I am not sure why, exactly, the Amanda Todd’s death is really getting to me. I think it is a combination of remembering my past problems with depression and fear for my daughter growing up in this kind of world.
If you don’t know, Amanda Todd was a young teenage girl who made a stupid mistake and got horribly bullied and tortured for it online. She was from a city not far away from me and grew up in the same kind of place I grew up. She was bullied so badly that she felt like she had no one and no reason to live so she took her own life.
As for me, I grew up okay, but when I was a teenager I didn’t have many friends and was very lonely. I spent the time before school hiding in a bathroom and then lunchtime in the library reading a book. In class I didn’t talk to anyone and rarely raised my hand. I had bad anxiety and my homelife was not great as my brother was losing it (another story for later). To get away from my homelife after I graduated I went to Europe and made some amazing friends, I was happier than I had ever been, but when I came back I went into a severe depression. I didn’t realize how lonely and depressed I was until I saw what I was missing. My anxiety skyrocketed and I could barely go to the grocery store. It was also around this time I realized I was gay, told my parents, and got a negative reaction. I turned to chatrooms online as an outlet. I was so down that I’ll admit, I didn’t want to keep going, life was so hard and I was in a fog of depression. It is hard to explain what kept me going, I had this feeling, that there was something no... someone out there waiting for me. I used to pray that I would find her, and I did, my amazing wife!
So, when I was alone and depressed and felt like I had no one, why did I survive when others don’t? I feel a strong kinship with people like this. It also terrifies me that my daughter could get depressed one day and find no one to help her. So for the last couple of nights I have been lying awake obsessing over all this. Going over in my mind what I can do. How do I help other people who are feeling so alone? How do I prevent my daughter from suffering like that?
To add insult to injury, the bullies that drove Amanda Todd to killing herself, are still saying horrible things about her online. It is driving me crazy. How can people be so cruel?
How do I stop obsessing?