The harm that silence does

When I was a pre-teen, I was bullied by my former friends. Girls don’t bully by physically assaulting you. They use psychological manipulation - silence. Isolated for years, I still carry the emotional scars from that time. Charlie experienced similar treatment, beginning in her grade 8 year. That was the start of the damage to her self-worth that eventually led to her death.

From my experience, I learned not to trust groups of girls and women, and I have spent many years trying to unlearn this PTSD response to my past. I was sad when Charlie told me she was a girl only because I knew how cruel this world can be to girls when even girls are cruel to each other.

Despite, or perhaps because of, my aversion to women as friends, I joined a women’s leadership organization in 2003. In 2020 I became president. Unfortunately, at the end of that year,  Charlie was placed in a mental health day program. The stress of being Mum to a very sick teenager became too much, and I took a leave of absence from my presidency.

During those months, you would think that members of the women’s organization — of which I had been a member for nearly 20 years —would have reached out to find out how I was faring. If I had been off due to cancer, you can bet they would have. Instead, because it was mental health issues keeping me away, not one woman contacted me.

By ignoring me during our family struggles, the women I had considered to be friends treated me just like the classmates who bullied and isolated both me and Charlie in school.

I remember when those same women showed up at Charlie’s funeral. All I could think was, “Really? Now you show up? It’s a little bloody late to pretend you care”. The same goes for many of Charlie’s schoolmates.

I do not doubt that neither those women, nor kids, understood the pain we were in. But that was mainly because they didn’t ask or wish to know.

Mental health, grief, and death are difficult, isolating subjects that far too many struggle to face and talk about. With an acute illness like cancer, everyone and their dog will support you, but mental health brings crickets.

It's not a fun lesson, but it is no less a truism that when life gets hard, some people whom you think will be there for you drop out of sight, and others become pillars of strength.

I’m so tired of people staying silent when they are uncomfortable with another person’s struggle. Your friends who are experiencing mental health struggles, grief, and loss probably won’t reach out for help. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t need your support. Stop and speak to the kid who sits by herself every day at lunchtime. Text a friend to tell them you’re thinking of them. A simple hello can mean more than you know.

One of the reasons Charlie gave for her suicide was loneliness. Too many people didn’t know what to say to her so they said nothing. And we all know how that worked out.

After Charlie died, one person with whom I had long ago lost touch reached out to me nearly every day just to say, “I’m thinking of you.” It's difficult to put into words how much that small gesture meant to me. It was like a daily hug.

Communication and connection are the essence of being human. You can’t possibly say the wrong thing to someone who is on a complex emotional journey. But saying nothing is always the wrong response. Silence brings more harm than you know.