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THE SUICIDE OF 12-YEAR-OLD KATELYN DAVIS IS DISTURBING.
For those of you who don’t know about it, she’s an American tweenager who broadcast her suicide online.
She spoke for quite a while before she hung herself. She apologised many times (no child should ever feel the need to have to apologise so much). She made disquieting references to internet creepypasta characters, Ben Drowned and Slenderman, seemingly unintentionally ensuring that she’ll become part of creepy legend.
She got hold of her tears by taking deep breaths. She was committed to leaving - her neck never snapped. She never dropped far enough for an instant death. Her twitching body supports that her departure was more terrifying – she suffocated to death.
But for all the twitching, she never attempted to save herself. How that dedication was possible for one so young is incomprehensible. I wonder how many thoughts ran through her head faster than life should be.
There’s no way i’m going to get that video out of my head. Which is a good thing because we shouldn’t be able to ignore that things such as tween suicide have become frighteningly real in our increasingly fearful and fear-filled world, self-consumed to the point of indifference that’s sometimes only interrupted by the urge for cruelty. The latter is emphasised by online comments mocking her death – bullies are never satisfied.
I’m not going to post a link to the suicide video but you can read part of Katelyn Davis’ diary and watch a montage of video clips she made the same month at http://wp.me/p1z0hX-22e.
In the second video, there’s a hectic argument with her mother that provides insight into her life; Katelyn being de facto parent of her younger siblings, her mom on drugs and her mom’s ex boyfriend having abused her. It’s heartbreaking.
