Scarleteen

I have this "friend." Shes bullied me for years now... And she blackmails me, at one point she told me to kill myself. (This was all over an app called Kik.) And she calls me the meanest stuff and threatens me. I was wondering if this is illegal, and if so how to report it?

Harassment in person OR online is criminal.

When it comes to reporting, you have a few options. You can do it through the police, in person, and/or you can use the FBI cybercrimes reporting system online to do that.

When reporting anything like this, anywhere, you will often be asked for a record of the person's harassment, as well as your responses. So, you'll want to compile any of this you have saved anywhere, and keep saving any way they communicate with you from here forward. And you also want to pull together records, if you have them, of your actions, like an email where you told them to leave you alone (or any messages where you have asked for that on Kik, etc). And if you want to take one step now that can both support a case AND potentially get them to stop, you can tell them ASAP that if they contact you, in any way, they need to know you are collecting what they do and say, and intend to report them for harassment to the appropriate authorities.

Sometimes that alone will get someone to stop. And sometimes it won't. But even if it doesn't, again, that kind of communication and limit-setting supports you in legal actions to further protect yourself.

Can I ask if you have let anyone else know about this in-person so you can get some help that way, too? Like parents, a teacher, other friends or family...?