Hi my name is Emma it is my first time here, I am here to talk about a girl who was one off my best friend’s at school. Her name was Danielle but she liked to be be called Danni we met at my first school in Margate Drapers mills we were in the same class as each other and always sat next to one another and helped with each others work if we ever got stuck. I eventually started high school it was an all girls school Ellington school for girls so that meant leaving Dannielle behind. Little did I know she was gonna be starting the same school as me when I found out I was ecstatic because I knew we could be in class together, we got to be in a place called the unit which was for students which had more complex needs. We always had lunch together and if we did not like what was in our lunches we would swap. One day I noticed that she was not herself and I took her to one side and asked what was going on and she just said she was fine and nothing was wrong but I knew she was not telling the truth so when she went to the toilet she had left her phone laying around and it had gone off and I knew I had to read it I know that was wrong but I was her best friend and worried about her. I was right to look as she was getting texts that made me sick to my stomach they mentioned something about her hair colour and something about she shouldn’t be on this earth because off the colour of her hair. I knew in that second she wasn’t just being bullied she was being cyberbullied. I did speak to her and she broke down and said she had tried going to the teachers and that said they couldn’t do anything since it wasn’t physical. This was on the 26th of July 2005 this would be the day i would never forget the next day i got a knock on the door at my foster mums house it was my school friends telling me that Danielle had taken her own life not with pills or drink not even with self harm but with what most suicides end with she was only 13. The bullies got away with it and have got to have a happy life and have kids but my poor friend hasn’t lived any of her life. They even made a mockery of her death saying the bullying was all a joke which made me sick and still does. I am now 30 and i still get angry on her birthday knowing she can not celebrate.
Dear Emma
Welcome to this forum where you can speak freely and also meet some good people who suffer as you do, for whatever reason.
I’m sure you have had counselling in the past, but deep traumas can’t be sorted in one go, sometimes they haunt us for years, surfacing when we least expect it, and then the pain is excruciating.
I’m not a counselor, but I do know through my own experience that when a young person dies, whatever the circumstances, and in your friends case it was tragic, then we have to live the best life we can for them. On your friends birthday you owe it to you to do something special, perhaps something you and Danni might have done together and enjoyed had she lived. It’s a form of honouring her life and the person she was.
How lucky she was to have a friend like you, but even so her pain was greater than her will to live. We have to live with the results of someone else’s decisions, and this is what hurts most. I hope you find comfort, but do seek help here on our bereavement line or with the Samaritans. If you need more help let us know.
best wishes
Miche24
Thanks you for your kind comment I will take your idea in to thought mabye it is a good idea to celebrate her life the way she would of wanted me too
That is brilliant Emma99, thank you for taking my words so positively. I’m sure you know how to enjoy yourself, so do let me know how you get on.
Miche24 x