down by that girlfriend and beat into a ditch while others literally cheered.  Again, people called her names and shamed her for doing such a thing.  That night, she attempted suicide for the first time.

The boyfriend?  The guy she slept with?  No one knows his name.  No one talks about how, if anyone should be blamed for cheating, it should be the guy who made a commitment to another girl.  All I do know is that he never got beat up.  He didn’t go home and drink a bottle of bleach.  He probably got a couple high fives from his guy friends for hitting that.  Maybe a couple jokes about “contracting STDs from that hoe.”  No one seems to care about his mistakes.  Instead, all the blame goes to Amanda. Yet another example of blatant sexism in her life.

Six months later, Todd posted a video on YouTube displaying her self mutilation and giving a full account of her story.  Although Todd had moved again  both groups of cyber slut-shamers continued to follow and taunt her.  She overdosed on a collection of anti-depressants, pain killers, and sleeping pills a week later.

The public’s reaction to Todd’s story had been one of the most disturbing things I have ever witnessed.  Following her death, Amanda’s Facebook memorial page became overrun with people saying they wanted to throw parties celebrating her death, and worse.  Amanda Todd has become a girl who either deserved to die for being “a whore” (although I would argue that a girl flashing her breasts and simply having sex with someone doesn’t make her a whore, not even mentioning the fact that she was lonely and manipulated, but that’s for another time) or a less significant suicide because of her “decisions.”  She has been reduced to a shell of herself, only represented by the few things that people have made into her entire being.

Help Lines:

1-800-273-8255 (suicide)

1-800-784-2433 (prevention)

1-800-826-3632 (depression)

NOTE: Much of the factual information in this column was derived from the video message Todd posted to YouTube.  It had been taken down at the request of her family due to the sheer amount of views and negative commenting.  The video was heartbreaking and an obvious cry for help.  Nobody gave any to her.