"I'm sorry I came into your lives just to leave it this quickly," Katelyn, 12 years old, said during her live-streamed suicide video. Another preteen has claimed her own life, this time during a 40-minute Facebook live stream. Speaking to her cell phone camera, she claimed she had been sexually abused by a stepfather, apologizing profusely to everyone for existing on this earth. How could a 12-year-old child feel that? What does all of this mean to someone so far into a depression they can't see past their nose? Absolutely nothing. Your mind is your biggest enemy in that moment, and it will cause you to do things you wouldn't do normally.
Mental health is something that constantly needs to be reevaluated, including how we approach it. We have to make help more readily available. If somebody can live-stream a suicide to thousands — or even millions — of people and manage to hold their attention for almost an hour, why was there no easy way to get help? We still have adults who think that mental illness is made up, so where do we go from here? How do we get to the preteens and the teenagers that when we offer help we need it?
I'm not sure who failed this child, I can tell you it's not just one person nor the other. Children are constantly left behind in situations. I was one of them. Thankfully, I found my way. I can only hope and pray for the sake of more lives that we start showing more compassion and empathy with these young kids. They turn to social media for everything and usually, they end up getting lost in it all. Instagram still has posts that have kids wanting to die, not being skinny enough, while participating in self-harm.
Something more has to be done, tighter monitoring for social media. They have a program up and coming to help report and stop fake news. Clearly, they have the means.
Even if it's something such as proving who you are and where you live, identities verified with every activated account so if any posts are made they can be investigated in the moment, nobody guessing where the poster is; it goes through the company and directly to the local police department... something. Anything. I've personally watched someone post suicidal things and everyone panics because behind a computer screen, we can only do so much.
But no social media isn't the problem ironically, it's how we deal with it. Kids have been doing these things for years. Anything... more than what we are managing to do. Of course, we don't know how to do it all with social media and young kids yet but they will find a way to use it, even if parents say no. Still, this could've been prevented. A 40-minute video and nobody could get there in time. Nobody?
Really?
