http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michelle-carter-ordered-stand-trial-boyfriend-suicide-article-1.2696249

When you have a mental health issues and you have the wrong people in your life influencing your decisions, it can literally mean the difference between life and death. Conrad Roy who was 18 years old suffered from depression. He felt lost, wanted to kill himself and discussed it with his girlfriend. Instead of getting him help or urging him to seek help, she urged him to go through with it. Even when he felt doubt about doing it, when he kept putting it off and there was still time to help him, she pushed. Through texts about previous conversations on how to do it, manipulating him “I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!” Eventually the wall was broken, he gave in to his depression but not by himself.

He was found in his truck in a K-Mart parking lot dead from asphyxiation from the fumes coming into his truck leading from the exhaust. Even then he reached out to her, called her, told her that he was scared. “Get back in”, was the response. He became a victim of what can only be described as a true life horror story.

From 50 miles away she had enough influence, and control to manipulate Conrad, an 18 year old with depression, to give in to external influences and fight past his own feelings that something was wrong, his own instincts for survival.

We can all become vulnerable for people to take advantage of us in various ways and varying degrees. However, when you have mental health issues it can have deadly consequences, if not they are still lasting, deep, and painful. I have been a victim of something like the above, but I made it out with the help of my friends and family (Personal Support Network).

It was close, I was young, 21 years old and a sucker for the cover of the book and not too much the story that the book contains so to speak. I was a different person caught up in myself and still didn’t understand a lot about the world or life. I met a woman 11 years older than me with 2 kids. She was attractive and interested in getting to know me and I now have named her ‘Succubus”. It was during a time when I made bad decisions and idolized the wrong people. It was the beginning of a long and painful set of lessons for me that would change my life forever.