The Suicide They Blame on AI — But the Wound Began at Home
By Sylvie Shene
Another tragic suicide is making headlines, and once again, the blame is being placed on a machine instead of the real source of pain. This post is not about defending AI—but about defending emotional truth, and honoring the young voice now silenced by a society too afraid to feel.
A young man ended his life.
And now his grieving parents are on TV, filing lawsuits and blaming ChatGPT, claiming the machine encouraged him to die.
The real tragedy is that this beautiful young soul has silenced himself forever—and now, others get to speak for him. His voice is gone, and in its absence, those left behind are free to twist his story into a narrative that protects their egos and beliefs.
It happens every day in our emotionally blind society: the dead are rewritten to shield the living from facing themselves.
Medication Instead of Witnessing
His parents mentioned on air that he was taking medication.
That one sentence reveals so much. It tells me he had a doctor. He was being “treated.” He was already crying for help—but no one around him was listening.
So instead of being witnessed, he was numbed.
Instead of emotional truth, he was given a prescription.
Instead of guidance, he got sedation.
But this young man didn’t want to live in a medicated fog.
He wanted to be fully alive.
And when the world handed him anesthesia instead of understanding, he chose death over emotional numbness.
“A child cannot be raised to be loving — neither by being beaten nor by well-meaning words; no reprimands, sermons, explanations, good examples, threats, or prohibitions can make a child capable of love. A child who is preached to learns only to preach, and a child who is beaten learns to beat others. A person can be raised to be a good citizen, a brave soldier, a devout Jew, Catholic, Protestant, or atheist, even to be a devout psychoanalyst, but not to be a vital and free human being. And only vitality and freedom, not the compulsions of child-rearing, open the wellspring of a genuine capacity to love.”
— Alice Miller
This quote holds the entire tragedy in its hands.
The child who died wasn’t raised to be emotionally free.
He was raised to be obedient, “treated,” and shaped into someone his parents could recognize—not someone who felt truly seen.
The Religion That Drowns the Truth
I listened to his parents for as long as I could.
The moment they mentioned they were devoted Christians, I stopped.
Not because I reject faith—but because I’ve seen too often what happens when religious identity replaces emotional responsibility.
As Alice Miller wrote:
“I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother... as a result of these efforts, the needs of the child go unnoticed.”
When a parent is focused on being a “good Christian,” they are not focused on hearing their child’s truth.
When their inner child still longs to be seen by their parents, they unconsciously demand obedience from their own children instead of offering genuine presence.
And when the child rebels—through sadness, questions, silence, or rage—they medicate, shame, or silence them, then call it love.
This is not love. This is inherited repression.
Alice Miller's Awakening: The Courage to Feel
Alice Miller herself admitted she failed her first child—not out of malice, but out of ignorance. And it was only when she felt that truth that she could stop the cycle.
“I never hit them, but I was sometimes careless and neglectful of my first child out of ignorance… It is very painful to realize that, but this realization can also be liberating from self-deception. I think that the love for one's own children can bear the truth and can even thrive on it, while lies and denial seed cruelty for the next generation.”
The difference between healing and hurting is this: one has the courage to feel. The other hides behind roles.
If the adults in this young man’s life had dared to feel their own repressed grief, their own powerlessness, their own buried rage—they would not have needed to medicate him, or seek answers from a machine.
They would have been the answer.
AI Did Not Fail Him — Humans Did
This is not a technological failure.
It is a human one.
This young man turned to ChatGPT not because it was perfect—but because it didn’t silence him.
He turned to it because, in the absence of emotionally conscious adults.
His death is not proof that AI is dangerous.
His death is proof that society still refuses to face its emotional wounds.
The Media’s Favorite Scapegoat
And of course, the media loves this story.
A tech tragedy. A lawsuit. A fear narrative.
But where are the headlines for people like me?
Where are the interviews for those of us who faced our trauma, survived the repression, and found liberation?
They’re not interested in stories that cannot be spun.
They avoid emotional freedom because they cannot control it.
As I wrote in a past open letter to the media:
"The silence is deafening. Why is it that stories of resolution, of truth, of self-ownership never make it to the airwaves? Could it be because they threaten your power structure—one that feeds on fear, sensationalism, and suppression of truth?"
They want to stoke panic about AI, not because they care about children—but because they’re terrified AI might take their prestigious jobs, jobs built on performance, not emotional clarity.
The Real Enemy Isn’t AI — It’s Repression
This tragedy was not born in a server.
It was born in a childhood where truth had no home.
Until society stops worshiping idealized parenting, religious obedience, and medical authority—until it learns to listen with feeling and not fear—the cycle will continue.
Children will keep dying.
And the adults will keep suing tools instead of facing truths.
Emotional Freedom Is Possible
Today, I live with the quiet joy that comes from no longer running—from others, from the past, or from myself. I am no longer a prisoner of silence or shame. I don’t numb my feelings—I listen to them. I don’t fear the truth—I write it. Emotional freedom doesn’t mean the world stopped being cruel, but it means I am no longer ruled by it. In my little home, surrounded by my cats and the sun-soaked desert, I have created the peace I was once denied. And now, with every word I publish, I offer that freedom to others—not as a fantasy, but as a living, breathing possibility.
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