Spread the word for Tovonna love you sis #RIPTovonna #stopbullying pic.twitter.com/7gs0dxMrAp
— Official Es'synce (@MsEssynce) June 9, 2016
The teen years are full of angst. Girls in particular are at risk for emotional issues such as depression and anxiety. Research shows that social relationships are a source of ongoing worry for teens. Changes in body image, hormonal shifts and the rapidly developing brain all contribute to teenagers’ sense of stress and confusion.
Statistics from Family First Aid show that approximately 30 percent of teenagers have been involved in bullying, either as the perpetrator or the victim. The same research says that while boys are more prone to physical bullying, girls lean toward social bullying and social exclusion.
Now that the internet is such a large part of everyone’s life, it is possible for teens (and children!) to be embarrassed in front of tens of thousands of strangers. It isn’t just the funny picture from the sleepover making the rounds of the seventh grade anymore.
A Tampa, Florida teenager found herself the victim of severe internet bullying last week. It cost the young woman her life.
Channel 8 News from Tampa reported that 15 year old high school freshman Tovonna Holton had been worried about something last weekend. The girl told her Mom that kids at school had taken nude photos of her, and she was visibly upset. Her Mom told her not to worry, and Tovonna went upstairs to clean her room.
Her Mom, Levon Holton-Teamer, didn’t know that Tovonna had taken the gun out of her mother’s purse. She didn’t know that her daughter was so tormented by the images making their way around the internet that she didn’t think she could face her peers again.
Two hours after sending her teenaged girl upstairs, Levon went to check on her.
She found the bathroom door closed, the light off, and a pool of blood running into the hall.
Can you imagine the unbearable horror of that moment?
Later that day, Tovonna’s aunt went on Facebook to ask for some answers. She wondered about the pictures, wanted to know who had them.
That’s when the family found out that one of Tovonna’s close friends had actually taken a video of her in the shower. A video that she knew nothing about until it started making the rounds of Snapchat. The video of her naked, unsuspecting, 15 year old self was making its way around the internet. People were commenting on her body, her behavior, her face. They called her names.
It was too much. How does a tender young woman, barely on the verge of understanding her own identity, come to terms with that kind of humiliation?
Tovonna couldn’t bear it. With the impulsivity that comes with adolescence, she took her own life.
There are so many lessons to be learned from this awful story. In the age of the internet, every act of teenaged teasing can become fatal. In the age of a gun in every home, every moment of teenaged anxiety can become fatal.
Here are some links to information about cyberbullying and to teenage mental health. If you are the parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin or friend of a teen, please read this information. It could save a life.
Featured image by Channel 8 Video Screengrab.
