It is a sad story and a terrible thing that happens to a lot more teens and adults than is reported. Adolescents are at the highest risk for suicide due to hormonal changes causing mood swings, emotional struggles in trying to gain control over said mood swings and the general pressures suddenly put upon them. Teens go from being kids with very little responsibilities to having a whole payload of things they have to take care of.
The issue of bullying comes into play when a teen commits suicide because many teens don't mention the bullying before hand. If I read her story correctly she had been in therapy for a year before this happened, so somewhere along the lines the problem wasn't handled.
A lot of schools operate in a way where bullying isn't even thought about. Problem students aren't removed from their victims classes, they aren't punished in any way that has an impact and they have ready access to their victims before and after school. School officials, many parents and other students will also brush off bullying as the victim being childish and complaining over nothing.
Teens also need to take high school nonsense less seriously and focus on their life beyond high school. Many of teen issues revolve around petty things such as who's dating and who isn't, Prom, how someone is dressed, what music someone listens to, who has the most friends and who's in the "cool" scene. A lot of these petty issues turn into bullying and harassment and some of the kids who take high school culture too seriously take the final step and commit suicide.
Yes, some instances of bullying involve very serious matters but those are few and far between. Students have resorted to beating each other into coma's over text messages and just to have a video to post on the internet. Taking the very minor things in life too seriously as well as not knowing what to do about a bully, or how to cope with depression, anxiety and stress leads a lot of teens and adults to attempt and complete suicide.
Once bullying starts, people seem to forget that there are things they can do, and mindsets they can adopt to prevent the harm that the bullies wish to inflict.
Teens and Adults need to keep in mind what they can do to deal with a bully, such as ignoring the remarks they make, telling authorities or calling the police when harassment doesn't stop and standing up to the bullies and letting them know they won't be tolerated.
