Leaving aside any other debate on this point, it’s not really relevant here. The girl attended Immaculate Conception, and private Catholic schools in St. Louis are not cheap, nor something that lower- or lower-middle class children attend. Also, she’d attended Fort Zumwalt before; upper class children wouldn’t attend public schools.
The family is comfortably “middle class” by any definition.
That the family is comfortably “middle class” doesn’t mean she couldn’t be following a pathology that’s more common in lower socioeconomic classes. It’s like talking about the link between smoking and lung cancer - the more you smoke the more likely it is that you will develope lung cancer, but there will be people at both ends of the spectrum who represent outlying data points> That is people who never smoked who get lung cancers typical of smokers; and other people who smoke like an industrial chimney who never express any ill effect.
Saying there’s a link between pre-conditions and a pathology does not exclude people from outside that set of pre-conditions from exhibiting that pathology.
anu-la1979 covered that very point in the part I quoted. And that particular cause isn’t relevant here because she is not lower-class, despite that she (or her family) exhibited the pathology anu-la1979 described.
Just because you’ve observed a link between a pre-condition and a pathology does not mean that pre-condition is relevant to a specific case of the pathology.
I didn’t ask my sister anything about whether she believed this girl fit what I am talking about or if her observations were relevant to this particular instance so for the love of gauze, don’t take my post and act like I’ve not made my point properly or something because I’m not even talking about that poor girl. My sister wouldn’t even make some half-assed diagnosis like that because she’s an actual, real, live psychiatrist who would never pontificate about news stories her sister relays to her by word of mouth. I was responding to a particular statement made by a poster upthread about people who are gluttons for punishment that made me recall an exact conversation I held with my sister about children who attract harassing attention from their peers by their behaviour. I followed up on the statement I made upthread by asking my sister about that conversation again. Whether or not this girl was a glutton for punishment or fits that fact pattern is impossible to gauge from what’s available on the internet.
Specifically I asked my sister whether or not there was some mental illness/issue htat makes kids behave like that while others develop “coping mechanisms” and she listed some of the patterns she sees among the young women she comes into contact with who engage in these types of behaviour. She did go into greater depth about the parents and the situations she has seen (especially in regard to the lower socioeconomic status comment) but I censored most of it out and just pared down a few of the trends she was talking about. I’m not trying to win a fucking internet debate about this poor child.
Also, leaving aside the socioeconomic argument-she did make all the other points I listed that Lightray ignored-lower IQ generally, parents emphasise certain things in the home blahblahblah. And again-talking about the “glutton for punishment” syndrome, like the extremely heavy girl who tries out for cheerleading (which is an actual instance my sister mentioned), not this child in particular.
And where’s this speculation coming from, and what do we know about you? Nothing. Why should we believe any of this stuff you’ve said about yourself? You could be trying to just gain back our sympathy after having suggested this poor kid is better off dead. For all we know, you could be one of the people who made up this hoax.
IOW, let’s stick with the facts as they’re reported to us, unless there are some obvious reasons why they’re likely to be false. Once you get into unfounded speculation about what is or isn’t true, there’s no reason to stop at any particular point.
Since I missed this the first time–if the journalist was doing his homework, things such as what treatment she was receiving and joining the volleyball team could be verified through outside sources. Granted, we don’t know if he did or not, but those things can be checked out.
Now, now, I didn’t “ignore” them. I just didn’t have any relevant information to contribute that related to them. I mentioned the only point that I could provide some clarity on.
Yeah, but you’re still applying the analysis of the behaviour my sister is talking about without even knowing whether or not the child engaged in it. I was merely responding, as I said in my post, to a statement made by a poster upthread. And I want to clarify that I did not ask my sister if she thought this girl fit that bill-I just asked her about the conversation we had about a month ago and what issues those children had to compel such behaviour (although I told her about the Myspace bullying stuff). Considering how controversial child psych is right now, she would have told me to fly a kite had I asked her to proffer an opinion on the girl in the news story. Armchair diagnoses without knowing all the facts are kind of the Dope’s forte…not a practicing physician.
So who cares whether the girl is middle or working class? We don’t even know if she took any actions that attracted bullying attention. Starting a Myspace doesn’t qualify as attracting bullying atttention IMO anyway. Every brat has one these days.
If you think the media is always 100% accurate, you are truly delusional. The media doesn’t give a shit about the whole truth and nothing but the truth; the media is solely in the business of ENTERTAINMENT, and stories like this get reported only to fulfill the audience’s desire for recreational outrage. Naturally, they want to portray Megan’s parents in a totally sympathetic light – how could they not?? It would be reprehensible for them to do otherwise.
However…I have no problem assuming that what’s reported in the OP’s article is indeed a slice of the truth, and that the reporter did his homework and verified his sources to the extent that any reasonable professional would be required to do so. So, as you suggested, let’s look at the facts presented:
First of all, the biggest pisser about this story is that Megan’s parents don’t have any basis for a criminal case. That really sucks, but the hard cold truth is that the justice system depends on causality, and when a teenage girl kills herself, there’s generally a myriad of reasons. What are those reasons? Who knows? But this particular segment stands out like a sore thumb:
At that moment, instead of taking control of the situation, Tina Meier essentially abandoned her daughter. Instead of bothering to discover what was really going on (and yes, I’m aware that none of them knew it was a hoax yet), instead of forcibly unplugging the computer and comforting her daughter and explaining to her how some people are just jerks and you shouldn’t take anything you read on the Internet seriously – essentially, all the things a typical parent is SUPPOSED to do, as professionals in this thread have already pointed out – Tina Meier basically told her daughter, without using any words: “I don’t have time for you right now. Deal with it yourself.” And guess what…Megan dealt with it. She dealt with it in the most logical way she could think of at the time.
In no way am I claiming this is the key trigger for Megan’s suicide. But you can bet your ass that any competent defense attorney WOULD claim this is the reason. And the defense would probably win an acquittal based solely on that point. (Not to mention what other evidence they would be able to dig up and present against the Meiers.)
Don’t get me wrong – what those other parents did was utterly reprehensible, and it’s doubly reprehensible that the legal system is powerless to hold them accountable for their actions. All we can hope for is some form of cosmic justice, and pray that “Josh Evans” and their daughter encounter cosmic justice in the form of some kind of flesh-eating virus or a spine-snapping automobile accident. That’s very unlikely to happen, but one can always hope and pray that it does.
KGS,
How, pray tell, did you expect the mother to unplug the computer from a few miles away? Maybe telekinesis is the norm in your universe, but it isn’t a common-place thing here on Planet Earth.
Wow. In post after post in this thread, you’re digging the deepest hole ever dug on The Dope. You’re showing that besides having no compassion, you’re not very long in the sense suit either.
This is false, and shows that you are a dishonest person.
If the media wanted to portray the parents in a totally sympathetic light, would they not have left out the “I am so angry with you” quote? Would they not have left out the part about the foosball table? Would they not have named the other parents who made up the kid?
In short, it would probably be good to stop talking about things which you apparently know nothing about.
Umm…let me aid you in correcting your obviously deficient reading comprehension skills:
Care to try again??
Oh, I have plenty of compassion. I’m just siding with Megan on this one. For better or worse, she is free of pain, and she will never be bullied by anyone ever again. (Unless you believe in reincarnation…which I don’t.) But that’s all the empathy I’m willing to expend on this random, chaotic event.
Believe me, I have no such belief.
I just think your second-guessing is likely to be less accurate than the story as reported, because all your second-guessing is based on is your prejudices. (And they are both intense and seriously deranged.)
I have no idea how any of this is supposed to constitute a response to anything I’ve said. None.
You cite the article at a number of points, but in support of your position. So obviously you’re quite happy to regard it as accurate where you want to regard it as accurate.
And I do think you’re one sick puppy for claiming you’re “just siding with Megan” here. First of all, I’ve got a general aversion to those who claim to be speaking for persons who cannot speak for themselves, be it the pro-lifers, or the Terry Schiavo Fan Club, or whoever. They almost invariably have their own agendas, and are safe to push them in the knowledge that the person they supposedly represent can’t contradict them.
Second, in this world, at least, there is no longer a Megan to side with. And her last moments were spent in agonizing and quite unnecessary emotional pain, so agonizing that she felt only her death would suffice to relieve it.
Things can change fast when you’re a teen. One year, you may think your life is hopeless and death would be an improvement, and the next year, things may have fallen together for you, and life’s amazing. And six or seven years later, you’re out in the real world, and the ride isn’t quite so wild anymore. Not to mention, the 5’5" 175 lb young woman finds out she can define herself in other ways besides her looks and her weight - through her work, through her leisure time activities, whatever. And if she has other things going for her than her looks, and doesn’t let her weight define her view of herself, she can have a perfectly happy, normal life.
But you apparently think she’s better off having ended her life now than finding out how that part of the story turns out. Sweet.
Well, it’s the main story on CNN now…so we’ll see what happens.
Lovely straw man you got there. Your analogy is flawed, though, because Terry Shiavo wasn’t clinically dead yet.
So what are you saying? It’s better that she continued living her life suffering in unnecessary emotional pain? What a nice guy you are.
And sometimes it DOESN"T work. Hitting the bullies back in my case just meant that they stood out of reach and threw rocks, or came in numbers.
Garbage. As an adult you have more skills, experience and freedom to deal with your problems, as well as generally more emotional stability and less violence ( Have a bad boss or co-workers ? When was the last time he/they beat you up ? ). It was this nonsense about how life is so much tougher for adults, and this alone that made me seriously consider suicide as a teen. I would have been wrong to do so, because the people who said that life is harder for adults were wrong. Telling kids who consider their life worthless that it only gets worse is stupid unless you are trying to talk them into suicide.
I disagree with this. As a mother of teenage girls, I have a bit of actual experience dealing with similar situations. Tina did not tell her daughter that she didn’t have time for her. She became frustrated with her daughter, if the story played out as described in the article. Mothers frequently become frustrated with their children and teenage girls, in particular, can be very difficult to communicate with. She said she was aggravated. She told her daughter to turn off the computer no less than three times and was ignored. Even if the disobedience was more out of distress than disrespect, it doesn’t make the situation less frustrating for the mother. Frequently, after a mother yells at her teenage daughter, the daughter will flounce off to her room to sulk, perhaps even adding her own comments about the situation. Now, perhaps given Megan’s mental distress, Tina should have followed her but hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? Many times parents will give their children a bit of time to calm down - it saves everyone a lot of tears and heartache if a child has time to decompress and calm down. Kids’ emotions are all over the place and given Megan’s recent accomplishments and successes, it’s not surprising that Tina reacted like a mother of a more “stable” teenager would have behaved. Let her sulk, we’ll talk it out after dinner.
That’s the problem, apparently.
I know this is the Pit, but this is just such an outlandish assertion that I feel compelled to say: CITE?
WTF? :dubious: 
See #2.
Yeah, life was so much better before the 20th Century. Or at least shorter, so you didn’t have to suffer it as long.