Rep. Katie Hill was terrorized. Suicidality came next. Mental illness had nothing to do with it.

This is about bullying. It’s about the sexual exploitation and objectification of women. It’s about the cruelty that can be unleashed through social media and technology that cuts deeper than any IRL weapon.

It’s also about finding hope in bleak darkness.

What it’s not about is an imagined illness of the mind.

Katie Hill was a United States Congresswoman. She was one of the youngest women to be elected to the House. Ever. For all intents and purposes, she is the ideal American woman.

On December 7, 2019, she also published an op-ed in the New York Times discussing her desire to self-harm and kill herself.

What made her want to die was not a sudden attack from her brain wires, a disordered personality, or nefarious neurochemicals gone array. It was the cruel actions of others that left her feeling hopeless, alone, and stuck in a life no longer worth living.

Hill does not deny that she engaged in unethical acts in having a sexual relationship with a staffer during her congressional campaign. In fact, this is what led her to resign from Congress.

Whatever her faults, she certainly did not deserve what amounted to intense cyberbulling on the part of journalists and commenters, revenge porn allegedly on the part of her ex-husband, or non-consensual viewing of her naked body by millions of strangers.

This was a strong, successful woman who found herself so overwhelmed by hopelessness in the face of bullying, exploitation, and utter humiliation that she saw no other option than to die. The conversation needs to be about how cruelty can impact any of us. Especially those who are most vulnerable to fatal consequences and/or potential lifelong difficulties resulting from such abuse: our children.

When a grown woman who is an elite representative of the United States of America feels her only option is to die when faced with humiliation and cyberbullying, how do any of us expect a child to cope?

Teens and bullying

Suicidal ideation and self-harm are an unfortunate reality in our modern world. People who are in such anguish and despair and have no hope will understandably want to escape such hell.

This is not “illness”.

How can it be abnormal when more than half of the victims of revenge porn resort to the possibility of suicide as a way out?

Self-harm and suicidal ideation are known to be common responses to cyberbullying, in particular. In fact, teenagers who experience any form bullying are twice as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.

The answer is not to numb the pain, drug away the problem, or pretend that one’s pain is what is abnormal. Solutions lie in healing relationships, in fighting back against bullies, in finding meaning and purpose in the face of shame, and being honest about what is happening in our society.

Finding hope and healing

Katie Hill described in her op-ed how finding meaning and advocating for other women allowed her to find purpose in living. She has supportive allies and family. And, she recognized her actions were greater than just herself – that her current pain was temporary and could possibly cause a far greater pain for millions of other women and girls who might look up to her.

Unfortunately, our current mental health system tends to respond to suicidality and self-harm with it’s own form of shaming and humiliation. The response too often is to further isolate the person who is suffering by blaming the brain, the mind, some abstract illness, or the person’s core personality. Clinicians frequently will resort to words of invalidation, punitive behaviors, and ridiculous safety contracts rather than understand the deep pain and fear that the person is experiencing. Even the so-called trauma-informed oases consistently fail those who are feeling suicidal or who harm themselves.

The perpetrators of harm, the bullies, and the abusers need to be held to blame, not the body of the victim. The body is likely already suffering enough.

The targets of bullying and revenge porn need to be heard and seen through compassionate, non-judgmental eyes. They need to be reminded of what makes them worthwhile as a human being. Like Katie Hill, they need to find meaning and purpose that helps kindle the flames of hope.

Let us learn from those who have been there.