Teen who committed suicide was involved in a 'Toxic Digital World'
'She was in the clutches of a toxic digital world': Mother of dancer, 15, who threw herself in front of train after creating online cocaine fantasy warns parents to beware what their children are up to on the internet
Inquest jury records narrative verdict over death of Tallulah Wilson
Her mother Sarah pays emotional tribute to 'a beautiful shining star'
Urges other parents to keep their children away from 'toxic digital world'
What I found interesting about this article was the mother's appeal to advertisers to cease advertising on sites which allow free discussion of self-harm & suicide. Do you agree?
Last edited by Scumbelina : 23-01-2014 at 01:25 AM.
Well, I don't think here is any denying that websites that promote (or even discuss) self-harm and the like are dangerous to anyone who is impressionable. RYL is incredibly dangerous. However, the Internet itself is a space of "self-expression", and the anonymity it gives facilitates and breeds the darker side of ourselves.
You know it never fails to amaze me how we only ever get this one side of peoples' internet lives covered in the media, with regards to suicide.
When I was in highschool, me and a couple of my RL friends were in an ICQ chatroom one night. One of them disclosed that she intended to commit suicide sometime soon. It was a shock to the rest of us because she just didn't seem that way inclined to us. It was obviously a side that she didn't feel comfortable showng in the publicness of school. We spent the next couple hours talking her down and I sincerely believe that if we hadn't she would've tried to end her life.
In her words, the single main reason for her wanting to die was her parents. Everyone else in our group, and even the parents of the kids in our group, thought they were nuts. They were rediculously overprotective for a girl her age and they were like tigermom on steroids when it came to her academics. Frankly, it was very understandable how she'd come to want out of the life that poor girl had.
It bugs me when these days you see the news networks telling parents to not give their kids any private access to the internet, because what all the "experts" who issue these instructions fail to admit is that quite often parents are a kid's biggest problem. Sometimes the monster isn't trying to get in to the kid's room via the internet, sometimes the monster is the lord and master of the kid's home and the internet is her only lifeline of calling for help. If you've got these nutcase parents monitoring their kids' internet usage like a hawk, what hope do they have?
I'm all but certain that if it weren't for the internet (which, back in my day, parents weren't so paranoid about), that friend I mentioned wouldn't have had any way she felt comfortable with of telling people how much she was suffering. And if that happened, I think there's a very high chance she wouldn't have made it to graduation.
Yes, there's a nasty side to the internet, yes, harassment shouldn't be tollerated no mater what medium it's in. But IMHO, every kid should have a line of free communication to the outside world that is private and outside the influence of their parents. Because far too often, the parent is a far more of a toxic presence in a kid's life then they are a beneficial one.
No way she died because of the internet or "toxic digital world". People with roots in themselves and who feel reasonably valuable aren't lethally overcome by websites etc.
Kid looks like a movie star. Maybe its just the media selecting stories but it seems a lot of suicides in media are of very good looking girls. We just had one here this week. People are blaming "stress of an Ivy League university" but I'm sure issues ran deeper
The media and society likes these stories because it gives them someone else to blame for the 'toxic environment' kids are forced to grow up in now other than themselves - who are the actual culprits.
Firstly, RYL, like various other sites on the net are in no way 'pro', and do not permit open and free discussion of SH and suicide and do not in my mind come under the same umbrella.
SH is 'normallised' to some degree here for good reason. We are not here to better the support available professionally (although we do outdate most of it) nor are we here to replace the support of families, friends and the health services.
We are here when those above methods have already failed and / or to provide the confidence building required to get someone to the point where they can accept and seek that help, when otherwise they wouldn't.
Sadly, with a serious health issue such as depression there is not always a holy grail fix it solution. Not everyone is going to make it but we as a team and a family at RYL are sure as hell going to keep doing all we can to support each other.
Does RYL also fail some people? Without doubt. But it isn't like the health system, Samaritans or anybody else in the world can remotely claim they too have never failed people... it happens all day every day.
We've picked up the pieces of far too many incidents of the 'system' failing people for me to lose an resolution than RYL, and sites like it, have enormously important role to play in supporting people of all ages.
I'm sceptical that any site, however pro and encouraging is actually going to cause someone to do something they were not already resolved to do. It isn't like healthy happy teens are finding these sites and being turned to the dark side. In the majority of cases it's lost and very lonely people with little sense of belonging and self worth, often with a crippling mental disorder (90+% of suicides involved depression or a mental disorder) desperately searching for a way out.
That said - without any underlying current of recovery and improvement it is easy for a web community to go too far, and there are corners of the internet which clearly do no good, and which should indeed be looked at, dealt with and stamped out.
But don't put sites like RYL in the same camp as Pro sites which this article is attacking - there is a huge difference between the two (and that includes Ruin)
I agree with the points Harley raises and also; one thing that bothered me about the stories like this is that there was another girl who was hit by a train who just happened to go to the same school as the first girl for about two months like four years ago...yet they think the two are connected -_-
♥It's the ups and downs of living life this way. Promise me you'll never go away. Just stay with me through one more night because it's always darkest before the light and now I promise you I'll never turn away. I won't let you give us one less heart to break...♥
The Daily Mail (often has the best photos) didn't invent anything - they were quoting the mother:
‘Her sisters and I did everything we could to keep her safe, but she had fallen into a world of nightmares...
‘She was in the clutches of a toxic digital world where in the final few weeks we could no longer reach her.’
Here is the local article (from this week) about a girl committing suicide over "grades". There had to be an underlying issue that would make graded too important (and she had a 3.5 gpa at a hard uni and that's not bad at all)
You do realise that the article was written in the Daily Mail...
I am usually as skeptical as you in regards to the Daily Mail. In this case, I used it to generate discussion around the question posed at the end of my original post.
how can they blame the internet? i mean we choose what we do on it.
and im sure no one should be that impressionable as we all have our own issues.
most people who do use it, yes it can be more depressing but there always an underlying issue. i mean no one lives their entire lives on it
Firstly, RYL, like various other sites on the net are in no way 'pro', and do not permit open and free discussion of SH and suicide and do not in my mind come under the same umbrella...
SH is 'normallised' to some degree here for good reason. We are not here to better the support available professionally (although we do outdate most of it) nor are we here to replace the support of families, friends and the health services...
I'm sceptical that any site, however pro and encouraging is actually going to cause someone to do something they were not already resolved to do. It isn't like healthy happy teens are finding these sites and being turned to the dark side. In the majority of cases it's lost and very lonely people with little sense of belonging and self worth, often with a crippling mental disorder (90+% of suicides involved depression or a mental disorder) desperately searching for a way out...
But don't put sites like RYL in the same camp as Pro sites which this article is attacking - there is a huge difference between the two (and that includes Ruin)
Harley
I disagree. I would put RYL under the same umbrella, but only with the caveat that it isn't quite as 'pro' as some others. However, that said, RYL does have a sense of glamourising self-harm, and an (unsaid) concept that more is 'worse'. When I first joined there was a definite culture of cutting every day is normal and those who don't are, well, almost excluded, because a lot of the support was geared towards that. Plenty of members have gotten worse through this site, and how you justify that is up to yourself.
So, yes, there is a difference, but it's not quite so stark as you seem to believe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Selmo
how can they blame the internet? i mean we choose what we do on it.
and im sure no one should be that impressionable as we all have our own issues.
I think you would be surprised. How do you think people get 'groomed'? People get sucked in to all sorts of things. Maybe it's because of a need to belong, or through rebelllion or through curiosity.
I don't really think RYL is still like that; I don't think we glamourise self harm any more.
For me, RYL was the first place that made me question self harm; it was the first place I had come across where recovery was even posed as a suggestion, let alone encouraged. I'm aware that a lot of people don't get better here; but a lot of people do. We should value that.
Certainly, for many people, RYL is the one place they can come when they have absolutely nowhere else to turn - how can that be a bad thing?
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
I don't really think RYL is still like that; I don't think we glamourise self harm any more.
For me, RYL was the first place that made me question self harm; it was the first place I had come across where recovery was even posed as a suggestion, let alone encouraged. I'm aware that a lot of people don't get better here; but a lot of people do. We should value that.
Certainly, for many people, RYL is the one place they can come when they have absolutely nowhere else to turn - how can that be a bad thing?
QFT
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
Also I think on any website, or in general life you are going to get negatives, or negative influences, the important thing is to focus on the multitude of positives, and positive influences. Nothing is perfect but I think RYL does one heck of a lot more good than bad. If you disagree, why are you still here?
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
I don't really think RYL is still like that; I don't think we glamourise self harm any more.
For me, RYL was the first place that made me question self harm; it was the first place I had come across where recovery was even posed as a suggestion, let alone encouraged. I'm aware that a lot of people don't get better here; but a lot of people do. We should value that.
Certainly, for many people, RYL is the one place they can come when they have absolutely nowhere else to turn - how can that be a bad thing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buttons.
Also I think on any website, or in general life you are going to get negatives, or negative influences, the important thing is to focus on the multitude of positives, and positive influences. Nothing is perfect but I think RYL does one heck of a lot more good than bad. If you disagree, why are you still here?
I was responding to Harley, who seems to be holding RYL on a pedestal and I disagree with it. RYL has lots of faults. It has lots of negatives. I never said it didn't have a positive to it, but I do think it needs to be acknowledged that RYL could be seen as having a very similar culture to some other sites. RYL is not really some unique, totally different self-harm/mental health issues/whatever website.
I don't really think RYL is still like that; I don't think we glamourise self harm any more.
For me, RYL was the first place that made me question self harm; it was the first place I had come across where recovery was even posed as a suggestion, let alone encouraged. I'm aware that a lot of people don't get better here; but a lot of people do. We should value that.
Certainly, for many people, RYL is the one place they can come when they have absolutely nowhere else to turn - how can that be a bad thing?
I don't know what RYL used to be like, but I agree with the rest of what Sophia said.
"I need you to know, I'm not through the night. Some days I'm still fighting to walk towards the light."
"I don't belong here, I gotta move on, dear. Escape from this afterlife"
"Don't let them in, don't let them see. Be the good girl you always had to be. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know."
Everywhere has faults. So long as the positives outway the negatives what's the problem? And again if you think RYL is so terrible, why are you still here?
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
In relation to RYL, I don't think that it glamourizes self harm at all. Just because it is a community of people who self harm, it does tend to normalise it though.
The world is just illusion always trying to change me.
You will find wonder wherever you can, and spread joy whenever you are able.
I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, divide within me. - Frankenstein.
I was responding to Harley, who seems to be holding RYL on a pedestal and I disagree with it. RYL has lots of faults. It has lots of negatives. I never said it didn't have a positive to it, but I do think it needs to be acknowledged that RYL could be seen as having a very similar culture to some other sites. RYL is not really some unique, totally different self-harm/mental health issues/whatever website.
Well sorry but I disagree with you. In various places in my post I said 'RYL and sites like it'. My distinction was between RYL and site like it against sites that were pro, glamorising and encouraging. There is a MASSIVE difference between the sort of glamorisation done in some pro forums as opposed to sites like RYL (of which there are many)
Even back when Ruin was a lot closer to what would be considered dangerous it was absolutely nothing to do with glamorising - in fact it was arguably more effective and supportive than it is now... all politically correct and ground down by negative members who aren't real players in the team/family.
To say RYL and the other 'pro recovery' sites are all the same as pro sites is frankly dangerous and misguided. Think of the ramifications of them all being cosed down for a minute before you post stuf like that publicly... people will wonder who side you are on.
Yes, there is an element of normalisation. Remember the whole You are not alone thing? Remember how in the early days (when RYL was much more unique in what it does) how hundreds upon hundreds of people have told me that not being ostracised, not feeling alone, not feeling like they were they only ones in the world that did what they did - that saved their lives.
If sites like these treated you like you were in a doctors appointment - then we would never get through and never provide the support. If you don't 'get' that then you really don't understand how self harm support works. Is isn't quite as simple as making a webpage that says "you know you're wrong - you should stop".
It is a VERY fine balance - but a tightrope that is needed to be walked in order to get through to a and help a demographic of people who are largely unable, unwilling or unequipped to stop self harming and seeking treatment.
Yes RYL does have lots of negatives - but I keep hoping they will leave and move on with their lives....
