Stress can be a contributory factor to a heart attack, if you already have narrowed coronary arteries. Narrowed coronary arteries occur as a result of aging, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol etc.

If you already have plaques in your coronary arteries due to these things (usually doesn't occur under the age of 50), and THEN you put extra strain on your heart with stress (upset or angry, it makes no difference), you could have a heart attack.

But people who are bullied are usually young people, and they do not have pre-existing coronary artery disease, so this has little relevance to bullying.

okay.i really do NOT understand anyone who says 'words can only hurt you if you let them' or 'no one can make you feel bad except yourself' or anyother such bullshit. words do hurt.they hurt like hell.even more so when you're a teenager,because no matter what value your parents have taught you,at that age,you want NOTHING more then acceptance from your peers.when you're a teenager you're still trying to find your place in the world,an develop you're own sense of self-worth.so being ridiculed by the very group you're expected to assimilate into CAN very well have a strong mental/emotional impact.

No way. When the kids at school used to call me weird and all sorts of names, I just consoled myself with the fact that they were stupid and weren't going to get anywhere in life. Looking at their Facebook profiles now, I have proven myself correct!

My mom always used to say to me, 'You will look back on this and laugh.' I didn't believe her at the time but now I do laugh! I think my experience taught me to stand up for myself and whilst I wouldn't wish bullying on anyone, it sure does help to build a strong character.

Everyone is different, obviously. But words shouldn't get to people. Bullies are always retarded. It is their way :)

You said it yourself... you didn't believe your mother when she told you you would feel differently when you were older! To teenagers this stuff can seem soooo much worse than it does to an adult.

And I agree that kids who have been bullied end up stronger, but I do not think bullying should ever be permitted to get to the point where a child sees no escape other than ending their life.

Words shouldn't get to people, but they DO. And I suspect they got to you too, more than you're admitting here, or perhaps more than you remember.

They may hurt to you, but...

You let them.

Words couldn't hurt me, and I surely can't just be the exception to this rule.

you're NOT. I stand vehemently by my original statement. Words ONLY have the power you give them.

I'm pretty sure we were ALL taught the old adage, Stick and Stones may break my bones...

I think it's possibly different for teenage girls than for teenage boys too. I think teenage girls are naturally more sensitive and care more about what others think of them than teenage boys tend to. And words DO hurt when you're a teenage girl.

And if the taunts are repeated over and over and over on a daily basis, a person can easily get worn down to the point where they start to believe they're as worthless as they're being told they are. This is what happens in childhood abuse and domestic abuse also... but few people would argue that those victims are weak. Why is it somehow different because the abuse is coming from another child at school?

I agree that maybe it's different for teenage girls then it is for boys. Most(not all) boys seem to have less of a problem 'standing up' for themselves,whether that means throwing insults back,or just getting into an all out brawl,and about half the guys i've met don't seem to care much what the majority think of them as long as they have the support of there core group of friends. i dont know,it seems like with guys,the bullying is more out in the open (fist fights an what-not)
Girls tend to seek approval more then most guys,but,for the most part we're taught it is not 'proper' for us to stand up for ourselves or fight,so we tend to be more passive agressive (is that the term im looking for?) about the way we torment each other,undermining friendships and/or self confidence.

sorry if this post makes no sense!i've been up more then 24 hours at this point

In your situation, where you have friends and people who believe in you. But your confidence is based partly on words too. Words are how we make sense of the world. When friends and family say positive things to you, it builds you up. The way you view yourself now is based on words. And not just words that you've consciously allowed to influence you - words from when you were a tiny child.

If your parents suddenly announced to you that they didn't love you any more, because you disgusted them, I'm kinda guessing those words would have a bit of an effect on you. And then imagine all your friends and peers at college or wherever you are started laughing at you, and treating you with disrespect, and informing you that you were really annoying and worthless, and that everything you said was stupid, and taunting you and refusing to let you join them. It would affect you, yo. Humans need people on their side. It's not just the fact of 'words' - it's what those words represent. Human support or hostility.

Studies have been done on this sort of thing, yo. Back in the day before ethics committees, a school decided to do an experiment, where they divided the class into the blue eyed kids and the brown eyed kids - and one group were treated like they were special and the other group treated like crap. You must have heard of this, yo - it's quite famous. The words made a difference - the one group actually started to see themselves as superior, and the other group saw themselves as inferior.

Sure, but that's a special occasion and in this case, not relevant. Only because in this context, it deals with bullying, and disrespect from peers, and not necessarily disrespect from authority figures. In this case, she chose an extreme option from something that I would imagine is pretty avoidable. There were a number of different things that she could have done to pull the reigns on this situation.

-Made an active attempt to make the school aware of the situation (rather than just be in the same room with a teacher, or whomever it was that was present)
-Had her parents call the brat's parents
--If that doesn't work, file a police report for excessive harassment

Or she could have just done what I would have done and just laughed at those retards who seemed to have spent their days planning on how to make this girl's life hell instead of going about their OWN lives. But I could understand why someone wouldn't have been able to. But I would have.

But now I can see where some of you are coming from. If everybody around you, and I mean EVERYBODY, I can begin to see why words would hurt. But in this case, it was just a bunch of teenage girls with way too much free time on their hands, and have now realized that being a complete and utter cunt to someone can seriously --- *pause*

AHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAA

HOLY SHIT.

So like, technically, the girl who committed suicide really DID get her ultimate revenge.

"What, you want to fuck with me? I'm just going to commit suicide."
Sure, the bullies think they've won, what with calling their campaign "Operation Suicide" or some shit like that. Except now they're going to jail for a long time and ruining whatever hopes and dreams they've had for the rest of their lives. Props for the dead girl, in my opinion.

I'd like to point out that we don't know she didn't do any of that stuff. She might have told the school, her parents may have called the bullies' parents. You're making assumptions that she didn't, and you just can't possibly know.

Why is it wrong that I'm making assumptions based on what I'm reading in the article? I'm assuming I'm reading from a credible source, and that they're telling the whole story. That's what the news is.

Did the article say then that her parents hadn't phoned the bullies parents, and that she hadn't told the school? If it did say that, then I apologise as I hadn't realised that had been reported.

It made no mention of anything her parents did, but if she/they did anything to alleviate the situation, it would be relevant information and most likely would have been reported in the article. I think it's safe to assume her first and only choice was immediate suicide.

Her parents are probably in great shock and feeling horribly guilty, blaming themselves in all kinds of ways. They are unlikely to be reporting to journalists all the details of what they did and didn't do.

Lol. Because news articles ALWAYS report the full story!

You are assuming details you cannot possibly know, and details you can't possibly assume the journalist would have known either.

THERE'S NO way you can possibly know what she did to try and resolve the situation before she decided to kill herself.

I'm only making assumptions on what the article DID report. Didn't you imply before that you didn't even read the entire article?

I haven't read the entire article. But the difference is I'm not making ANY assumptions about what happened. I keep saying over and over that no-one knows what was going through this girl's mind, no-one knows what she was feeling, what support she had or attempted to get.

The entire time my argument here against you guys saying she was weak or a pansy or whatever is that you are basing it all on assumptions!

Actually, I take that back. Read my response to Estella below.

Are you serious, yo? You really think that news reports tell the whole story? Reporters never know the whole story - how can they? Especially in suicide cases, where it's always speculation, because you'll never be able to know what was going on in the dead person's head.

I don't have a good argument. Nobody does. This entire thread is based on nothing but speculation about what the article didn't say. But that's the entire point. I just feel that something as important as preventative measures against this girl's bullying would have been researched by the reporters and added into the article. But it wasn't, and I don't think it would have been right for the reporters to add to the article that this was anybody's fault but the bullies'. Know what I mean?

Now, I'm not saying that her parents or teachers are bad people. But there should have been more going on, especially if this entire thing went on for a month. I can tell you right now that if this were reported to the teachers or the school administration, and they did NOTHING, they'd be held criminally responsible. I can draw from there that they were alerted to the problem until the day of the suicide, where the bullying went on right in front of someone that worked at the school, which even then, wasn't reported until AFTER the suicide.

If they weren't alerted, then we should think about whether or not the parents were alerted. If they weren't, then I'm right, and this girl completely overreacted. If they were alerted, then perhaps it's best that they're feeling guilty for many different reasons.

Or I could be completely wrong, and this was just terrible reporting, and we all just got half of the story. Who knows?

I think all news reports are selective, depending on what message they want to portray. This one seems to want to portray the message that bullying can have awful consequences on kids on the receiving end, and that bullies will pay for their actions. It doesn't mean that the reporting is terrible. All reporting is of necessity subjective - the very decision about what stories to report is immediately subjective, because it requires a value judgement about what is important and what is not (and indeed what people want to hear about and what they don't). All reporters select their stories and then select what parts of their stories to highlight, bearing in mind their target audience and what message they wish to portray. Therefore, whenever I read a news report, it is always with suspended judgement, and awareness that there will inevitably be a lot more to the story that I don't know.

You can read between the lines of some details though. Phoebe had recently moved from Ireland to America - that's a pretty huge move, to a completely different culture, and she'd have left behind her support system of friends. She'd also started dating a guy in the new school and the relationship had ended - she probably had a lot of painful feelings about that too. That is a very difficult thing for teenage girls - and they normally turn to their girlfriends for support. And yet here she is in this completely different culture and she is being bullied for the breakup by the other girls, who are relentlessly trying to humiliate her. Bear in mind that girl bullying is quite different from boy bullying - very subtle and insidious, and with a real vindictiveness that boy bullying doesn't have. I can totally see how this type of situation would wear down a teenage girl and make her feel quite helpless. Remember too that teenage girls have a lot of hormone stuff going on which is quite different from the hormones of boys. And also bear in mind that her parents (or parent - maybe she only has one) is also a stranger in a different culture and would be struggling to fit in and work out the cultural norms. A move is always a stressful time and is sometimes precipitated by painful family events.

"I think all news reports are selective, depending on what message they want to portray."

^ This.

What's a special occasion and not relevant, yo? You said that words don't have to affect people. I was showing how they can and do - in all kinds of different situations. You don't know the details of this girl's life. You don't know how much support she got elsewhere. Her parents could have said things that made her feel she had no support at home. Or maybe her parents had other problems and she didn't like to worry them. It's always impossible to judge cases like this, that you read about on the news, because you only know a few facts.

I was never bullied as a kid. I was always the one standing up for those who were being bullied. So I don't really know what this girl was going through. I think the best thing to do is to teach children that bullying is wrong. We see so many children in this day & age that are spoiled rotten (my child probably being one of them) but just because they have nicer clothes, bigger/nicer house, car, whatever the case may be it makes them no better than anyone else. I think that's the root of the situation. Parents bringing their kids up to believe they are better than someone else giving them the mindset to be bullies.

My daughter will be given things but she will also be appreciative of those things & kind to others who do not have those things or she will get them taken away simple as that.