The current media hot topic is Canadian Amanda Todd, 15, who ended her own life due to continuous bullying.

The news of this haunts me. It makes me think of myself as a teenager and makes me thankful that my time as a teenager wasn’t as torturous.

It makes me question why this poor girl was not helped when she so clearly cried out for help countless times by inflicting pain upon herself, attempting suicide and posting a chilling video on YouTube that depicted her story on flash cards.

The people who should be held responsible for this are the students who continued to stalk her and tease her despite the fact that she relocated several times in an attempt to escape. Those kids should be ashamed of themselves for driving a person to end their own life. Not only that, the parents of these kids should be embarrassed due to the lack of structure, kindness and humanity that they failed to instill in their children.

In a certain instance, Todd had an opportunity to press charges against a fellow classmate due to physical harm but chose not to in an attempt to avoid conflict.

Despite that, why didn’t Todd’s parents contact the authorities or faculty members of her schools to inform them of the harassment?

Todd was continuously inflicting harm upon herself, isn’t that reason enough to force them to assess the situation in any way they could?

If Todd had made a few better choices during this torment then maybe her fate wouldn’t have been so dark.

Still, though, she was a teenager and making mistakes is a part of growing up.

It’s how people learn so they can make better decisions in the future.

For Todd, there is no future and the idea of that makes me sick.

I will never understand why it takes a travesty to raise awareness for an issue.

Bullying is a major issue that everyone deals with, and action must be taken to prevent another incident that will affect countless people.  The horrible events in news could have been avoided had someone raised a voice for Amanda Todd.