Such a special Dolly.

This month, a 14-year-old girl has made news in Australia for all the wrong reasons. Her name was Amy "Dolly" Everett, and she has just joined the tragic many who've taken their own lives due to cyberbullying.

Now, I must be honest and admit, a part of me doesn't quite understand why her case should be more high-profile than others. It's no isolated incident. But regardless, if it helps the cause of suicide prevention, which I hope so, she will still have a legacy.

Considering my own life, at school I was both bullied and a bully, the latter remaining a very heavy cross to bear. I'm thus very glad social media during my adolescence was hardly what it is now. We have MySpace and email, but that was about it. That's also lucky for those I bullied because hey, back then if I could've hounded them online also, I probably would've. Plus, two girls I went to school with (but never harassed) committed suicide; one in Year Nine (her death was announced on assembly and it shocked me so much I couldn't sleep that night), the other several years after school. I don't know to this day why either one ended their lives, and I have no business knowing, but like Dolly, they both went far too early. Also, one boy in my school year witnessed a very public suicide and naturally he was off school for weeks.

I've read of a man named Don Ritchie, who became a Member of the Order of Australia for suicide prevention work. He lived in the Gap, a Sydney beach suburb infamous for cliff-face suicides, and reached out to roughly 500 would-be jumpers by inviting them to his house for a cuppa and a chat. Many returned years later to thank him for talking them out of it, and he was eventually nicknamed the Angel of the Gap.  He died in 2012 but as much as we need his like again, we all even more need to say "NO" to bullying (in reality and online) and inequality.

RIP Amy "Dolly" Everett.

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