Bullies wanted me dead but I won’t be silenced
Lindsay Davies, 31, from Llanelli, was shocked to discover the dark side behind her daughter’s Youtube channel…
The front door swung open and my daughter Sacha, 14, burst in, home from school.
I took one glimpse at her red, puffy eyes and I could tell she’d been crying.
Before I had the chance to ask her what was wrong, Sacha stormed upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her.
Usually happy-go-lucky, it was so unlike her.
I crept upstairs and knocked softly on her door. ‘Are you OK, Honey?’ I soothed. I could hear her muffled sobs, so I softly opened the door and sat down on the bed, where Sacha was sprawled, her head in her pillow.
Stroking her back, I urged her to tell me what was wrong.
Sacha had always been such a bubbly, popular and confident little girl, so I couldn’t understand what had left her in this state.
Now that she’d reached year 8, I suspected that some of her so-called friends weren’t being very nice to her anymore. Sacha had found the past few weeks tough and come home from school in floods of tears a few times. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her to open up and tell me exactly what had been happening.
‘I’m here if you want to talk about anything,’ I assured her, not wanting to push her too hard. Her dad, Martin, 32, tried to coax it out of her, too, but Sacha
wasn’t very specific.
‘Some girls at school are just being mean,’ she sniffled.
She told us that kids had been picking on her.
They were pointing and staring at Sacha, whispering whenever she walked past and making nasty remarks, but we didn’t quite realise the extent of problem.
After a few days, I knew exactly where to turn for answers.
Opening the laptop, I logged on to Youtube.
Sacha had her own channel and, from the age of 12, had been making videos about her love of Disney, singing covers of her favourite songs and chatting about her interests and hobbies.
She started off recording herself on the ipad from her bedroom.
She had a great voice and sang along to her favourite artists as well as making clips on topics that she cared about.
She received scores of compliments from admirers.
When her dad and I realised she had a real talent, we invested in a top-of-the-range camera and Mac laptop so she could film and edit her footage properly.
She’d quickly racked up a whole legion of supporters – with 10,000 subscribers regularly watching, sharing and commenting on the videos she made.
But what I saw on the site this time left me speechless. Sacha had uploaded a video. In it she was teary-eyed and visibly shaken. It broke my heart to watch her so upset, but I clicked play in the hope I’d get to the bottom of what had been going on.
In the video, Sacha talked about cruel bullies calling her ‘fat’ and about people even telling her to go and kill herself. She said: ‘I don’t know why I am being bullied for this. I’m just trying to do something that I love to do and I’m getting judged for it.
There was a boy in my year who made a video making fun of me. I got really upset because I thought he was my friend.’ Sacha had announced her dreams of auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent and she’d been picked on for that.
Cruel pupils told her she wouldn’t go far or ever make it.
‘They’re just jealous,’ I assured her. Hearing some of the abuse Sacha had been receiving and seeing her so down made me feel sick to the stomach.
To my horror, someone even hacked into Sacha’s Snapchat account and sent naked photos of a girl masturbating – pretending that they were her.
I showed the video to my husband and together we spoke to Sacha.
She finally revealed just how horrendous some of her classmates had been to her.
Martin and I went straight to Sacha’s school to try and resolve the problem once and for all.
But Sacha’s teachers assured us the bullying had been dealt with and had put a stop to it.
Later that afternoon, when I met Sacha as she got off the school bus, she told me that things hadn’t actually gotten any better.
We went back and forth with the school trying to get to the bottom of it, but no matter what we tried, there seemed to be no improvement.
Then, when Sacha came home one day and told us she’d been cornered by a teacher and instructed to remove her videos about the bullying, we were horrified.
‘It’s freedom of speech,’ Martin told her. ‘You’re perfectly entitled to share your own point of view on the matter.’
‘You should be free to express yourself,’ I told her.
We refused to force Sacha to take down her videos – especially as the school hadn’t helped in any way to end the bullying.
After a few weeks, we decided sending Sacha to school wasn’t in her best interests.
She was supposed to feel safe, protected and supported there, but she felt anything but. I decided to stay at home and home school her. Determined not to be silenced by her bullies, Sacha vowed to continue recording and uploading her videos. She now posts a new video every other day and although trolls still target her, she gets hundreds of positive comments from people all over the world who are spurring her on to continue. We are so proud of our daughter and the way she’s handled such a horrible situation. Sacha told us: ‘If my experiences help even one person going through a horrible time then it’s worth it.’ She hopes to inspire other youngsters so that those watching her videos won’t feel like they’re alone.