From bullied to bravery: One girl's story

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- It was 3 a.m. on a Monday when Wendy Del cosplay wigs  Monte awoke to a thud.
Thinking it was one of their cats, she wandered into her daughter's bedroom. There, she found her daughter Ally in the throes of despair, shaking, gripping onto a bottle of her father's heart medication. The thud had been the bottle falling to the ground.
"The world just stopped," Del Monte recounted. "She said, 'Mom, I don't think I want to live anymore.' "
Ally was 13 and in eighth grade.
Her suicide attempt was the result of years of bullying, abuses that escalated from being called fat to receiving 272 messages on her Tumblr account telling her to kill herself.
"It's what I lived with every day," said Ally, 15. "I've been told every disgusting thing you can imagine."
Ally kept the bullying she endured at school and online from her parents and school officials, afraid, she said, she would be called a snitch or that her problems would get worse. Mostly, she wished it would get better.
Today, the 10th-grader is speaking out, sharing her story in the hopes of helping other kids who are struggling with bullying and depression. Earlier this month, she posted a video on her blog, LoserGurl.com, detailing the torment she endured.The response has been mostly positive from kids around the world, many of whom have said her video saved them from hurting or killing themselves, she said.
"Continue to be strong and brave and stand up for yourself and others who are being bullied," said one posting. "I applaud your efforts and know that your mother is proud to call you her daughter. Anyone would be."
Last month, police said Internet bullying led 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick to jump from a concrete silo tower to her death in Florida. Police arrested two girls, ages 12 and 14, charging them with felony aggravated stalking for leading the cyberbullying campaign against Sedwick. The arrests came after one of the girls boasted about the suicide on Facebook, and said she didn't care.
"This could have been my daughter," a tearful Del Monte said. "It nearly was my daughter."
For Ally, bullying started when she was in the second grade at King Street School in Port Chester. She had gained 60 pounds, she said, because of the medication she was taking for Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease, both autoimmune diseases of the thyroid gland. Classmates and even her friends began to taunt her, she recalled, saying her stomach was huge and that she was gross.
The harassment persisted in the fourth and fifth grades, when a popular boy waged an effort to get everyone to hate her and exclude her, saying she couldn't play on the playground because she would break it and that she ate too much. Some of her friends confronted her, saying they only kept her around to laugh at her.
"I had no idea at all this was going on, and I was the uber-mom," Del Monte said. "I was PTA president and I was at the school all the time. So how did I miss this? I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not knowing it."
King Street Principal Sam Ortiz started working at the school two years ago and is not familiar with Ally or her story. He said, though that the elementary school takes bullying very seriously and that its philosophy goes beyond zero tolerance.
"We take a more proactive approach. We try to teach our kids how to treat one another in a positive and kind way," Ortiz said. "Kids at this age need to be taught how to interact with one another."
The Del Montes moved to New Milford, Conn., when Ally completed the fifth grade. She was immediately known as the new fat girl, Ally said. Sixth and seventh grade, though, were good years as she made friends and  vocaloid cosplay costumes  participated on the cheerleading team, she said.

Mom of Fla. bullying suspect accused of pummeling 2 kids

he stepmother of a Florida girl charged with bullying a teen fairy tail cosplay costumes  who later committed suicide was arrested Friday for allegedly punching two youths who were fighting in her home this summer as other children watched.
Vivian Vosburg, 30, of Lakeland, Fla., was charged Friday with two counts of child abuse with bodily harm and four counts of child neglect for an altercation in July, the Polk County Sheriff's Department said. One A witness posted a cellphone video to Facebook on Thursday, and the sheriff received several tips.
Her arrest is unrelated to the Sept. 10 suicide of Rebecca Sedwick. Vosburg's 14-year-old step-daughter and a 12-year-old friend were charged Monday with felony stalking over the alleged bullying and harassment that led the teen to take her life.
The alleged assault occurred when Vosburg intervened to break up a fight between two youths in a bedroom of her home. The video shows six youths, ages 9 to 14.
According to the sheriff's news release:
Vosburg admitted that she is the woman in the video, and admitted to punching one of the juveniles in the face with a fist and punching the second juvenile several times on the back of the head and between his shoulders. She stated she continued to hit one juvenile, after the other fell to the floor, because he was attempting get up from the bed. Vosburg stated she knew she should not have hit the juveniles with her fists.
"This video was easily located on the juvenile's public social media page as recently as 9:00 am, today," Sheriff Grady Judd said. "It is clear, not only has Vosburg demonstrated she cannot control the behavior of children she has access to without using violence, but she is obviously not monitoring the social media sites of children  zoro costume   she has access to either."

'MasterChef' runner-up Josh Marks loses 'battle of his life,' commits suicide

"MasterChef" runner-up Joshua Marks was in "the battle of his life pokemon cosplay costumes  fighting mental illness" when he killed himself Friday, his family said Sunday.
His family blames the lack of mental health treatment facilities and the easy access to guns as factors in his tragic death.
"It is overwhelming to think that with proper, intensive treatment, Joshua may still be with us," his lawyer, Lisa Butler, said Sunday. "He was a jewel with so much talent to offer this world. But, in his state of mind, he turned to the streets for a gun and easily got it."
Marks, 26, died from a gunshot wound to his head. His death has been ruled a suicide, a spokesman for the Cook County, Illinois, medical examiner said Sunday.
He was charged with aggravated battery in July after scuffling with police officers who were called to the scene after he suffered serious facial wounds from a self-inflicted gunshot, according to his lawyer.
His mother believed that incident was a call for help, not a suicide attempt, Butler said. But getting Marks help was not easy because of the lack of full-time mental health facilities in Illinois that would accept his insurance, she said.
Marks' mother, Paulette Mitchell, found him dead in an alley on Chicago's south side Friday evening after a neighbor called to say he was walking around with a gun, Butler said.
His family is now hoping to help others suffering from mental illness by talking about what happened to Marks in the three months since his arrest, she said.
'The battle of his life'
Marks -- who, at 7 feet 2 inches tall, was known by friends as a "gentle giant" -- was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a year ago, the same month he lost to to winner Christine Ha in the final round of the Fox reality cooking competition's third season. A doctor diagnosed Marks with schizophrenia just last week, Butler said.
"Joshua was so kind, so gentle," his mother told CNN Sunday. "He loved life. He loved people. He would never hurt anyone; never. He was just a gentle, sweet soul; but he hurt himself. That breaks my heart, that he hurt himself."
"But, behind that huge smile, Josh was in the battle of his life fighting mental illness," a family statement said. "It was extremely tough, but Josh was always positive, focused on his faith in God and determined to win; pushing forward through his illness to follow his passion for cooking and dream of being a renowned chef."
That battle apparently began just as Marks was achieving celebrity status on television. "I hadn't noticed any signs of anything wrong or any mental illness until after Josh completed filming 'MasterChef,'" his mother said. "The time he was away filming was extremely stressful on him."
Marks' stepfather Gabriel Mitchell, in a statement to CNN, described "the toll that being on a reality show puts on people."
"Josh had a following of fans and was put on a 'celebrity' type pedestal, with the expectation from others that there was money and fame; but, his personal reality was that he was struggling mentally and financially," he said. "I think people expect that you come away from a reality show and have it made. That's not necessarily the case."
Marks spoke about his mental illness in a public service video he recorded in February for the Make a Sound Project, a nonprofit suicide awareness project.
The project promotes "how to use music as an alternative to the crazy thoughts you may have going in your mind," Marks said in the video. "Me, personally, I have bipolar disorder, so, you know, I'll get a little anxious sometimes. And how I cool out is, I listen to music and just listen to the words and just relax and, you know, find my melody. I wish we had some music going on in here right now."
'A mental break'
But last summer Marks suffered "a mental break" that led to his arrest on July 29, his lawyer said. Marks told police he had been possessed by "MasterChef" judge Gordon Ramsay, who turned him into God, the Chicago Tribune reported.
"What people don't know is that on the night Josh was arrested in July, he had just shot himself and had called police for help from the emergency phone," his mother said. "He wasn't himself, he was in a manic state, calling the police to help him after having shot himself."
When police arrived, a scuffle ensued.
"They said that Josh lunged at them and attempted to disarm an officer," his other said. "In addition to his gunshot wound to the face, Josh suffered a fractured jaw and injury to his face and head."
He was treated at a hospital for the facial and ear wounds caused by a bullet that he fired and then transferred to the Cook County Jail, where he was placed in the general population, his lawyer said. He got no mental health treatment and no medications while in jail, Butler said.
"I think people look at mental illness as if it is a crime instead of treating the illness," Gabriel Mitchell said. "They knew of his mental illness, yet they throw him in jail with no treatment?"
His mother, a Chicago public elementary school teacher, bailed him out after more than a week. She desperately sought a full-time mental health program for Marks, but she could not find a one with an available bed, Butler said.
"After this, Josh was determined to get well," his mother said.
Mitchell "continually ran into roadblocks" as she put her focus into finding help for her son, Butler said. "Access to long-term, in-patient mental health care is extremely limited. How can you appropriately treat your loved one's mental health challenges if access to necessary care is virtually non-existent?"
She "felt as if her hands were tied" but "she was doing everything she could to get him in treatment," Butler said. Mitchell enrolled her son in an outpatient program that was "the best available through insurance," she said.
A new diagnosis: Schizophrenia
That program concluded Thursday, with a doctor informing Marks that he believed he was suffering from schizophrenia. The new diagnosis upset him, Butler said.
"That's not what I am, that's not what I am," he told his mother, the lawyer said.
"He was very distraught by this new diagnosis," his mother said. "He was just coming to terms with having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but he just couldn't handle this new diagnosis."
Mitchell stayed home from her teaching job Friday to be with her son. "I was concerned about him; he just wasn't himself, so I stayed with him at my dad's home Thursday night after we left the hospital and all day on Friday," she said. "I only left for a couple of hours to pick up my daughter from school Friday afternoon."
She was stuck in Chicago's rush-hour traffic when she got a call from her brother saying that a neighbor saw her son walking around an alley with a gun.
"I rushed back to the south side to get to the neighborhood, and just started driving through the alleys near my dad's house looking for him," Mitchell said. "All I could think was I have to get to him in time."
She frantically drove through alleys searching.
"I saw Joshua laying there in the second alley that I turned down," his mother said. "I screamed for help and held him. I just didn't get to my boy on time. I didn't get to my boy."
Mitchell is determined to set up a foundation in her son's memory to help people with mental illness to address the same issues as Marks. "I am not done, this is not over," she said. "I am going to make sure that Josh's voice and dream live on by fighting for mental healthcare treatment."
While police work to trace how Marks got the handgun he used to kill himself, his family is also seeking answers.
"We live in a country where anyone can buy a gun on the streets at will,"  saruhiko fushimi cosplay   Butler said. "We know that Josh paid little or no money for that gun, because he just didn't have it; he was unemployed and in treatment full time. So with no money, how did he get this gun?"

The historical past with the 1st Stone Mobile phone.

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