As a mental health advocate and volunteer blogger for ISEPP, while it is always heart wrenching to post stories involving the suicide death of our U.S. soldiers and young students, it is heartwarming to know that a growing number of concerned individuals, organizations, celebrities and mental health professionals are making an urgent call for action to put an end to the hidden epidemic taking the lives of so many young individuals.
This page serves as a New Year’s Day Remembrance for those who have served in our military, or endured bullying and may have committed suicide during 2011.
2011 Suicides Involving Bullying
On October 3, 201119 year-old Danny Chen, a U.S. Army private from New York City, was found dead in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan from ”an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”Eight fellow soldiers were charged in connection with his apparent suicide. The victim’s family says he was bullied and taunted because of his race.
In Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, 16-year-old high school student Tiffani Maxwell reportedly shot herself on January 15, 2011. Maxwell’s family believes bullying is to blame for her death. Tiaffani’s parents are hoping to now save other teenagers from bullying.“Even if it saves one kid … just remember there are family members behind you and that tomorrow will be better,” said Sandy Maxwell.
“Just don’t bully people. What’s the sense of it. Put yourself in their shoes,” said Maxwell’s father Shane Maxwell. Click here to read more.
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A slumber party in Minnesota ended in tragedy when two eighth grade girls fulfilled a suicide pact, killing themselves and leaving behind suicide notes telling their families that they loved them.
Haylee Fentress, left, and Paige Moravetz, both eighth graders at Marshall Middle School in southwest Minnesota, were found together in a home in Island Lake Township, around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, April 16, 2011. Two 14-year-old girls left a note saying goodbye to friends and family before taking their own lives as a result of bullying.
Haylee’s aunt, Robin Settle stated: “I’m shocked and I’m mad and I’m sad…I don’t understand the mentality of kids torturing other kids, kids having to go through this. They don’t think they have anywhere to go to,” Settle told ABC News.com.
Settle said that her niece, Haylee, had been the victim of bullying after moving to Minnesota from Indiana with her mother and 8-year-old brother.
“She was made fun of for being overweight, her red hair,” Settle said. “She posted on my [Facebook] wall that she really wanted to come back…that the people were mean and cruel and she didn’t fit in.”
Tragic: Paige Moravetz, apparently planned the suicide with her friend Haylee Fentress for weeks Read more
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On April 17, 2011 eight-year-old Tori Blair Wilson was found in the woods near her home. Tori had hanged herself after being bullied, police have said.
Her body was discovered just 80 yards from her house near Palestine, East Texas, after she went missing from a neighborhood barbecue.
Following a weeks-long investigation, an autopsy has now revealed the second-grader died from suicide by hanging.
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Nicholas Kelo, a student in Akron, Ohio, shot himself dead on Feb. 23, 2011 at the age of 13. His mother suspects Nick may have gone for a gun because he was bullied after classmates began suspecting he was gay before he joined band.
Click here to read more.
Jacob Rogers shot himself on Dec. 7, 2011. The Tennessee teen took his own life after being subjected to anti-gay bullying which, friends say, officials at his high school did little to prevent.A friend told The Tennessean that Rogers was an almost daily target for name-calling at Cheatham County Central High School Jacob Rogers had been bullied at Cheatham County Central High School for the past four years, but at the start of his senior year, it had become so bad he dropped out of school. “He started coming home his senior year saying ‘I don’t want to go back. Everyone is so mean. They call me a faggot, they call me gay, a queer,’” friend Kaelynn Mooningham is quoted by MSNBC as saying.Click hereto read more.—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
On the surface, 10-year-old Ashlynn Connor was a happy-go-lucky girl.”Ashlynn Conner was a classic, small-town, All-American girl — an honor roll student who loved cheerleading and stray cats and dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.”But she also carried with her the torment of bullies, who called her names at school and in her neighbourhood of Ridge Farm, Illinois.On Thursday, Ashlynn pleaded with her mother to allow her to be home schooled to escape Ridge Farm Elementary – and Stacy Conner refused.The next day, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, she was dead, having hanged herself. Her body was found by one of her siblings.
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Samantha West said she found her daughter, Jasmine McClain, hanged in her bedroom Monday, November 14, 2011.“I just lost it because she took her last breath in my arms,” West said. “She was a loving child. I just don’t understand.” Chadbourn Police Chief Steven Shaw said her death was obviously suicide, and he was about to close the case when he started checking posts on Facebook and other social media about Jasmine and her death.“Children started coming forward and making accusations that she was bullied – and bullied bad – in school,” Shaw said.
Jasmine was picked on at Chadbourne Elementary School, West said, noting other children teased her about her clothes or her shoes. She left the school for a while and dreaded having to return about a month ago, her mother said.
“It’s a shame that kids are that cruel. It really is,” West said, noting that she never knew how badly Jasmine had been tormented.
Click here to read more.
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Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from Williamsville, NY, took his life Sunday, September 18, 2011 after what his parents claim was years of bullying because of struggles with his sexuality.
His parents, Tracy and Tim Rodemeyer, say that Jamey faced bullies for years, though things intensified in middle school, according to NBC 2. Jamey recently became a freshman at Williamsville North High School.
In the wake of their loss, the Rodemeyers hope to carry on a message of anti-bullying and acceptance. “To the kids who are bullying they have to realize that words are very powerful and what you think is just fun and games isn’t to some people, and you are destroying a lot of lives,” Jamey’s father told WIVB.
Click here to read more.
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Bullying: Words Can Kill
September 16, 2011 9:09 PM
A “48 Hours” special on bullying in the digital age. Tracy Smith reports.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7381364n&tag=contentMain;contentBody#ixzz1inczTWME
http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
- Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
- to understand, than to be understood;
- to love, than to be loved.
- For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
- It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
- It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
- Amen.
http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2011-10-09/article-2772415/Anti-bullying-message-sent-in-wake-of-teen-death/1
http://www.inmemoriam.ca/view-announcement-257094-dolly-miles.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-Brittany-Chant/165611320192011
Just giving you some links for someone in my community.
Thank you Adam!
Thank you Maria for such an excellent post that covers so many important topics. All suicides are absolutely heart breaking and many can be prevented with proper intervention and treatment. The fact you mention more die by suicide in the military than are killed in action is something not many seem aware of, but need to be. I believe the multiple deployments that occurred with the Iraq/Afghanistan wars will have much more consequences from a mental health standpoint than any other war. My hope is that our systems will recognize this fact and get the vets the treatment they so deserve. Far too many are falling through the cracks.
When it comes to teen suicides, for me personally, they hit me even harder. Some are so young it’s inconceivable their lives could be so painful that they feel taking their own lives is the only solution. I don’t know if it is happening more now than before, but it certainly seems that way, or at least we are more aware of it now with the speed at which we learn on the internet about these tragedies. Bullying is often involved with the younger ones and again, the internet enables the bullies to continue bullying long after the student has left school and gone home. There is such a tremendous increase in teens and youth being on social media sites, and although a wonderful option, can also be used for malicious tactics.
As I look at all the beautiful young faces of those you’ve mentioned, many of whom were bullied, it infuriates me that they had so much beauty to share with the world, and yet their young lives were cut short, before they ever had that chance. We’ve all got to get involved and start educating about this issue. People deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and acceptance. It’s up to all of us to get that message out and practice it ourselves.
I attended the online event from Putting a Face on Suicide’s “New Year’s Day Remembrance For Those Who Didn’t Wake” yesterday. It’s very moving reading each person’s post, learning about who they lost to suicide and sometimes a photo would accompany the post. Many came together, many candles were lit, and I think it was a lovely way to honour and remember our loved ones lost as we begin a new year.
All the best to you Maria and ISEPP in 2012.
Barb,
Thank you for your kind response and the efforts you put in to helping others.
It seems like the stories of suicide involving military soldier/students are never ending.
On Dec. 21, 2011 there was another murder/suicide of a military couple.
http://www.10news.com/video/30052367/index.html
and from today’s news “National park officials said Monday afternoon that the man found dead in Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park is Benjamin Colton Barnes, the suspect in the shooting death of park ranger Margaret Anderson the previous day.
Barnes was found around 10:45 a.m. Monday, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and lying face-down in a creek near the base of a waterfall in an area popular among hikers. Search teams reached him and positively identified him later Monday, Chief Ranger Chuck Young said.
Authorities had launched a massive manhunt across steep, snow-covered and wooded terrain for the 24-year-old Army veteran following the fatal New Year’s Day shooting of park ranger Margaret Anderson.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/02/justice/washington-ranger-killed/index.html
I will be collecting information on the various organizations and individuals involved in suicide/bullying prevention and list them on a separate page.
Please feel free to send me information or submit a post to the ISEPP blog.
God Bless,
Maria
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