mental-health

The Silent Knife: When Friends Cut You Out on Purpose

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

The Cruelty of Invisible Violence

Exclusion is not an accident. It is one of the most insidious forms of bullying, because it leaves no bruises but cuts deeper than a blade. When a group of friends creates a chat and deliberately leaves one person out, it is not just “kids being kids.” It is a calculated act of erasure.

To the person excluded, the message is clear: you don’t belong, you don’t matter, you don’t even deserve to exist in our world.

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Why They Do It

Bullies rarely admit the truth about their motives, but here is what’s really happening:

• Control: Exclusion gives them power. They know you’ll notice you’re missing. That knowledge feeds their egos.

• Jealousy: Sometimes they envy the person they exclude. Cutting you out feels like cutting down the threat you represent.

• Insecurity: Those who are truly secure don’t need to hurt others to feel important. Exclusion is the weapon of the weak.

• Cruel enjoyment: Some bullies simply take pleasure in watching someone squirm. It’s entertainment, but at the cost of someone’s soul.

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The Pain You Feel Is Real

If this has happened to you, understand: the pain is not imagined. Science has proven that social exclusion activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. That stabbing in your chest? The ache in your stomach? That’s your body responding as if it has been physically attacked.

This is why it feels so unbearable. You have been socially stabbed, and the wound is invisible.

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The Hidden Message They Send

By creating a group and deliberately excluding you, they are saying:

• “We control the narrative.”

• “We can erase you whenever we like.”

• “We decide when you’re worthy of being seen.”

This is psychological warfare. And for those who created the chat: you may think it’s a harmless joke, but what you’ve done is take a knife to someone’s sense of belonging. You’ve shown them that cruelty can be planned, and that you’re willing to wound for sport.

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What To Do If It Happens to You

• Do not beg for entry. Begging hands them victory. They want you to chase, to prove their power. Don’t.

• Pull your energy away. Invest in friendships and activities that don’t demand you shrink yourself to fit.

• Name what happened. Call it what it is: exclusion. Don’t sugarcoat it.

• Remember their behavior is a mirror. Their exclusion reflects their insecurity, not your worth.

• Talk it out. With a parent, a teacher, or a trusted friend. Silence only strengthens their grip.

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What Never to Forget

The right friends will never cut you out just to watch you bleed. The right friends will never weaponize belonging. If they do, they are not friends.

And to the bullies reading this: you may think this is nothing, that it will be forgotten in time. But the truth is—it will not. Every exclusion leaves a scar. One day, when you look in the mirror, you’ll see the face of someone who chose cruelty when kindness was an option. You will remember the moment you decided to make someone else feel invisible.

And the shame will follow you, because deep down, you will know: you were the coward who needed to hurt someone else to feel strong.

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When the Abuser Pretends to Care: The Hidden Tactics of a Narcissistic Parent

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

How to Recognise Manipulation Disguised as Concern

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When a narcissistic parent reaches out after weeks, months, or even years of silence, it can feel like an emotional ambush. The message might be polite. It might appear caring. It might even include a kind gesture or an “I hope you’re feeling better.”

But beneath that surface lies a calculated strategy: control, intrusion, and emotional destabilisation. If you’ve lived through this before, you know it’s not random — it’s patterned behaviour.

This is exactly what my mother does. And this is exactly how to recognise it when it’s happening to you.

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1. Selective Contact — The Power of Withholding

A narcissistic parent controls communication like a tap — turning it on and off to assert dominance.

They block you without explanation, then unblock you when it suits them, creating an unspoken message: I decide when you exist in my world.

By ignoring meaningful occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, personal milestones) while still finding time to send unrelated or inappropriate messages, they show you that your joy, grief, or achievements only matter when they serve their narrative.

This is a form of emotional withholding — a tactic designed to:

• Remind you that their attention is conditional.

• Keep you unsure of where you stand.

• Make you crave the crumbs of recognition they occasionally toss your way.

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2. Triangulation — Using Others to Deliver Messages

When they don’t want direct conflict or vulnerability, narcissists often use other people as messengers.

In my case, it’s clear my father told her I was unwell — and suddenly she reached out.

This isn’t about care. It’s about triangulation — pulling a third party into the dynamic so she can maintain control while avoiding accountability.

Signs of triangulation include:

• Hearing about your own life from someone else before the narcissist contacts you.

• Being spoken about more than being spoken to.

• Feeling like communication is being filtered, twisted, or staged.

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3. Faux Concern — Care as a Weapon

A narcissistic “check-in” rarely comes from genuine empathy.

Instead, it’s a strategic move designed to:

• Create the appearance of being caring to outsiders.

• Keep you emotionally tethered, even when you’ve pulled away.

• Reassert control after a period of silence or distance.

This is emotional baiting — they give you just enough sweetness to stir guilt, confusion, or hope, which then pulls you back into the cycle.

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4. Obligation Triggers — The Guilt Hook

By reaching out when you’re sick or vulnerable, they tap into your natural human empathy.

The unspoken demand is: Respond. Be polite. Show gratitude.

It’s a subtle form of guilt-tripping — making you feel like the bad person if you don’t engage, while ignoring the years of harm they’ve caused.

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5. Rewriting the Script — Image Management

Every message is also part of a bigger performance: controlling the story about who they are.

To outsiders, they appear like the loving mother who still reaches out despite “your distance.”

To you, it’s a reminder that they control how your relationship looks to the world.

This is narrative control — ensuring that their reputation remains untarnished, even if it means manipulating the truth.

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How to Recognise When It’s Happening to You

You might be dealing with narcissistic manipulation if:

• Contact is inconsistent and always on their terms.

• Messages ignore your reality but demand your emotional energy.

• They suddenly “check in” during moments of weakness, illness, or life events.

• They bypass important celebrations but still reach out for trivial or self-serving reasons.

• You feel more unsettled than comforted after hearing from them.

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Why It Hurts So Much

It’s not just the words in the message — it’s the history behind them.

Every contact reopens old wounds. Every carefully-timed “check-in” reminds you of the years you went without genuine care. And every silence between their messages reinforces that love, in their hands, was always conditional.

This is why it cuts so deeply — because it’s not simply a text. It’s the cycle starting again.

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What You Can Do to Protect Yourself

1. Name the Behaviour — Labelling tactics like emotional withholding, triangulation, and guilt-tripping takes away their power.

2. Set Boundaries — Decide if you will respond, and on what terms.

3. Limit Access — Blocking or muting isn’t cruelty — it’s self-preservation.

4. Document Patterns — Keeping a record of their contact can help you see the cycles clearly.

5. Seek Validation — Talk to trusted friends, therapists, or survivor communities who can confirm you’re not imagining it.

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They Added a Deceased Girl to a Hate Group Chat

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

You buried your friend—but you learned nothing.

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The Girl You Buried

You added her to a group chat dedicated to destroying another girl. Why? To keep her in the loop? Or to prove to the world that death doesn’t change your cruelty?

Just five weeks ago, you stood in black. Crying. Posting sad quotes. Holding candles. Wearing Kuromi T-shirts. Mourning Melody.

You knew what happened to her.

You knew what she went through.

You knew what you did.

You cried. Maybe you even felt it.

But here we are.

And you’ve gone and done the unthinkable. Again.

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You Created a Hate Group About My Daughter

That’s right.

You formed a group chat with one purpose: to hate, to mock, to isolate, and to emotionally obliterate my daughter.

Eight of you. Eight children who should know better—especially after watching what impact unkindness had on your “friend.”

And to make it all more revolting, you dragged Melody back in.

You added a deceased girl.

The one who missed months of school because she was a constant target.

The one whose pain you now perform but never understood.

The one you buried.

You added her name to the list of people who were supposed to hate my daughter.

Why?

To feel powerful?

To pretend she would approve?

To weaponise her death?

It’s hard to decide what’s more chilling—your malice, or your numbness to it.

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This Isn’t Just “Drama.” This Is Legacy Abuse.

You grieved for Melody with candlelight and crocodile tears—but you’ve become the very thing that tormented her.

You used Melody’s name—her very identity—as a stamp of approval for your cruelty.

You didn’t honour her memory. You desecrated it.

You used her to validate a group dedicated to hating another girl. You became everything she ran from. And then you used her name.

You didn’t learn a thing from her death.

You just used it as cover.

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You Drew Horns On My Daughter’s Head

You drew blood.

You turned her image into a demon.

And all because she dared to recommend skincare, or react when you stepped on her brand-new shoes — shoes I saved up for so long to buy.

You turned minor human interactions into fuel for hate.

You made her pay for breathing.

But the darkest act wasn’t the drawing, or the insults, or the exclusion.

It was adding Melody.

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My Daughter Is Still Alive. But You Want Her Gone.

You’ve made that clear.

When you isolate a child, when you form groups to laugh at them, when you pile on—knowing how it ended last time—you are saying one thing:

You want her gone too.

You may not say it aloud, but your actions scream it.

You want her out of the chat.

Out of the school.

Out of existence.

You don’t care how she feels.

You don’t care what she carries.

You only care that the crowd is still clapping for you.

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But My Daughter Is Still Here. And She Knows the Truth.

She knows she didn’t do anything to deserve this.

She knows cruelty when she sees it.

She knows betrayal when she feels it.

And she knows how to survive.

You will not bury her the way you buried Melody—with silence and cowardice and revisionist grief.

We will speak the truth while your hands are still dirty.

And you will remember that your cruelty has a body count.

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The Lone Child: When Schools Design Failure and Call It “Teamwork”

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

How do you teach your child to rise — when every system is rigged to keep them on their knees?

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Sending Your Child to School in a War Zone (Without Armor)

It takes a certain kind of courage to send your child into a building every day where they are hated. Not disliked. Not unpopular. Hated. Viciously, irrationally, religiously — as if hating your child is a moral obligation for the rest of the student body.

Because if someone dares to be kind? If someone dares to not mock, exclude, or dehumanise your child — then they’ll become the next target. Welcome to the psychology of mob mentality. Welcome to the cowardice of adolescence. Welcome to the failure of a school’s moral backbone.

And still, we send them.

We wipe their tears. Pack their lunches. Zip up their bags and pray. Every morning is an act of faith. Every afternoon, a sigh of relief that they made it home again. Intact.

But resilience? Resilience is not built in peace. It is forged in fire. And my child — my beautiful, brilliant child — is nothing short of flameproof.

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But Then the System Gets Involved — and It Gets Worse

You would think the bullying would be the worst of it. The dirty looks. The whispers. The games of “you can’t sit here.” The celebrations when she’s absent. The fake smiles from teachers who know damn well what’s going on.

But no. It’s the curriculum that breaks you.

Group work.

Every. Single. Class.

Even in maths. Even in science. Even in things that should be about logic, about thinking, about independence — schools have swallowed the lie that “collaboration” is the holy grail of learning. So now, your grades don’t just depend on your mind. They depend on whether your tormentors are willing to let you participate.

Spoiler: they’re not.

Your child becomes the child no one wants in their group. Not because she can’t contribute — she can. She’s brilliant. But because associating with her is social suicide. Because exclusion is currency, and everyone is desperate to buy safety.

And worse? These group assignments aren’t optional. They’re worth 50% of the grade in most subjects.

The school doesn’t care. The teachers shrug. “It’s how the world works,” they say. No, it’s not. In the real world, if someone harasses you at work, you can report them. In the real world, you don’t get forced to co-sign your future with someone who hates your guts. In the real world, abusers don’t get to tank your success because they’re too immature to behave like human beings.

But in school? They do.

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Resilience Is Not Enough When the System Is Rotten

I’ve raised my child to be resilient. I’ve taught her not to crumble when people throw stones. She’s learned to sit alone at lunch. To read when no one wants to talk. To be strong when the world is cruel.

But how do you teach a child to survive a system that is designed to fail them?

When group tasks are mandatory. When friendships are weaponised. When teachers blame the victim because it’s easier than challenging the mob. When being intelligent, kind, or simply different makes you a target.

What then?

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What I’ve Learned: You Can’t Outsmart a Rigged Game, But You Can Call It What It Is

I used to think that if I just taught my child to be stronger, kinder, smarter — we could beat the system. We could outlast the hate. We could rise above it.

But the truth is darker than that.

Because some systems aren’t broken — they’re functioning exactly as designed.

A system that protects bullies and punishes outcasts. A system that rewards silence and punishes advocacy. A system that enforces group tasks and calls it “collaborative learning” — knowing full well that the kids forced into groups are the same kids who get tormented by those groups.

We need to stop pretending this is education. This is sanctioned cruelty with a rubric attached.

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Let This Be Your Reminder: Your Child Deserves Better

If your child is going through this, I see you. I see them.

I know what it’s like to help with an assignment your child will never get credit for because her group shut her out. I know what it’s like to have to write emails you know will be ignored. I know what it’s like to watch your child become a shell of who they once were — not because they’re broken, but because they’re being buried alive under the weight of a cruel, cowardly system.

But this isn’t the end.

Keep advocating. Keep pushing. Keep writing. Keep building your child’s strength. Remind them that being excluded by the heartless doesn’t mean they’re unworthy — it means they’re different. And difference is power.

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Because if they can survive this, they can survive anything. But let’s make damn sure they don’t have to.

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The Weight of Their Words: What the Bullies Should Be Feeling Now

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

Even if they didn’t cause her death, they helped shape her final days

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They may not have put her in the ground, but they helped push her to the edge.

There are moments in life that call for deep, painful self-reflection. The death of a classmate—especially a bright, happy, kind soul who once lit up a room—is one of them. When a child dies, we often ask “how?” But rarely do we ask, “who helped make her final days so hard?” That question doesn’t need to point fingers at a cause of death—it needs to hold people accountable for how she was made to feel in the weeks, months, and years before it.

This is about the children who tormented her, ridiculed her, isolated her.

The ones who made her feel like she didn’t belong.

The girl who told her to kill herself.

The many who laughed behind her back, excluded her, and left her in the dark—alone.

Whether her death is labelled an accident or not, they should feel something. They must.

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You don’t have to be the reason someone died to be the reason they suffered

No one’s asking the bullies to carry a burden they didn’t directly cause. But what about the burden of the girl they helped break down? What about the cruel words, the humiliating moments, the absolute silence in the face of her pain?

She didn’t attend school for weeks. She couldn’t. It was too unsafe. Too cruel.

How must her last weeks have felt—being cut off from joy, from friends, from dignity?

Every laugh behind her back.

Every group chat message mocking her.

Every moment they turned their backs instead of standing up for her.

That’s what they should be thinking about.

Not because they killed her. But because they helped kill her joy.

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You don’t get to take it back now

To the girl who told her to kill herself—what now?

Do you feel a pit in your stomach?

Do you lie awake at night hearing your own words replaying in your head?

You can’t unsay it.

You can’t tell the universe you “didn’t mean it.”

You don’t get to soften the blow of cruelty just because her death wasn’t officially linked to your words.

Because regardless of the label placed on her death—accident or otherwise—your voice was part of the darkness that clouded her final weeks.

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What parents of bullies should be asking themselves

If your child was cruel to her, you should be asking:

• What kind of child am I raising?

• Have I taught them empathy, or have I made excuses for their behaviour?

• If my child was unkind to a girl who is now gone—what am I going to do about it?

Don’t wait for the school to discipline them. Don’t brush it off as “just kids being kids.”

If your child’s voice was one that mocked or ignored a girl in pain, they need to understand that words matter. That silence is complicity. That cruelty stains you, even after someone is gone.

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What we all need to learn from this

We must stop normalising cruelty as a phase.

We must stop treating bullying as a footnote.

We must stop failing children by ignoring the warning signs.

Even if her death was an accident.

Even if her family believes it was not caused by the bullying.

We still owe it to her—to her memory—to be honest about how she was treated.

We still owe it to other children who are suffering in silence.

Let this be a turning point. Let this be the moment we stop excusing the inexcusable.

Because if we don’t—then we are all complicit in the next tragedy.

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What They Should Be Feeling

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

You didn’t put her in the ground. But you were part of the reason she couldn’t stand to be here anymore.

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She’s gone. And you kept living like nothing happened.

Not a flower at the gate.

Not a card. Not a candle.

No teddy bears. No quiet circles of grief.

No stunned silence in the hallway.

Just school. As usual.

Laughter. As usual.

Cruelty. As usual.

And that’s the most damning part of all.

When a child dies and no one flinches, no one gathers, no one mourns—what does that say?

What does that reveal about the people who surrounded her in her final days?

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You didn’t have to kill her to help erase her joy

She was already avoiding school. She was already staying home, afraid to walk the halls.

She was already dreading each morning.

She was already broken long before her final breath.

And you knew that.

Some of you saw it.

Some of you laughed at it.

Some of you made it worse.

And now—she’s gone.

Whether her death was an accident or not isn’t even the point anymore.

The point is: her life became unbearable—and some of you made sure of it.

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To the one who told her to kill herself—

Are you sleeping well?

Do you hear your own voice in the dark?

Telling her the exact thing that so nearly came true?

What did you expect? That your words would disappear?

That she’d bounce back? That she’d just laugh it off?

She didn’t.

She didn’t laugh.

She didn’t bounce.

And now you will have to live with that voice in your head for the rest of your life.

The one that said it. Out loud. To a girl who is no longer here.

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To the parents of the bullies—what exactly are you raising?

Do you still believe your child is “just a kid”?

Do you still think it’s harmless teasing?

Do you still tell people your child would never be that cruel?

Because here’s the truth: they were. And they weren’t alone.

Your child’s words might not have ended her life,

but they chipped away at it,

day after day,

until it barely felt worth living.

If that doesn’t shake you to your core, you’re failing your child just as much as they failed her.

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You don’t get to rewrite what you did

She’s gone.

You can’t take back the texts.

You can’t undo the silence when she sat alone.

You can’t reverse the decision to “just walk away” while she was drowning in humiliation.

You don’t get to decide now that you “weren’t part of it.”

You were.

And even if you weren’t throwing stones—you still stood and watched her get hit.

That makes you part of the damage.

That makes you part of the story.

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Imagine what her last month could have looked like

She could have laughed more.

She could have come to school without fear.

She could have sat with friends at lunch,

instead of hiding in corners or staying home completely.

She could have made memories.

She could have felt light, even once.

But she didn’t.

Because of you.

Because of your kids.

Because of what this school allowed.

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The lesson?

If you are cruel to someone,

and they die—accident or not—you are not innocent.

If your words drained the colour from her days,

you don’t get to pretend your hands are clean.

You don’t get to look the other way now.

You helped dim her light.

You helped teach her that the world was unkind.

You helped make life unbearable, even if you didn’t make death inevitable.

And if that doesn’t haunt you—

you’ve learned nothing.

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No Flowers at the Gate: What Silence Says When a Child Is Gone

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

When a School Forgets, the Pain Echoes Louder

There were no flowers tied to the school gates.

No ribbons.

No teddy bears.

No candles.

No cards.

No signs of heartbreak.

No signs that a child—one of their own—had just disappeared forever.

If this was truly unexpected… where is the shock?

If this was truly an accident… where is the devastation?

What we see instead is silence. An eerie, telling silence that speaks volumes about what this community really feels—and what it doesn’t.

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The Hidden Cost of Protecting Bullies

This student—bright, fragile, kind—was hidden away from regular classes “for her own protection.” Her attendance faded. Her light dimmed. She was removed from classrooms rather than removing the ones tormenting her. She was made invisible, as though her pain was inconvenient.

The bullies? They stayed. They were allowed to learn, laugh, exist—untouched.

The school didn’t teach accountability. It taught cruelty a safe place to thrive. It showed the entire student body that if you push hard enough, we won’t protect the victim—we’ll erase them. Quietly. Without fuss. Without justice.

And now they’ve erased her completely.

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No Signs of Grief, No Symbols of Shock

In the wake of any true tragedy—especially the sudden, accidental death of a child—you expect to see a community shaken to its core. You expect flowers. Cards. Mourning students clustered at the gates. A ripple of grief that cannot be contained.

But here? There’s nothing.

Not a single child has tied a ribbon.

Not a single tribute stands at the place where she once walked.

This isn’t just silence. It’s willful erasure. It’s guilt. It’s complicity.

Because deep down, they all know.

They know what she endured.

They know how many years she was targeted, pushed, alienated.

They know what they said to her—and what they didn’t say when it mattered.

They know what kind of school culture allowed this to happen.

So there are no flowers. Because that would mean facing it.

And facing it would mean admitting they were part of it.

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What Are We Really Teaching Our Children?

The message is loud and clear:

If you are cruel enough, the school will protect you.

If you are suffering, we will hide you—then forget you.

This is not just a tragedy. It is a teaching moment lost. A warning silenced. A life erased without consequence.

What the school is doing now—brushing it under the rug, refusing to speak her name, pretending nothing happened—is the same thing they did when she was alive. Deny. Minimize. Move on.

But the pain lingers. The questions remain. The truth doesn’t go away.

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Silence Isn’t Respect—It’s Evasion

Some say we should respect her memory by not asking questions.

But how can you respect someone’s memory if you won’t even acknowledge their pain?

How do you honor a life while pretending the cruelty that shadowed it never happened?

This isn’t respect. It’s fear.

It’s fear of accountability.

It’s fear of confronting the toxic culture that was allowed to flourish under their watch.

And that fear has cost a life.

Let this not be another forgotten name.

Let this silence not be the final word.

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The Lesson Behind a Tragedy: When We Don’t Listen, We Lose More Than a Child

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

A reflection on grief, silence, and what happens when we look away for too long

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A Devastating Loss, and a Divided Grief

Recently, a young girl lost her life — suddenly, tragically. Her parents believe firmly that it was an accident. Out of deep respect for their grief, their wishes must be honored. They deserve peace, and their daughter deserves dignity.

But grief has many faces. And for those who loved her, who knew her quiet pain, the tragedy feels layered… and unbearably familiar.

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The Unspoken History

Before her death, this girl had not attended school for weeks — possibly months. She had faced years of ongoing bullying, starting in primary school and tragically continuing into high school. The very same bullies followed her into a new chapter of life and made sure she carried the trauma with her.

She withdrew. From school. From friendships. From the joy that should have belonged to her youth.

Friends recall messages — raw, confessional — about suicidal thoughts. She told people she didn’t want to be here anymore. She was told to kill herself. Her absence from school wasn’t about laziness or disinterest — it was fear. It was emotional exhaustion. It was a desperate attempt to escape cruelty.

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Respecting the Family, While Also Respecting the Truth

This article isn’t meant to point fingers or assign blame. The family has stated that this was an accident. That must be heard.

But so must the rest.

To deny the bullying — to erase it from the story entirely — is to erase years of pain. It sends a dangerous message to every child who has ever felt the same. It makes the others feel unseen. And it lets those who inflicted that pain walk away without reflection, responsibility, or change.

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What Happens When We Pretend It’s Not Real?

When we strip bullying out of the conversation after a tragedy, we do more than protect reputations. We protect the problem.

We raise children who learn that cruelty is consequence-free. We raise systems that respond to crisis only when it becomes unignorable. And we leave grieving friends — like my daughter — to wrestle with impossible questions:

“Why did no one stop this?”

“Why is everyone acting like this had nothing to do with it?”

“Why did her mum tell me not to let the bullies win… and then say it was just an accident?”

That contradiction is what breaks the heart open again and again. It’s not about blame — it’s about integrity.

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The Real Lesson We Can’t Afford to Miss

The lesson here isn’t to point at the past and burn it down. It’s to illuminate it. To say, loudly:

• Children don’t lie about being bullied.

• School refusal is not a character flaw — it’s often a trauma response.

• When kids tell us they’re scared, or thinking about ending their lives — we must believe them.

• And when someone is lost, we must examine the full truth. Not just the parts that feel easiest to manage.

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Honouring Her by Changing What Must Be Changed

This beautiful, gentle girl should never have had to carry such a heavy burden. The lesson behind her death — whatever the cause — is not just that life is fragile.

It’s that we have to do better.

We owe it to her. To every student who suffers in silence. To every family who shouldn’t have to wonder if a child’s life could have been saved by compassion, early intervention, and accountability.

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Keep Your Condolences — They Mean Nothing Without Courage

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment

When grief becomes performative, silence is more honest.

It’s a strange kind of cruelty — offering your condolences with one hand, and turning your back with the other.

My daughter received a message — soft, kind, sorrowful — from someone who used to be her friend. Someone who had once laughed with her, and more recently, laughed at her. Someone who once knew her inside out, and now won’t even stand beside her in the hallway.

This girl messaged my daughter after the death of her best friend. She offered condolences. Words of comfort. A digital candle in the storm.

And when my daughter — raw, grieving, desperate for connection — said, “Can we please rebuild our friendship?”

She was met with silence.

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You don’t get to break someone, then pretend to care when they’re shattered.

No.

Worse than no.

Nothing.

Ghosted. Erased. Forgotten again.

Because some people only want to be seen grieving, not actually feel it — not sit in it, not show up for the ones left behind.

The silence screamed louder than any message. And the grief? It got heavier.

You don’t get to offer your sympathy, pose as the wounded soul, and then bolt the moment someone needs you. If you do, then your sympathy was never real. It was a mirror for yourself — not a light for someone else.

⸻

Friendship doesn’t end at the funeral gates.

True friendship doesn’t dissolve under pressure. It doesn’t hide when the moment is hard.

It doesn’t vanish when someone asks for warmth.

You can’t send your “I’m so sorry for your loss” texts and then vanish when someone asks for human connection. That’s not kindness — that’s cowardice.

And to those who perform compassion while refusing to practice it — let me tell you something painful:

Your fake condolences are more hurtful than saying nothing at all.

Because pretending to care is not harmless.

It’s another form of emotional abandonment — and sometimes, it hurts just as much as the loss.

⸻

🕊 A Message From My Heart — About the Recent Tragedy, the School’s Email, and What I Truly Meant 🕊

~ Rochelle ~ Leave a comment
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I never imagined I’d be writing something like this – especially not after something so heartbreaking.

As many of you know, a local teenage girl recently passed away. A beautiful soul – gone far too soon.

In the midst of deep grief, I made a private post in a mums’ group. I didn’t mention any names. I didn’t mention the school. I never claimed to know exactly what happened. I simply expressed what many others were already quietly wondering – whether long-standing, well-known bullying could have played a role.

Because the truth is – this young girl had not attended school for weeks, possibly months. She had been severely bullied for years, by the same students, all the way from primary into high school.

And yes – there are text messages that clearly referenced painful thoughts. (These are now known and will be passed to the appropriate people.)

So no –  it was never my intention to spread misinformation or make accusations.

It was never about blame.

It was about grief. Shock. Patterns too painful to ignore.

What truly confused and shook my daughter – and many others – was a message she received from the girl’s mother shortly after her death:

“Don’t let the bullies win.”

That one sentence has been echoing in our home.

But now, we are told by the school and others that this was simply a tragic accident – and had nothing to do with bullying.

And I want to say: I hear that. I accept that. And if this was a complete and unrelated tragedy, then I am truly, genuinely sorry for ever implying otherwise.

But I also want to say this…

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The School’s Email Felt Like a Public Shaming

Today, the school issued an email that referred to my post, stating it made “incorrect claims” and was “not factual.”

Let me be very clear:

  • I never claimed to know the full truth.
  • I never identified the child, the school, or any individuals.
  • I spoke from a place of concern, sadness, and compassion.

The fact that this email was sent to the entire parent community felt like a public attack on my character, as if I had maliciously spread lies – which I did not.

And now, I’m being bullied – again – by the same group of mothers whose children have bullied my own daughter for years.

The irony and pain of this is not lost on me.

⸻

So, Here’s What I Want to Say

Before I receive any more hate…

Before I’m judged or blamed or shamed any further…

Let me raise my hands and say: I’m sorry.

I’m sorry if my post caused anyone more pain in an already heartbreaking time.

I’m sorry if it came across as insensitive – that was never, ever my intention.

I now understand that the family believes this tragedy was not related to bullying, and I respect that. And I will never speak over a grieving parent.

But please, understand that I am grieving too.

My daughter is grieving her friend.

And so many of us are just trying to make sense of a senseless loss.

The coincidences, the history, the silence – it all left us stunned. The emotion behind my post came from that space.

⸻

Let’s Remember Why This Hurts So Much

Because a child has died.

A beautiful child who should still be here.

Let’s not let our fear of being wrong make us cruel to those who are hurting.

Please – let’s lead with kindness. Let’s give one another the benefit of the doubt. Let’s protect our kids – and each other – with love, not control.

With sincerity and heartbreak,

Rochelle