MySpace Suicide: Are Megan Meier's Meds to Blame?
Sun, 11/18/2007 - 9:05pm | 
stephanie Megan Meier was a 13-year-old girl who killed herself after being tricked by a fake MySpace boyfriend named "Josh." Josh, it turns out, was actually the parents of neighborhood child, playing a sadistic joke on the girl. Now Megan's parents are trying to push through measures to protect children online.
It's far too easy to blame MySpace for a child's suicide, since it's a new medium and an easy target for anger and frustration. But the fact is, kids have had to go through humiliation, rejection, and pain for a long time before MySpace ever existed. Megan could have just as easily been treated cruelly at school.
So why focus on MySpace? Could it be that the parents don't want to look at themselves and how they were managing Megan's depression? (Could they be in denial about their own role in creating her depression in the first place?)
So who's the real culprit here? I have a funny feeling it's the meds. And why aren't people talking about this more?
There's an astonishing lack of outcry against the medications Megan was taking. We already know that anti-depressants can increase the risk of suicides among children and teens. So why aren't the parents questioning the drug companies that sold these medications to them? Why isn't the media exploring that angle of the story?
To me, big pharma is what needs better regulation, not MySpace.
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teens on medication
Even though I have taken anti-anxiety medication for many years I have to agree that children/teens using such medication when there are already warning signs that it causes suicidal depression in them is absolute insanity. I was fortunate that I grew up in a time when medication was not used to subdue children.
I am a person who as an adult benefited immensely from the medication I take. Without it I would not have been able to live a normal life. But I believe a case such as my own is actually uncommon and rare. The number of adults with truly debilitating depression or anxiety is nowhere near as high as the number of people who are on such medications. What happened to cognitive behavioral therapy? Everyone just wants to feel better - well to that I say yoga. Meditation. Or jeez. just have a good cup of tea and listen to some Mozart.
I agree with you that MySpace cannot be held accountable.
Megan Meier suicide
I agree that to understand what happened we need to look at the parents, for starters. But also society. And religious and American values.
I have worked with sucidal teenagers for several years. If you are interested in the causes of teen depression and suicide, please vist my site.
Steve
Megan Meier Suicide
In a parents worst nightmare, the mother of a neighbor girl that Meagan Meier was no longer friends with set up a fake MySpace account debt consolidation and proceeded to hound her to death. The woman, a male employee of her company, and her daughter all duped the unsuspecting Megan into thinking “Josh Evans” was real, conned their way into gaining her trust, and then viciously attacked an already emotionally vulnerable youngster.The result? 13-year old Megan hung herself in her closet while her mom made dinner downstairs and talked with her husband loans about how the whole MySpace experience was troubling their daughter.What I will say is that there were enough clues in the story for someone with a reasonable attention span and good knowledge of search engines to find the other family. The reporter probably knew that at least a few readers would succeed in identifying the family. What the reporter (and the Meiers) wouldn’t want would be for the name to be published, and then a bunch of credit card people Google the name, then either show up in the front yard or start mailing them unpleasant stuff.A good friend of mine lives very close to them (probably half a mile). He and I did some searching and tried to figure out who the family was. All he plans to do with the information is stay away from these people, and keep his debit card three daughters as far away from them as possible.