(Boston Globe) – My daughter Becca’s official cause of death is listed as an accidental drug overdose due to fentanyl poisoning. But the painful downward spiral that led to her 2020 death at 18 began — and ended — with the assistance of social media.
At 15, an online party chat was her introduction to a boy who later raped her. The same year, she was the victim of cyberbullying. The publicness and permanence of online bullying makes it a particularly humiliating and harmful act of cruelty. For Becca, this betrayal by her peers caused an additional wound that never healed. Eventually, Becca found an escape from her pain — the illicit drugs she could easily access using her social media. All of the support from family members, friends, her school counselor, and therapists could not compete with a couple of swipes on her iPhone to access drugs.
Read Deb’s full Op Ed piece in the Boston Globe
