Innocence, Undone.

I’m angry. Angry and disheartened, and completely unprepared for what I am getting ready to write about. I would so much rather have touched on the topic of how amazing beets are for your health, or what you can use as an all natural pain killer….but no. Reality hits home, and I feel compelled to touch on a subject that needs to be wrestled with desperately.

Now, before I get too deep into this subject, I want to say that I am fully aware that, as a society, we have a serious mental health crisis. However, what I am about to write in no way touches on the reality of people who truly do live with mental illness. I am not a psychologist, but I did study psychology in college, and was raised by a parent who battled with demons. I am in no way ignorant of or apathetic to mental health issues.

What I am going to touch on is how prevalent the threat of self harm and suicide has become in order to get attention or manipulate people. Threats used by people who do not actually intend to do these things. In the past few months, my daughter has been exposed to several situations, both online and at her school, in which children her age were talking about wanting to die or hurt themselves. My daughter has only just turned 12. These are children. And while I have no doubt that there are many, many kids that struggle with mental illness, I do see a pattern developing in which some kids are using these threats to get attention or as a means to get something they want. Any attention is better than no attention, right? Not in my book….but we don’t all read from the same pages.

I am angry because my daughter is a child and should not in any way, shape, or form have to worry or feel responsible for the mental health or survival of her friends. Her innocence has been hijacked and I am livid. I understand that if someone is really in dire need of help, that they should ask for it, and by God, they should receive it as well…but the issue I am talking about and dealing with is kids posting in group chats or social media after having a bad day at school, not getting the right color sweater, bombing on their math test, getting angry with their parents, or not getting the latest iPhone, that they want to die and how they plan on killing themselves. They then get a barrage of messages from their peers telling them how great, beautiful, amazing, talented, etc. they are….and within an hour they are back to posting all rainbows and unicorns. This seems to be happening on a weekly basis…sometimes even daily.

I have been a bulldog mom on more than one occasion and reached out to the parents whose kids I do happen to know, and told them what was going on. If your child is going to make my kid sick with anxiety only to later laugh about it as if it were a clever joke, then I am going to address the issue head on. If your child truly needs help, you need to know it, and please go get them help. If your child just wants attention or is trying to manipulate their friends, then please do something about that too. If my kids used threats of self harm or suicide to get attention or sympathy or just to rile people up, you better believe they would lose their phones and I would make them personally apologize to each and every one of their friends….but maybe I’m crazy for teaching my kids to be accountable and that their actions can hurt others.

I’m afraid that thanks to the desensitization caused by social media, a whole generation of kids is growing up not truly understanding the severity of their actions and how it affects others. I am also worried that the constant need for attention in the form of likes, comments, and accolades is steering our kids and young adults towards a precipice that is hard to step away from. I see a pattern here where people of all ages have a hard time accepting when a post or image of theirs doesn’t get enough likes. People actually buy “likes” now in order to what….feel or seem more liked, more important? So how do we get the MOST attention? How do WE go viral?

My kids have shown me numerous accounts on TikTok where children post how they want to die or hurt themselves, as well as accounts of kids who have supposedly committed suicide (no way to verify this as those accounts are public and we don’t know who the kids/teens actually are) and the pattern there is that the last few videos posted go viral with thousands of likes and just as many comments. How do young kids interpret this? How does an immature and impetuous mind make sense of something so dark….yet in a way so compelling? What happens when a child feels bored, or ignored, or upset then?

Mental health, suicide, and self harm are no joking matter. The people who are truly afflicted suffer greatly and often in silence. We need to understand and shed light on what is happening with and for them, but how do we keep the topic from being used as a way for people who don’t suffer from it as a form of attention? I’m afraid that these kids are going to grow up knowing they can use these things as a way to manipulate their friends, families, and future partners into letting them get their way, etc. I mean….it’s already happening…and is anyone addressing this issue?

Just a few nights ago, I read an article about the prevalence of young men in the UK living with abusive partners who use threats of self harm, and suicide in order to force their boyfriends/husbands into giving them what they want. So….is this becoming the norm now? Do we tie people down into friendships and relationships by making them feel like they are responsible for our well being? That if they say no, or upset us in any way, we can threaten to hurt ourselves? Are my kids going to grow up thinking this is normal and thus end up in abusive relationships because they are so used to this type of manipulation from what they see online and in school?

I know I can’t protect my kids from everything, but I will be damned if I allow them to think that this behavior is ok. They need to understand that mental illness is something that needs to be understood and not made a mockery of. That they should never accept anyone using threats of self harm as normal or acceptable, and that they need to talk to someone they trust about the behavior and then walk away, not enable it. They, and we, cannot ultimately be responsible for the actions of another person. Whether they just want negative attention, are trying to coerce someone into giving them what they want, or actually truly intend to hurt themselves….there is nothing really that we can do other than to give a kind word, and point them in the direction of help….be it by alerting parents and school counselors about the behavior, or telling an older person to seek professional help.

I think as parents we need to start talking to our kids openly about these things at a much younger age than we think we have to. Sadly, there is a sense of glorification, a romanticization of self harm and suicide thanks to social media. There’s an almost Montague-Capulet ring to what I see online now….and that is dangerous. We need to keep the attention on the people that need it the most, and for the rest of us….we need to tell our kids there are better ways of getting their own attention, there are better ways of dealing with a bad day, a bad week, or a bad year. We need to ensure that they don’t develop toxic habits that they will take with them well into adulthood, and that if they meet people who haven’t learned those skills, that it is ok for them to set healthy boundaries.

I am so angry. Angry that my little girl’s innocence when it comes to these topics is gone. Angry that so many people spit on the face of real mental illness and don its gowns for their own benefit. I get it that a lot of kids don’t realize the severity of their actions…..but I’ve sat my own down and given them a play by play on why it is NEVER EVER ok to do what some of these kids are doing. All parents need to do this. Our kids shouldn’t be afraid to go to sleep at night, or spend hours crying over something their friend threatened to do, or posted on social media only to have them post videos an hour later of themselves laughing with their family and eating ice cream. No. No more. This is not a game, not a joke, and I will go full warrior mode in order to help stop it before my own children’s mental health is affected by this.

In closing, I want to repeat that my post and opinion is based only on what I have experienced first hand. I am not writing about children or people who are actually in crisis mode. I am writing only about incidences in which I have seen kids….and adults… using empty threats in order to get attention or get their way. This is a form of crying wolf that takes the spotlight away from the people who truly need our help, and it needs to be addressed…..and stopped.

header photo by Jeswin Thomas @pexels

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