The woman is garbage. I hope people do damage her property. If I lived in the neighborhood I would put a brick through her front window.

There's another issue here that I haven't seen addressed, and that's the fact that many anti-depressant medications include increased chance of suicidal behavior as a side-effect, especially in adolescents.

While obviously the biggest specific issue is the bullying and willingness of an adult to meddle in the affairs of children to sophomoric or malevolent ends, is there even the chance to investigate whether we should be searching for other means to medicate children with mental issues?

I think it is too easy to medicate a child or teenager nowadays. Look at how much ADD medication is prescribed.

And abused.

Here's how it was explained to me by several psych. professors:
First, teenagers are more likely to commit suicide in the first place. Blame the impulsiveness and lack of a fully formed brain.
Second, when you're really depressed you don't even have the energy to kill yourself.
Then you take medicine and in a few weeks you physically feel better, even though mentally you're still depressed. This is because it takes a while for the anti-depressants to build up in your system and really work.
The increase in suicides is tied to this time period where you're emotionally still in the dumps, but have more energy and are probably afraid that the medicine isn't going to help you because look, you're still depressed.
The same pattern occurs in adults who are medicated however they're more likely to "get" that the medicine takes time to work and overall less likely to kill themselves.

Though anecdotally ADD medication is overprescribed, there doesn't actually seem to be an over-medication issue. If anything doctors are being more careful about diagnosis than in past years, and it isn't as easy as just signing a prescription. Not all doctors of course...

Sadly the campus doctor was apparently an easy sell on an ADD diagnosis for students. This was not due to parents though, but smart students who knew how to fake the hyperactive behavior on the diagnostic survey so that they could get Ritalin to study with and share with their friends.

Exactly. This is what I've heard. A lot.

Unfortunately there's no other way to diagnose. There's some interesting information with CT scans showing a slower brain development, but that looked only at children and suggested that the brain eventually catches up. As a college student who first self-diagnosed and then went to my doctor at home who confirmed it, I'd have been pissed if I was looked at askance as if all I wanted were pills.

Of course, I'm not hyperactive so I don't get the "fun" meds anyway.

I can't believe that anyone would WANT to take that crap. I hated it. I felt like a zombie. Yes, my brain goes a million miles an hour, but I LIKE it like that. If anything - I selfmedicate with coffee and call it a day.:p

I'm not really hyperactive either, but my doctor gave me adderall and for the first time in my life, I could concentrate and focus! I'm not sure of the difference between ritalin and adderall, etc because I've only taken adderall. I also take anti-anxiety and anti-depressent meds for the last 5 years... I'm at my lowest dose now, and as a fully developed "adult" I have just as many ideations as I did as an teenager. However, though I do have episodes, this is something that I have struggled with since I can possibly ever remember.

Medication working with therapy is the most effective treatment for depression, because it is imperative that people (especially adolescents) build up the cognitive abilities to counteract the ideation and negative thinking. I think that is a piece of the puzzle that some people don't often include in therapy, even after all of these years and advancements in medication.

I'm sure your psych professors have a better handle than I do on the symptoms and information regarding the disease, and this sounds like a perfectly plausible etiology - however, this actually doesn't sever causation issues at all - in fact, this actually serves to enhance the causation portion, whereas most of the research will only find correlation.

So what's the conclusion? Should the kids be under lock and key until the "latency" period is over (I couldn't think of a better term there, it's pretty bad - sorry!)? I feel like these kids really need the help, but at what cost in terms of exposing them to a period of "danger" that may or may not be implicit in the treatment of the disease?

Maybe this should be another thread, but I'm not sure there's enough interest to break it out - still, it's interesting to me, and I doubt this will be the last high-profile case we hear about, unfortunately.

They should for sure be watched/monitored very closely when they first start their meds, but I believe the risk is very much worth it BECAUSE of that. When they start the meds, there's a more definite time when they're going to start to feel that upswing. When a depressed teenager is left unmedicated, there is a chance they'll start feeling better on their own at some random time and commit suicide. At least with the meds, you have a very definite time to watch them more carefully and intervene if help is needed.

I'm not sure the time is all that well defined, to be honest, and I think that's my main issue - as far as "careful monitoring" I would imagine most parents already think they are doing this . . . so I was kind of asking, in effect, what more can actually be done, if anything?

Well it's not that they actually cause suicidal ideation, but that the effects allow a suicidal individual to more easily kill him or herself.
Making parents aware that there is this increased chance of suicide, but also that the longer the child is on the medication the more that decreases so it's important that they know the medicine (for the majority) does help. Educating the teenagers as well and providing as many supports for them as possible both within the family and without. Lock and key isn't necessarily needed - although suicidal people can generally be held for 72 hours if necessary, but teens don't generally kill themselves when family is around.

If in fact the blog is a "hoax" perpetrated against Lori Drew...for the hoax she perpetrated against Megan...

It would seem to be a collosal bit of karmic justice, would it not?

Be careful what you say and do in life to others, as fate has a big old way of bring it back to bite you in the @ss!

You know, I've always wondered how I'd be on stims instead of the Strattera. (Adderal and Ritalin AFAIK work essentially the same way). My brother takes Concerta and every now and then I just sit there and wonder... would those work better? But at the same time, I really don't want to have to deal with being unable to get more than X number of pills in X number of days and all the controlled substance issues that stims have these days.

I was being a bit more obtuse than this - I meant "causation" for the actual suicide, not the suicidal ideation - but point taken.

See, this is a long-hand description of what already happens (or should happen), and it seems somewhat idyllic - meanwhile, the problem still persists to the point where it is statistically significant among all ages, and more prevalent among teens.

So I'm wondering if there's more beyond this than can be done, and any thoughts on why this isn't done (or successful) to the extent we would like it to be.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayof....ap/index.html

CNN article. The family that targeted Megan is being shunned by neighbors. They have also received some threats.

Mom still claims that she told her daughter and her employee to only leave 'nice messages' for Megan. Anyone believe her?

I know this is a horrid situation and this guy isn't trying to be funny...but he kind of was.

I laughed, but I'm kind of morbid and possibly a bad person - I would probably feel exactly the same if I'm that guy, though, too.

Did he just add the signature? Because I'm totally amused.

I was wondering if you had noticed the addition to his posts. I was hoping we had run him off, since I had not seen any posts from him the last day or so...

He's been posting mostly in threads I haven't followed as closely so I wasn't sure when that happened. I did report his post in KAP's thread. Not the right place for trolling. Or whatever he's doing.

Yep, she sure will. This is just DISGUSTING! I can't believe that a grown woman would go through such lengths to get back at a child. I'm sure she didn't expect for this JOKE to end like this, but you can NEVER play w/ someone's mental health - their mind, will, emotions, and intellect. You never know what the end result will be.

Ah, ok, you're lovepwr whatever.

I get it, you're old and can't follow that kiddie chatspeak. And it's some sort of deep metaphor for how old we are.

Woooooooooow. Good! Even if they just get the chance to keep harassing that awful woman, it makes me happy.

Update!
 

Lori Drew indicted by a federal grand jury

^^ So glad to read this! After everything that happened, something needed to be done to a grown woman who bullied a teenager.

The plea is in...

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/not-gui...16150209990001

Lori Drew found guilty of lesser charges

from the St. Louis Daily Dispatch:

"ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/26/2008

UPDATED: 2:45 p.m.

"LOS ANGELES — A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of three minor offenses instead of the main conspiracy charge in a cruel Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.

"The federal jury could not reach a verdict on the conspiracy allegation against 49-year-old Lori Drew and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm on the girl.

"Instead, the panel convicted her of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing computers without authorization. Each of those counts is punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Drew faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the four original counts.

"U.S. District Court Judge George Wu declared a mistrial on the conspiracy count. It was not known if she would be retried.

"Drew did not show any visible emotion when the clerk read the verdicts.

"Most members of the six-man, six-woman jury left court without speaking to reporters. One juror, who would only identify himself by the first name, Marcilo, indicated jurors were not convinced Drew's actions involved the intent alleged by prosecutors.

"Some of the jurors just felt strongly that it wasn't tortious and everybody needed to stay with their feeling. That was really the balancing point," he said.

"The case hinged on an unprecedented -- and, some legal experts say, highly questionable -- application of computer-fraud law.

"Prosecutors said Drew and two others created a fictitious 16-year-old boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages from him to teenage neighbor Megan Meier. The "boy" then dumped Megan, saying, "The world would be a better place without you." Megan promptly hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet in October 2006.

"Both families lived at the time in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie. Drew has since moved to nearby O'Fallon.

"Prosecutors said Drew wanted to humiliate Megan for saying mean things about Drew's teenage daughter. They said Drew knew Megan suffered from depression and was emotionally fragile.

"Lori Drew decided to humiliate a child," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, told the jury. "The only way she could harm this pretty little girl was with a computer. She chose to use a computer to hurt a little girl, and for four weeks she enjoyed it."

"O'Brien said it was the nation's first cyberbullying trial.

"But some legal experts have suggested that O'Brien overreached and that a conviction might not stand up on appeal.

"Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan's death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the federal Computer Use and Fraud Act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.

"Among other things, Drew was charged with conspiring to violate the fine print in MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, which prohibits the use of phony names and harassment of other MySpace members.

"The rules are fairly simple," federal prosecutor Mark Krause said. "You don't lie. You don't pretend to be someone else. You don't use the site to harass others. They harassed Megan Meier."

"Drew's lawyer, Dean Steward, contended his client had little to do with the content of the messages and was not at home when the final one was sent. Steward also argued that nobody reads the fine print on service agreements.

"How can you violate something when you haven't even read it?" Steward asked. "End of case."

"Prosecutors said Drew, her then-13-year-old daughter Sarah and Drew's 18-year-old business assistant Ashley Grills set up the phony MySpace profile for a boy named "Josh Evans," posting a photo of a bare-chested boy with tousled brown hair. "Josh" then told Megan she was "sexi" and assured her, "i love you so much."

"Grills allegedly sent the final, insulting message to Megan before she killed herself in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.

"Missouri authorities said there was no state law under which Drew could be charged. But federal prosecutors in California claimed jurisdiction because MySpace is based in Beverly Hills.

"Among the prosecution's witnesses was Megan's mother, Tina, who recounted finding her daughter hanging in a closet. Prosecutors also called some of Drew's friends and associates, who painted the defendant as cold and indifferent about the prank and the suicide.

"Sarah Drew testified she never saw her mother use the MySpace account. But Grills, testifying under immunity from prosecution, said she saw Drew type at least one message under the name Josh Evans.

After the suicide, Missouri passed a law against cyber-harassment. Similar federal legislation has been proposed on Capitol Hill."

There is a lot more interesting parts to the case - I'd urge anyone who's interested to go to the link. The jury was originally deadlocked, for instance. The pictures alone are worth the click.