Apparently Izabel had done a few things she shouldn't have. When her father decided he'd had enough, he shaved her head and video taped it. The following is the audio from recording:
“The consequences of getting messed up, man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” a male voice can be heard saying from behind the camera. The video pans down, where long locks of black hair are scattered on the ground. “Was it worth it?”
“No,” she responds quietly.
“How many times did I warn you?” he asks.
“A lot,” she replies, barely audibly.
She jumped from a bridge onto an interstate a few days later. One news article calls Izabel a "troubled teen"
Yeah, troubled by having an abusive parent.
Ms Cool, the police spokeswoman, said she believed Izabel had killed herself because she believed things she had done in her past had shamed her family. “This was her way of apologizing to everyone,” she said. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/izabel-laxamana-tacoma-teen-kills-herself-days-after-shaming-video-posted-online-of-father-cutting-her-hair-10298673.html)
Troubled by having an abusive parent doesn't always end in suicide. But this is still a form of abuse.
Anybody who would
1) shave her head
2)put the head shaving on video for others to see
OR
for Izabel to see for herself over and over again
IS LIKELY ALSO
3)hollering at her, or glaring at her, or beating her over the head with what she did wrong multiple times a day. Because that's what self-righteous abusers do.
The psychological beating in addition to the shame of exposure took a few days to do its work. She killed herself a few days after the video was published.
There a few websites around the way that say Izabel didn't kill herself because of getting her head shaved. They are saying the father is blameless because he didn't actually put the video on the web himself. They are saying that, based on her practice suicide notes, Izabel killed herself because of what she did.
Clearly, Faux News and the rest do not understand what how shaming someone works.
Successful shaming gets the child to be ashamed of what they did - not angry at the shame-er.
Furthermore, a successful child abuser gets the child to angry at what they did not angry at the abuser. Abused children are torn screaming from the arms of a mother or father that has broken their arm in anger 3 different times. The child will apologize for being bad over and over and over.
It doesn't look to me like Izabel was much different from the abused child so far. She wrote 8 suicide notes. At least one of them absolved her father.
If this was this father's first time into the abuser's circle, I feel sorry for him. I actually do. I cannot imagine the pain. Even if he denies his role in his daughter's death I have to imagine I wouldn't be able to stand up under the weight of that knowledge either. Maybe I'd have to deny it to myself in order to go on living.
But we should not stop telling Izabel's story because this isn't about him. It's about other parents out there thinking about doing the same thing.
We'll never know if Izabel was mentally ill outside of the abuse she suffered. From what I've read it she seems like she was an angsty, lonely teenager even before the shaming video. However, lots of girls are at 13.
The thing I do know is this. Other children are not mentally ill outside of the abuse they suffer. I know other children can be crushed by this father's behavior - and not always in ways that are immediately discernible to the untrained eye. Sometimes there isn't a suicide to point at and say, "Ah Ha!"
I would not dismiss Izabel Laxamana as mentally ill. And even if you do, I wouldn't dismiss her father's treatment of her as anything less than abusive and having had a costly effect.
Let me say it again: Izabel Laxamana was shamed to death.
Her father shaved her head in order to punish her and convince her that what she did was horrible and shameful.
He was so successful that Izabel even showed friends the video - either she herself or one of her friends put it on the internet. Her father was so successful that in her 8 suicide notes, Izabel said she couldn't live with what she'd done and told her father she loved him and that it wasn't his fault.
A successful shaming gets the child to be ashamed of what the shamer says they did - not angry at the shamer.
A successful child abuser gets the child to angry at what they did not angry at the abuser.
And I really hate the phrase "slut shaming" but it couold that's part of this too. Rumor has it Izabel sent a suggestive photo of herself to a boy and that it made it onto the internet- and that this was what she was shamed for --when already ashamed. If this is true, wonder if the boy liked it or mocked her for it or shamed her for it too?
That poor child.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3119248/Teenage-girl-jumped-death-bridge-killed-shame-picture-sent-boy-NOT-father-shared-video-cutting-hair-off.html
http://www.vibe.com/2015/06/father-izabel-laxamana-suicide-public-shaming/
Note: *Most child abusers are women because the primary caretakers of children in the world are primarily women. But I can't help but think when men go over the top with an aggressive and/or abusive punishment that a lot of women think it's okay to stand around wringing their hands.
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