Charlotte’s Wish: What 12-year-old Charlotte O’Brien really needed

Charlotte O’Brien’s mother reveals how her family spent their final night with their 12-year-old daughter before she took her own life.

Kelly O’Brien had already waved “red, yellow, green, orange, purple flags” by the time her 12-year-old daughter took her own life.

She had called, emailed, and personally visited Santa Sabina College about the stress and sadness Charlotte had been feeling and now is “just so heartbroken” she didn’t take her out of the school.

Kelly’s little niece knew too about the struggles Charlotte was having with bullying in the playground.

“Bonnie, who is her best friend and cousin, she didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, the poor little girl,” a distraught Kelly said.

“When she heard that Charlotte had taken her own life my family told me that Bonnie ran out screaming, ‘It was the bullies, it was the bullies, it was the bullies’. And she’s an 11-year-old girl, just turned 12.

“And I found out from my sister that Bonnie had said that she was hiding in the toilets or the library to get away. And I just was so heartbroken over that because if I knew it was that bad, I would’ve taken her out immediately.”

Kelly and her husband Mat do not blame the children.

Charlotte O’Brien.

Charlotte with her mum Kelly.

Kelly O’Brien sitting on her late daughter Charlotte’s bed, holding ‘Charlie Bear’ which houses her late Charlotte’s ashes. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We need to make that clear,” she said. “I don’t blame the kids at all because we can’t put that pressure on them. But once adults have been notified, they need to stand up. They need to be the upstanders, they need to do better,” she said through tears during a gut wrenching interview as part of Charlotte’s Wish documentary.

Charlotte’s Wish honours the dying wish of Charlotte O’Brien, who at age 12 ended her life after relentless bullying. In a final suicide note to her parents she asked them to raise awareness

“If we need to give educators more education on how to stop this, then that’s what we need to do. It’s got to be adults being the adults now, because Charlotte never gets to be an adult.

“She doesn’t get to learn how to drive. She won’t go to Macquarie University, will never get to Disneyland.

“She was just so kind and so sweet, and she just wanted an upstander. She would get into the car with tears rolling down her cheeks saying ‘mummy mummy they are all bystanders I just need someone to be an upstander’.”

The bear filled with Charlotte’s ashes.

Kelly says her daughter’s death was “senseless and totally avoidable”.

Now all she has left are the memories - her little girl on the night she died eating her favourite creamy pasta, hugging her baby brother Will before skipping off to have a shower and go to bed.

Now that her bedroom is missing its soul, Kelly is determined to decorate it for Christmas, just like she did for Halloween, just like Charlotte would have wanted “and expected”, she says with a smile.

And of course she has Charlie Bear who she holds tight. The fluffy bear the family decided to fill with Charlotte’s ashes, so they could cuddle her and keep her close.

The moment Kelly was given the bear.

Charlotte’s death has shone a much-needed spotlight on some horrifying statistics that the rate of youth suicide has close to doubled since the iPhone first went on the market.

In 2006, a year before the first iPhone was released and at a time when social media was a way to keep in touch with friends and not a way of life, 55 young people committed suicide in Australia.

In recent years that number has jumped dramatically, including rising to 100 deaths in 2020.

What is just as concerning as the rising youth suicide rate, is the skyrocketing rate of kids who are self-harming - with estimates suggesting for every child that commits suicide, 200 other children make an attempt.

“We need to look at policies across every school, public, private, Catholic, make them all universal, make them all the same and make all the adults act like the adults,” Kelly said.

“I’m not an expert, but if someone’s being ostracised, do we say, OK, well the whole class needs to stay in for lunch now until we just have these little ways to make people better?

“If you bought a peanut butter sandwich to school you would immediately have it removed from you. If you bought it a second day, I guarantee you they’d call home a third day, you’d be in a lot of trouble. There’s no EpiPen for children like Charlotte.

“We just need adults to step in and be adults, treat this seriously.”

Santa Sabina College declined The Sunday Telegraph’s request for an interview.

Professor Ian Hickie, co-director, health and policy at The University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre is a global leader in mental health research and says “talking openly with kids about the impacts of self-harm and suicidal behaviour is essential to reducing the risks.”