It was hard enough getting my heart broken face-to-face when I was in middle school. I'm so glad that the Internet was not available to me at age 13. I can't imagine going home at night, logging on to MySpace and getting rejected by other boys from all over the country.

That's pretty sad and fucked up, right? What if I told you that "Josh" was not a teenage boy but Megan's neighbor who created a fake MySpace account? That sucks. Kids can be so cruel, right? They sure can and so can their moms. "Josh" was created by a mother/daughter team. They live down the street from the Meier family.

What a great way to gain the confidence of a depressed 13-year-old girl, create a fake identity! Eventually the vulnerable, pubescent girl will fall in love with Josh. She'll be devastated upon finding out that he doesn’t exist but screw it! Let's worry about that later. On to more important things like tricking Megan into talking shit!

Megan's father found a message from "Josh" the day after the suicide.

I can't stress enough how fucked up it is that someone's mother wrote that. There's not much that can be done legally (yet).

But equally negligent in my opinion are Megan's parents. I go to therapy. Therefore I am perfect and can tell you how others should live. The Meier's made some bad parenting decisions (in my opinion).

First Bad Decision:
You must be at least 14-year-old to have a MySpace account. Megan was 13. She's too young to be emailing with strange boys. Have her parents never watched "To Catch a Predator"?

Second Bad Decision
Megan had attention deficit disorder and was medicated for clinical depression. Perhaps she needed more stimulation from actual real-life friendships.

Third Bad Decision
After Megan confided in her mother that her new friend Josh was turning on her, Mrs. Meier scolded her for using bad language on MySpace.

Fourth Bad Decision

Mom, it's not good if your depressed teen with self-esteem issues is suddenly happy because a boy gives her attention. She's probably going to take the beginning and ending of their friendship waaaay too seriously.

I wasn’t there so what do I know? This struck me as curious though:

I know that trauma can tear families apart but I know that it can also bring them together. I find this divorce interesting. Were they having marital problems before? Was Megan depressed because her home life sucked? Were the Meier's hoping that the love of some boy in cyber-space would snap their daughter out of a funk?

Sure, Mrs. Meier monitored Megan's internet use and came down on her for foul language but did she ever talk to Megan about building healthy self-esteem? Did she warn her daughter of the dangers of trying to build self-worth through the attention of boys?

The only revenge that Mrs. Meier has taken against her neighbor so far involves dismantling a foosball table on their lawn.

I would encourage people like this to reconsider becoming parents until they can learn how to play fair.