One person commits suicide every 11 minutes in the United States, making it one of the top 10 leading causes of death. Suicidal ideation, or the experience of having suicidal thoughts and urges, is even more common.
Young people’s suicides are still a major concern. For those aged 15 to 24 years, suicide is the second most common cause of death in children, adolescents, and young adults.
The majority of young people who attempt suicide have a serious mental health condition, typically depression.
Younger kids frequently attempt suicide on the spur of the moment. They could be linked to emotions like sadness, confusion, rage, or issues with focus and hyperactivity.
Teenagers’ feelings of stress, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, disappointment, and loss may be linked to suicide attempts. Suicide may appear to be the answer to problems for some teenagers.
But what causes someone to consider suicide?
If you’ve never considered ending your own life, it could be challenging for you to comprehend why someone would think about doing so.
It’s difficult to imagine what led a friend, family member, or celebrity to commit suicide. There may have been no clear warning signs, and you may wonder what clues you might have missed.
Even while a variety of mental health conditions and life situations can be factors, however, experts aren’t entirely sure why some people do and others don’t.
Now, the parents of McKenna Brown never anticipated that they would experience such a horrifying incident,–seeing your daughter lifeless is the most horrifying and unbearable for a parent.
A selfless teenager with her entire life ahead of her, McKenna, 16, committed suicide just days before the start of her senior year of high school.
It was when McKenna Brown’s mother Cheryl discovered her face down in her room when she went to wake her up for church just three days before the start of her senior year at East Lake High School in Pinellas County, Florida. She was also one month away from turning 17 at the time. When Cheryl Brown turned McKenna over, she discovered that her daughter had passed away! Initially, Cheryl Brown had assumed that McKenna was sleeping.
Cheryl recalled, “I found her face down in her room, She can literally sleep anywhere. And when I first walked in the room… it didn’t even occur to me that she was gone. I thought she was sleeping on the ground, as uncomfortable as it looked. I went over to her to try and turn her over, and she was cold and stiff.”
The teenager killed herself.
Allegations that McKenna was bullied and even “canceled” emerged after her tragic death, according to The Blaze. Just days before McKenna committed suicide, her parents discovered that some of her hockey teammates had started to severely bully and harass their daughter online. In fact, McKenna went from hanging out with her hockey friends to committing suicide after what has been called a “tragic ambush” in less than five days.
High school can be an exciting time for teenagers transitioning into the next step of their academic careers. It can also be stressful, however, when peer pressure, making new friends, and wanting to fit in is added to the mix.
McKenna’s parents claimed that during her freshman year, she struggled to maintain female friendships and relationships and frequently became the victim of cyberbullying.
An ex-boyfriend of a hockey teammate is said to have started flirting with McKenna at the beginning of it all. Out of respect for her friend, the 16-year-old girl reportedly asked her teammate for permission to speak with the boy, who the other girl had dated two years earlier, though the girl initially said she was okay with McKenna talking to her ex, that soon changed when Her teammates allegedly tried to “cancel” McKenna, refusing to hang out with her, and sending her a “barrage of texts and phone calls,” after accusing her of violating the “girl code.”
A former friend allegedly texted McKenna that says, “You’ve done all of us wrong, I hope I never see you again.”
Her mother claimed, McKenna became the victim of online bullying. The teen’s hockey teammates “proceeded to try to cancel” her on social media by advising others not to associate with her in the hopes of getting the girl socially isolated, she allegedly apologized, but it was too late.
Cheryl said, according to WTVT, “She was attacked, her integrity was attacked. She was called a bunch of names. The intent was to cancel her, In fact, one friend, in quotes, said that her mission was to ‘leave her without a single friend,” the grieving mother added.
Cheryl told The Daily Beast that they only became aware of how bad it was when it was already too late, they first assumed that hat the situation was “boy drama,” which is common with teenage girls. However, the straight-A student-athlete succumbed to a “tsunami-type feeling” triggered by online bullying and committed suicide as a result.
Even though McKenna and her teammates had been friends for up to 8 years, it was soon discovered that some of them had started to “mass distribute” unfavorable messages about her. Even worse, the so-called friends started spreading rumors about the worst experiences McKenna had already had in her brief life, including one that claimed she had been raped at the age of 14.
McKenna’s father Hunter explained, “She made a couple mistakes. It led to some physical, sexual, emotional abuse. She was blackmailed. She was bullied. She was betrayed by her best friend.”
McKenna was also subjected to “physical, sexual and emotional abuse,” her parents revealed.
McKenna Brown was the target of three separate accusations of girl harassment online. Following an investigation, the Lightning High School Hockey League suspended those three youth hockey players for their alleged involvement in McKenna’s suicide, McKenna’s mother said. But Cheryl, who is advocating for a change in cyberbullying laws, doesn’t think that’s acceptable.
“I would like there to be some accountability and acknowledgment to what happens, She’s not here, but she’s still helping people. That’s our mission: To help her continue to help others,” Cheryl said.
The parents of McKenna made an appearance on the “Dr. Phil” show to talk about bullying and teen mental health.
Cheryl said, “If you’re aware of something that’s going on in your kid’s life that’s affecting another kid, you got to say something, You can’t just not say something. That’s not OK and that could’ve prevented this.”
The hope is that McKenna’s story will help deter others from acting cruelly and inspire those who see cruelty to speak up and put an end to it before it’s too late.
According to Cheryl, there won’t be any criminal responsibility, despite the fact that a number of teammates and their families have come forward with accounts and proof of the bullying they believe contributed to McKenna’s death, it doesn’t seem that the abuse was illegal.
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: Taphaps, Theblaze, Meaww