TxSSC

The emotional turmoil and social isolation a person tries to impose on others by bullying, harassing, threatening, and pressuring them to send or share pictures or videos will seem mild compared to the emotional and social isolation felt after being convicted of one of the above laws. Being forced to attend a different school, going to jail, not having access to the internet for years, and the additional impact on your future life (jobs, college, relationships) is not worth it. If you need help to learn how to not bully or harass others, please seek help from a licensed counselor, another mental health professional, or a trusted adult.

Right now, you may be thinking:

• That would NEVER happen to me.
• My parents or guardians would protect me or fix it.
• I am only kidding around; it is not serious.
• Nobody will ever find out.

WARNING - Those are your Cognitive Biases LYING!!

All these young people thought that too!...

If you have already made some bad decisions and someone is blackmailing you, you are worried that your digital tattoo will haunt you forever, or you have sent pictures you regret, do not give up, life is not over! You will get through this, and you are not alone.

If you are being blackmailed, then contact the authorities or the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If child pornography is involved, contact local police or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or online at https://tips.fbi.gov.

If you have posted things which you are not proud of, then delete harmful content and ask for help. Delete pictures, social media posts, and text messages; consider deleting your social media accounts that have harmful and negative content. Remember to empty your recently deleted pictures, folders, and cloud backups. You can also reformat your hard drive to remove all data. This increases security and ensures that you have deleted content you no longer want on the drive. As good practice, you can choose to save images to your device rather than the cloud to maintain more control over the images. Please avoid deleting evidence such as pictures and messages until law enforcement has what they need to track down predators and to stop the spread of underage nude pictures.

“Do the best you can until you know better.
Then, when you know better, do better.
”

- Maya Angelou

Emotions like love, jealousy, anger, and sadness are temporary, but the decisions you make while feeling those emotions can last forever.

Once something is posted online, you no longer have control over where it goes and what happens to it. Now that you understand that, you are equipped with the ability to make better decisions regarding your life and your future.