Real Life Stories

Real Life Stories

Amanda Todd 1996 - 2012

When she was in the 7th grade, Amanda met a man in an online chat room who talked her into flashing him her breasts. A year later, the man contacted her on Facebook and asked her to 'put on a show' for him. He threatened to release a picture of her to everyone she knew if she did not comply with his wishes. He knew her address, her name, where she went to school, and who her friends and family members were. Amanda’s pictures were released and went viral. Other kids at her school saw the pictures and started to bully and tease her. She became severely depressed, developed anxiety and began to use drugs and alcohol.

A year later, after she changed schools and found a new group of friends, the man came back and created a Facebook page, using her topless photo as his profile picture. Her new friends started ignoring her, talking about her, and bullying her. She reveals her feelings in her video on YouTube, describing how she cried every night and lost all her friends. Amanda began cutting herself.

Again, Amanda changed schools, where a boy flirted with her. As a result, girls from the first school came to her new school and beat her up, while people watched and filmed it. She reveals, "I was left all alone and left on the ground." She managed to find her way to the road, where she lay down in a ditch. Her father found her there.

When Amanda returned home, she tried to commit suicide by drinking bleach. Once again, she moved to a new city, but the bullying continued. Therapy, combined with anti-depressants, did little to help her depression and anxiety, and she continued to cut herself and attempted suicide again.

In September 2012 Amanda wrote her story on flashcards and recorded it on YouTube.

Amanda’s body was found at her home in British Columbia, Canada on the 10th of October, 2012.

Hannah Smith 1999-2013

Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl from Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England, hanged herself in her bedroom on August 3rd, 2013. Her body was discovered by her older sister.

In the weeks leading up to her death, Smith had been subjected to cruel taunts and insults about her weight and a family death on Ask.fm, a question-and-answer social networking site that allows anonymous participation. Bullies on Ask.fm urged her to drink bleach and cut herself. According to Hannah’s father, she went to Ask.fm to look for advice on the skin condition eczema.

After her death, Hannah’s father found a note that read: “As I sit here day by day I wonder if it’s going to get better. I want to die, I want to be free. I can’t live like this any more. I’m not happy”.

Following the suicide, Hannah’s older sister, Jo, described how, just days after discovering her younger sister’s body, she started receiving abusive messages on Facebook mocking her loss and blaming her grieving father’s parenting skills for the tragic death.