It
appears that another "sexting"-gone-bad episode has resulted in a
13-year-old Florida girl taking her own life. This would be the second
known case in the U.S. where a connection has been drawn between
sexting and suicide.
The circumstances not only highlights the dangers inherent with sexting, but also the role of peer bullying that emerges once sexted photos are distributed widely among students populations.
At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell's friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as "whore" and "slut." A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as "sexting." The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools. "Tons of people talk about me behind my back and I hate it because they call me a whore!" Hope wrote in her journal. "And I can't be a whore i'm too inexperienced. So secretly TONS of people hate me … " School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope's legs and had her sign a "no-harm" contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/sexting-related-bullying-cited-in-hillsborough-teens-suicide/1054895