Month: May 2025

You Watched My Daughter Break, and You Did Nothing

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

How A School Became a Battlefield, and the Adults Let It Happen

She came home in tears, and you went home with your hands clean. How dare you.

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The Hunt on the School Oval

Today, during what should have been just another class, my daughter became prey on the school oval.

A group of students—bullies, stalkers, cowards—surrounded her during sports. They taunted her, followed her, interrogated her about why she had to move classes. But they already knew. She left her previous class because the bullying was so severe that she couldn’t stay. And yet, these kids used that reason—her suffering—as ammunition.

She asked them to stop. She pleaded.

They didn’t.

Not until a teacher finally saw them and intervened. But by then, the damage was done. The torment had been public. It had been humiliating. And worst of all—it had been allowed.

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“Are You Going to Make a TikTok About Us?”

One of the girls laughed in my daughter’s face and mocked her for making TikToks.

Not because my daughter posted anything hurtful—but because they feared she might do the one thing they can’t handle: Tell the truth.

They laughed at her walk. They said she looked weird. There is nothing wrong with the way she walks. They just wanted to see her hurt. They were hunting for weakness because that’s what small, insecure people do.

They mocked her for not having followers online.

But let’s be honest: Monsters don’t need an audience—they just need silence from the adults who should know better.

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And Then, The Social Media Stunt

As if the schoolyard harassment wasn’t enough, one of these girls—one of the worst offenders—went home and posted a photo of herself in front of a toilet, claiming to have bulimia.

She spent the entire day tearing my daughter down, with zero empathy, only to post a picture looking for sympathy online.

Don’t you dare ask for compassion after showing none to someone else. Don’t play victim when you were the villain. This isn’t a game. This is someone’s life you are destroying.

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Verbal Abuse Before the Morning Bell

Earlier that morning, before classes had even started, another girl randomly called my daughter a “bitch” and accused her of side-eyeing her. My daughter hadn’t said a word. She was simply walking to class.

Imagine that—walking to school and being verbally attacked by someone who decided that today was the day to ruin a life.

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The Principal: Absent. Silent. Useless.

Where is the leadership?

Where is the principal whose job it is to protect every student?

Where is the consequence for the students who have made my daughter feel like she is less than human?

There is none. Just silence. Just indifference. Just another day of trauma swept under the rug so a school’s reputation can stay squeaky clean on paper while a child sobs at home.

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11PM Tears: A Child Broken by Your Inaction

It’s 11pm.

My daughter is curled in bed, shaken from the weight of the cruelty she endured today. She’s asking what she did wrong.

And I don’t have an answer.

Because she did nothing wrong.

You—the students, their cowardly parents, and the complicit school leaders—did everything wrong.

And tonight, while you sleep peacefully in your beds, my daughter lies awake, wondering if she will ever feel safe again.

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The Woman Who Never Wanted My Son Now Wants Him as Her Carer

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

She Starved Me When I Was Pregnant With Him

There were days when I was pregnant and still living under my mother’s roof that I wasn’t allowed to eat. She would watch me grow weaker. I was carrying my firstborn son, and she made sure I suffered for it.

She told me she hoped I’d rip from end to end giving birth to him. That I’d suffer. That I’d never forget the pain. She said it with hatred in her voice — a mother wishing agony upon her pregnant daughter. I can still hear it.

She Assaulted Me. Screamed at Me. Isolated Me.

She hit me with a phone. She screamed at me. Every single day.

My own brother, my own grandmother — people I loved — weren’t even allowed to speak to me. I lived under that roof, pregnant and afraid, silenced by the one person who was supposed to protect me.

The emotional abuse didn’t stop when I gave birth. It only got worse. She kicked me out with nowhere to go and a newborn baby in my arms.

She’s Never Been a Grandmother to Him

She has never cooked a meal for my son.

She has never babysat him.

She has never cared for him, never nurtured him, never been a safe space or a warm hug.

My mother has never loved him the way grandmothers are supposed to love their grandchildren.

What she has done is try to destroy my family. She caused division. She manipulated. She insisted I host separate parties just for her — without lifting a finger to help — because she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as my in-laws or our extended family. She only brought drama, never support.

And Now… She Wants Him to Be Her Carer

Today I got a phone call from the hospital.

My mother — the woman who never once cared for my son — has listed him, my teenage boy, as her full-time carer.

The child she wished pain upon.

The child she never fed, never held, never helped.

The child she ignored, excluded, and emotionally neglected.

And now that she is bedbound and can’t walk, toilet, or bathe herself, now she thinks she has the right to demand his care?

No. Just No.

She is not dying. She is expected to live many years in this state. And she wants him — a child she’s done nothing but hurt — to be the one to sacrifice his future, his freedom, and his well-being to take care of her.

It’s a level of selfishness and delusion that has left me in shock. I shouldn’t be surprised — but I am. Deeply.

She’s not a mother. She’s not a grandmother. She is a user. A destroyer. An architect of pain.

And I will not allow her to harm my son the way she harmed me.

“They Should Care for You. You’re Their Mum.” — The Most Dangerous Sentence a Social Worker Can Say

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

Why Blanket Statements Like This Do More Harm Than Good — Especially When Narcissistic Abuse is Involved

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I still can’t believe this happened.

My mum is in hospital. And a social worker — who has spent all of five minutes with her — had the audacity to say:

“They should care for you. You’re their mum.”

Take a moment to think about that.

This person has absolutely no idea of the years of emotional manipulation, gaslighting, triangulation, and cruelty that woman has put us through. But because she happens to be someone’s mum, suddenly we’re supposed to drop everything and become her caregivers?

No. Just no.

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Not Every Parent is a Good Parent

We grow up being told to respect our parents. To love them unconditionally. But what if they’re the very people who broke us?

My mum is a narcissist. Not just someone who’s a bit selfish — a true narcissist. Someone who has used guilt, control, and emotional blackmail like tools of war. She’s harmed relationships, destroyed confidence, and made everything about her, always.

So when a social worker — a professional who should know better — says something like that, it’s not just ignorant. It’s harmful.

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What That Statement Actually Does

That one sentence invalidates years of pain. It erases trauma. It says to the abused: “None of that matters. Blood trumps everything.”

Well, I’m here to say it doesn’t.

Blood is not a free pass to abuse people and still expect loyalty.

Social workers, nurses, anyone in a caring profession: you need to stop and think before you speak. Statements like “you should care for her, she’s your mum” pile guilt onto people who already carry the weight of years of survival.

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This is Why People Stay Silent

This is why survivors of family trauma don’t speak up. Because when they do, someone — often someone in authority — gaslights them all over again. Maybe unintentionally, but the damage is the same.

Instead of asking, “Why aren’t you caring for her?”, how about asking, “What’s your relationship like? How are you coping?”

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We Don’t Owe Abusers Our Time or Our Sanity

I will not apologise for protecting my peace.

I will not apologise for setting boundaries.

And I certainly won’t be guilt-tripped into pretending someone was a loving mother when they weren’t.

To anyone else who’s had to make the heartbreaking decision to step back from a toxic parent — I see you. You are not selfish. You are brave.

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Even At The End, She Can’t Tell The Truth

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

Even in her final days, my mother chooses lies over love—and I’m left holding decades of heartbreak.

A Lifetime of Manipulation

From the moment I was old enough to recognise emotional manipulation, I saw it in my mother. She has always been a master of twisting narratives, of turning situations to suit her needs, and of denying her behavior while accusing others—especially me—of the very lies she tells. Growing up with a narcissistic parent is like walking through a minefield blindfolded. Just when you think you’re safe, something explodes.

And now, here we are. My mother is in the hospital, dying. A wound on her foot became infected—so severely that the infection entered her bone. Her body is giving out. But somehow, the manipulations continue.

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Lies, Even Now

I recently received a message from her saying she had vomiting and diarrhoea. Concerned, I called the hospital. I wanted to know if there was a virus going around her ward, if it could be related to her infection, or—worst case—if it was a sign of sepsis. The nurse I spoke to was kind, but also confused.

“There’s been no vomiting. No diarrhoea,” she told me.

I thanked her and hung up, but the sting stayed. My mother lied to me. Again. About something so ridiculous, so pointless. And I still don’t understand why.

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A Final Opportunity, Lost in Deceit

This should be a time for healing, for final moments filled with truth and forgiveness. But my mother—true to form—continues to weave her web of deceit, spinning stories for her medical team, for the family, and for me. She manipulates conversations, embellishes symptoms, plays the victim. And even now, facing the end, she clings to the same patterns that poisoned our relationship.

She has accused me of being the liar, the manipulator, the untrustworthy one, my entire life. But now the truth is bare. The lies were always hers. Still are.

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Grieving the Mother I Never Had

I’m grieving, but not in the way people expect. I’m grieving the mother I never had. The nurturing, honest, stable presence I longed for. The kind of mother who might have used her final moments to say, “I’m sorry. I see you now.” Instead, I’m left with the weight of her fabrications, even as the machines beep beside her hospital bed.

Sadly this is not just about a woman dying. It’s about a lifetime of damage that never found a moment of repair. It’s about the pain of knowing that not even death can change some people.

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Last Night, I Dreamt You K*lled Yourself

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

And then you told her twice, like it was something she needed to hear.

A Seed Planted in the Dark

She said it like it meant something—

“Last night, I dreamt you k*lled yourself.”

At first, it just sounded strange. Cruel, but strange.

But then she said it again.

On two separate occasions.

She looked her straight in the eyes and repeated it,

like she wanted it to stick.

Like she wanted her to believe it was already written.

Friends Don’t Plant Seeds Like That

This isn’t just about a dream.

It’s about a 14-year-old girl, sitting in a Year 8 classroom at a public school already drowning in a reputation for cruelty.

It’s about a girl trying to stay afloat while the people who should be beside her are holding her underwater.

The one who said she was her friend

was laughing behind her back with her bullies.

She said it was “just to keep them from bashing me.”

But that lie cracked wide open, and the truth fell out.

She wasn’t protecting herself.

She was orchestrating her pain.

The Ultimate Betrayal

What kind of friend casually tells you they dreamt you ended your life?

What kind of friend tells you twice?

What kind of friend watches your self-worth unravel and helps it along?

It wasn’t a dream.

It was a dagger.

And it was meant to land.

The worst part?

She planted a seed of suicide, right there—in a classroom, in whispers, in fake sympathy wrapped in manipulation.

She knew what she was doing.

And she did it anyway.

This Is What Bullying Looks Like

Not all wounds bleed.

Some are planted in the heart like a poison.

Slow, invisible, but just as deadly.

And in some schools—especially the ones where bullying thrives in the open and nothing is done—it happens every day.

If You See It, Say It. Don’t Be Silent.

Because someone’s dream shouldn’t become another family’s nightmare.

The Day I Became a Mother and Homeless

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

A Beautiful Beginning, and a Brutal Ending

Becoming a mother and becoming homeless on the same day is a reality few can fathom. One minute, I was cradling my newborn son—this perfect little bundle of warmth, love, and hope. The next, I was facing the cold reality that I had nowhere to go. No roof. No plan. No safety net for the most fragile moment of my life.

That was the day my mother kicked me out.

The Cost of Defiance

She did it the same day her first grandchild was born.

My husband and I were in our twenties. Grown, but still tethered to family expectations. Our love wasn’t the issue—permission was. And we knew we would never receive it. So we chose each other, and we chose our child, fully aware that it would come at a cost.

But we underestimated just how steep that cost would be.

A City With No Shelter

We searched tirelessly across Sydney for housing. Queue after queue, inspection after inspection, rejection after rejection. No one wanted to take a chance on us—too young, no credit history, no references. And then, in a hospital bed with my baby in my arms, my husband delivered the final blow: the Department of Housing had a ten-year waiting list.

That was the moment I truly understood fear. I’ve been held at gunpoint before, but nothing compares to the terror of not knowing how you will protect your child.

A Mother’s Love—Conditional

I’ve tried to make sense of it. Why did my mother cast me out when I needed her the most? Was it because I was pregnant out of wedlock? Because I disobeyed her wishes? I was still her daughter. I was carrying her grandson.

But all I received was shame. Disappointment. Rejection.

What I’ve never understood is this: why does a son deserve more love than a daughter?

History Repeating in Reverse

Sixteen years later, the pain remains. Especially now—watching history repeat, but in reverse.

My brother has a girlfriend. They’ve only been together a month. They’re not married. She isn’t pregnant. But my mother is happy to open her home and heart to her without hesitation. No lectures. No judgment. Just warmth and support.

Everything I needed and never received.

Mother’s Day: A Time for Silence

Mother’s Day is the hardest. The world tells us to honour our mothers with cards and gratitude. But what do you write to a woman who discarded you when you needed her most?

How do you express gratitude to someone who made your most fragile moment even more terrifying – who kicked you and your newborn baby out with nowhere to go?

I’ve considered telling her the truth. Pouring all my pain into a single letter. Telling her exactly what she’s done, how deeply she’s hurt me, how much her favoritism destroyed any hope of closeness. But I know how she would react.

She would turn it around. Call me stupid. Remind me of the money she spent on my private school education. Accuse me of being ungrateful, useless, a disappointment. She’s said it all before.

So instead, I stay silent. Or I write something generic, like people do in Christmas cards for people they barely know.

Maybe I’ll write something like: “Season’s greetings this Mother’s Day. Congratulations on birthing your son. I hope his girlfriend is everything you ever wanted in a daughter.”Maybe that’s as honest as I can be without inviting more pain.

“Best of luck with everything hopefully you don’t destroy your potential daughter-in-law in the same way that you destroyed me.”

“May you continue to move faster than your karma”  – now that’s a nice one, especially towards someone who has been nothing but cruel to their child for their entire life.

How about – “you kicked me out of home when I was most vulnerable with a newborn baby and absolutely nowhere to go – this Mother’s Day, and always, I hope you remember everything that you’ve put me through” – realistically it sounds so much better than saying something along the lines of “I hope the universe treats you as fairly as what you have treated me my entire life”… that wish although filled with sincerity would not go down very well.

The Truth I Carry

Maybe one day I’ll forgive her. Maybe I won’t.

But this is my truth:

I became a mother and lost a mother in the same breath.

And every year, on the second Sunday in May, I remember it all over again.

The First and Last Mother’s Day

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

When Love, Loss, or Survival Reshapes How We Honour Our Mothers

A Day That Means Many Things

Every year, as Mother’s Day approaches, I find myself sitting with a mix of feelings—some warm, others sharp, many unspoken. It’s a day drenched in expectation and sentimentality, but for those of us with complicated histories, it often feels heavier than a bouquet of flowers can carry.

This year, I wanted to explore what Mother’s Day really means when your relationship with your mother isn’t simple or sweet—and how both the first and the last Mother’s Day can reveal more about us than we expect.

The First Mother’s Day: A Memory We Never Made

Our first Mother’s Day is really just a dream. A haze. None of us can truly remember it—what we wore, what we said, whether we made our mothers smile or feel special. We don’t remember if there were flowers or cards or the scent of breakfast being made in a chaotic kitchen.

And yet, we were there. Just babies in their arms.

At that point in life, there is no decision to be made. We love without thinking. We give ourselves over completely, because we have no choice. Whether our mothers deserved that love or not is another matter altogether.

In those early years, Mother’s Day isn’t for us—it’s for them. And no matter what kind of mother we had—kind, distant, nurturing, unpredictable—we were too small to choose anything different. We were their children, and that was that.

The Last Mother’s Day: The One That Stays With Us

But the last Mother’s Day—that’s something different.

That’s the one that stays with us.

That’s the one that asks something of us.

Some people don’t even know it’s the last. Life doesn’t always come with warnings. One day you’re bringing flowers and awkwardly worded cards, and the next, the seat at the table is empty. There’s an ache in your chest, and you wish you had said more, done more, asked more.

For others, the last Mother’s Day doesn’t arrive quietly. It builds slowly, with a kind of dread. Not because of loss, but because of harm. Because the woman who gave birth to you doesn’t feel safe. Because honouring her feels dishonest, painful—even harmful.

And yet, on that day, we’re expected to smile, to entertain, to act as though she’s the greatest woman on earth.

When Honouring Feels Like a Lie

But what if she wasn’t?

What if she hurt you more than she held you?

What if being around her drains every ounce of your strength and makes you forget who you are?

That’s when the last Mother’s Day becomes something else entirely.

It becomes a choice.

And that’s what makes it powerful.

For the first time, you get to ask:

Do I want to spend this day with the woman who gave me life? Or do I want to protect the life I’ve built in spite of her?

That choice is not easy. It comes with guilt, with judgment from others, and sometimes with a lingering grief for the mother you wish you had.

But it also comes with truth.

Choosing Peace Over Performance

You get to choose peace.

You get to choose distance.

You get to say:

This day is sacred, and I will no longer perform love for someone who has harmed me.

That doesn’t make you cold. It doesn’t make you cruel.

It makes you whole.

It makes you brave.

So whether you spend Mother’s Day at her side, across the country, or surrounded by the people who feel like family—you get to decide.

Maybe the last Mother’s Day isn’t about her at all.

Maybe it’s about you—choosing yourself, your sanity, your healing.

Maybe that’s the most sacred act of all.

Honouring Your Truth

Mother’s Day doesn’t look the same for everyone, and it’s time we stop pretending it should. For some, it’s a joyful celebration. For others, it’s a quiet reckoning. And for many, it’s something in between.

Whatever this day brings up for you—grief, relief, love, loss, confusion—you’re allowed to feel it fully. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to explain. You just have to honour the truth of your experience.

That, too, is an act of love.

A note for you and a reminder for myself-

If this piece resonated with you, please know you’re not alone. Mother’s Day can stir up complicated emotions—grief, guilt, anger, even relief—and all of those feelings are valid. Whether your relationship with your mother is loving, painful, or somewhere in between, your experience matters.

You’re allowed to protect your peace, honour your truth, and give yourself the care you may never have received.

If you’re navigating this day with a heavy heart, I see you. I’m walking it too.

She Denied Me Food, Love, and Truth – And Still Claimed She Was a Good Mother

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

There are some days etched into your memory so deeply that you feel them pulse with every breath you take. For me, it was the day of my daughter’s 10th birthday—a milestone that should have been filled with joy, love, laughter. Instead, it became the day I shattered a lifetime of silence and paid the price for seeking truth from a mother who never saw me as her daughter, only her mistake.

I thought maybe, just maybe, this would be the right moment to try again. To offer peace. To fight for understanding. After all, she was in a hospital bed, vulnerable and confronting her mortality. If there was ever a moment for redemption, surely this was it.

But I was wrong. So painfully, achingly wrong.

The Slow Build of a Lifetime of Hurt

In the weeks leading up to that day, I had gently—so gently—tried to talk to her about the differences in how she treated me and my brother. I wasn’t attacking. I wasn’t blaming. I was pleading. Trying to open a door that had always been slammed shut in my face.

My brother—the golden child. The sun she orbits. The one she can never seem to do wrong by. She loves him so much she even extends that unconditional warmth to a girlfriend she’s never even met.

And me?

I don’t remember being loved. I don’t remember being wanted. I don’t remember being enough.

I think she hated me from the moment I was born. Maybe even before that.

Today, She Couldn’t Walk—and I Couldn’t Stay Silent

Today was also the day she realized she couldn’t walk anymore. She’d been pretending to the medical staff that she could—swearing she was walking in secret like it was some twisted game. Delirious, yes. But manipulative? Even more so. She’s spent a lifetime crafting illusions and bending reality to serve her. She’s a master of deceit. And I was tired of being the student of her cruelty.

The final crack in the dam came when she proudly told me she had just given my brother $250—for groceries.

That was it.

I told her I wished I had even a fraction of that kindness. I told her I wished she had ever seen me as her daughter the way she sees him as her son. I asked her the question I’ve carried for decades:

“What’s the difference between me and him? Is it because I was born with a vagina?”

She didn’t answer. Not really. She didn’t have to.

A Starving Daughter, A Favoured Son

When I lived at home, I paid rent. And the groceries I bought for myself? Fed to her five dogs.

Yes, you read that right. I would buy food with my own money, and she would feed it to the dogs. Sometimes, my grandmother would wait until I made a meal and then demand half—only to give it to the dogs, right in front of me, as if my hunger was a joke.

I was pregnant once, starving, not allowed to leave my room because my mother was home and in a fury. I went the entire day without food, growing life inside me while starving, while they all feasted.

Meanwhile, my brother? A grown man with a full-time job. She gives him money for food. Pays for him and his girlfriend to go to the nail salon. Funds their weekends away. Offers him the luxury of love I’ve never tasted.

I Asked Her Why—and She Hung Up

I asked her why. Why she hated me. Why she couldn’t love me. What was wrong with me.

She claimed she never treated me badly. Denied everything. Even when I listed the moments of pain like beads on a rosary, she insisted she treated me “well.”

And then she said something that broke me even more than I thought possible:

“We can’t be friends if you keep asking these questions.”

As if we were ever friends.

And then—she hung up.

I Don’t Regret Speaking My Truth—Even If It Cost Me a Mother

Maybe my daughter’s birthday wasn’t the right day. Or maybe it was. Because watching her turn ten, watching her feel seen and celebrated, reminded me exactly what I never had—and what I will fight like hell to give her.

I chose truth over silence. I chose healing over pretending. I chose to stop begging for a love that was never mine to begin with.

And maybe that’s the most painful kind of freedom.

Poison In A Glass Bottle

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

It was a beating to last a lifetime – one I will never forget.

As a child, I thought I was giving my mother the greatest gift I could possibly offer. I had a tiny glass bottle I adored – no bigger than 5ml, delicate and perfectly formed. I cherished it for its size, its fragility, and the way small treasures often captivate young minds. To me, it wasn’t just a bottle. It was my bottle – my most prized possession.

In my innocence, I thought combining my favorite item with hers – her favorite fragrance – would be the ultimate expression of love. I imagined her unwrapping it, smiling at the thoughtfulness of the gesture: her perfume, my bottle, one cherished thing inside another.

But I was painfully mistaken.

She didn’t see a sweet gift. She saw waste. A waste of her expensive fragrance. A waste of her money. A thoughtless act, not a generous one.

And instead of praise, I got punished – severely. I was beaten. And I learned, in the harshest way, a lesson about boundaries, about value, and about what “gifting” really means – especially when it involves something that doesn’t truly belong to you.

The beating wasn’t just physical. It marked a turning point. I learned to keep my hands to myself, to think twice before using anything that wasn’t mine, and to understand the financial pressure she was under – even if I hadn’t fully grasped the weight of that as a child.

What stung more than the physical pain was the emotional fallout. I had tried to surprise her, to make her smile. But instead, I triggered her anger. And from that day on, something shifted. She resented me more. Maybe because I was her daughter. Maybe because girls weren’t allowed mistakes the way boys were.

It’s almost ironic now, watching my brother do what I never could. Spending her money freely – not just on himself, but on his girlfriend and her family. My mother, sick and bedridden, gets bank notifications from her hospital bed about every new purchase he makes. And she allows it. No beatings. No lectures. Just silence.

I think about how differently she would have reacted if it were me. A single cent of her money in my hands would have been seen as theft, not thoughtlessness. But he’s her son. And sons are treated differently.

The perfume I used that day – how fitting its name was – Poison. At the time, I thought it would make her happy. Instead, it became the symbol of everything I didn’t understand about her, about money, about love. That tiny glass bottle didn’t just spill a few drops of fragrance – it shattered whatever bond we might have had. From that moment on, it felt like I became a burden, a disappointment she could never forgive. And somehow, that moment – so small, so innocent in intention – became the line between being her daughter and being her mistake. Poison was the scent, but it was also the beginning of the rot.