Disturbing Hoax.

A colleague of mine told me yesterday about something disturbing that was being reported on the radio.  This is how the story went from the way it was told to me: an anonymous woman had started a blog and detailed how nothing important had happened during her lifetime and that if something major didn't happen in the next 90 days, she was going to commit suicide because she had nothing to live for.  She even started calling herself 90 Day Jane. She said she wasn't depressed in any way, that this wasn't a cry for help; that she was going to live a normal life until her 90 days were up. She was even asking for ideas on how to do "the deed".

It made me sick to hear about this.  Why wouldn't it??!!!  My colleague and I were speculating quite a bit about the topic..... could the woman possibly go through with a suicide after publicly announcing it on her blog? Couldn't her IP be tracked down so that she could be stopped? It sounded like a horrible movie plot to me.  I sat and thought about what it would be like if one of my friends or family committed suicide out of nowhere and how I would feel if that person had kept a public blog about her intentions but I never knew about it.

I had no intentions of reading this woman's blog because I do not want to be a person who feeds into that kind of sensationalized drama.  Don't you know that curiosity got the better of me?  I found the 90 Day Jane blog and was so glad that when I did, I discovered that "Jane" had written the blog as a HOAX, as a project for some college class.  Thankfully she never had any intentions of killing herself.

Did anyone else hear about this girl and her blog?? Does this whole thing disturb anyone else??? Whether she had sincere intentions or not, it still seems like a cry for help to me.

Comments

[Beth]

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[adrienne]

GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!

[Jessica]

this is completely disturbing. in fact, i clicked over to start to read it, but i couldn't read more than the first few lines and scan the side bar and header. i'm not sure how to feel about that!

[zoe]

i didn't read it or hear about it until now. i will not read it. she needs some meds.

[Mary]

That's a sick hoax. Really sick. I mean it's nice to know that it was an experiment but that's just really messed up!

[jenny]

i didn't hear about it either until now, but hell no i'm not going to read it! i'm with you on that one! that's nuts to do something like that for any reason. whackjob.

[Rolana]

Yes! I find this very disturbing! I have battled depression for a good portion of my life and there could be people who are actually trying to reach out for and need help through a blog and putting a hoax out there is just wrong on so many levels. It's very sick and twisted that someone would make a hoax out of suicide and depression.