CR spoke with Emma Weaver about her Mum's suicide

Emma: It affected every part of my life. My Nan came and looked after us for a long time and she had got different ideas to what my Mum would have had. I didn't always wear the right clothes because I didn't have anybody to advise me or to get me the clothes. My Nan just didn't know. It wasn't her fault, she wasn't aware of what teenagers needed in that sense.

Heather: What about schooling? Did your schoolwork suffer as you went on and grew up through school?

Emma: Schoolwork wasn't affected by my Mum at all. I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to prove myself to my Mum and say, "Look what I've done", but what did affect school was being bullied; that really affected school.

Heather: What sort of bullying was it?

Emma: It was just verbal abuse, but verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse a lot of the time because it sinks really deep inside you and it really affects the way that you're able to think about yourself; your own self worth. After years of being verbally abused you believe what you've been told. It's the inward spiral of yourself; of your own downward feelings and its not nice. It's terrible to feel so isolated; because yes I've got my Nan, but I wasn't like the others. Verbal abuse stung and it really affected me as a person. It affected how I looked at myself. It wasn't about what other people thought of me; I believed what they were saying about me. It became like a real thing inside of me because of what people had said.

Heather: How long did that go on for and how did you eventually deal with it?

Emma: I think it went on in high school from year seven until about 10. In year 10 I found my voice and I wouldn't stand for it anymore. In year 10 I found a voice and I wouldn't allow that to ever affect me in the same way anymore. People could say stuff and I wasn't going to let it get to me the same. It was really good actually.

Heather: Through all these tragedies did your relationship with God continue?

Emma: It continued in the fact that I never blamed God for what had happened. I didn't understand what had happened, but I never blamed God for it; but over the time from my Mum's death I do feel that I lost a connection with God. That was just something that I did. I went to church on a Sunday and it was just something that I did. I was allowing God to be God on a Sunday. Nobody else knew about it and it was just a Sunday thing and it wasn't very personal. If I wanted God I knew he was there and if I was in an emergency I'd call out to God, but it was nothing other than that. It was just Sundays and just emergency calls.

Heather: So in terms of dealing with the bullying, your relationship with God wasn't helping you deal with the bullying at the time, it was just going to church on a Sunday?

Emma: No not at this time. It was just me living a life knowing of God, but not knowing about him; not letting him have a reality in my life. It was so distant; it was so far apart from where God wants us to be. It was just like me acknowledging God exists but not allowing it to affect me in any way.

Heather: When you came to the end of school and you were looking at what direction to take in life, what happened then? How did you make your decision?

Emma: I have always loved children and children's work as long as I can remember. All I ever wanted to do was to be a teacher. I finished school with good grades and I went to college dreaming of being this teacher. Then I went to university and hated it. I really didn't like learning in that way and it surprised me because all I'd ever wanted was to be a teacher, but I didn't like it. I really felt like a failure because of leaving what I'd always planned to do. Leaving those ambitions made me feel like such a fool really and I felt that I was going to let people down. This is where God was really speaking to me again. This is where my connection with God gets a bit more in my face. I wasn't allowing it just to be in the sidelines. It was hard dropping out of university because I was so scared of what people would think of me, but then God was speaking into my life and saying, "It's not what people think of you, it's what I think of you and who you are in me". That was a really special message to me, that it didn't matter what other people's opinions of me were, but what God's opinion of me is and that's just wonderful. That was a time of testing, but a time where I was really being spoken into by God. I think in my relationship with God I was aware of it; I was aware that I was so disconnected from him and I was aware that I wasn't living a life that I should have been. I wasn't a bad person. I didn't ever do anything terrible. I was living a life away from where God wanted me to be though.

Heather: So it was your response to God in that situation that helped you to get back on track with your relationship with God?

Emma: That was the start. That was the start of such a bigger thing though, like me hearing God saying, "It's not their opinion it's mine"; that was just me thinking, ah God loves me. It was a realisation of God really loving me. I still loved children's work even though I couldn't carry on with university and we were doing a children's camp and on the weekend before it started, I was praying and I was thinking, "How on earth can I teach children about God when I'm so disconnected from him? How can I be truthful?" I didn't want to lie about anything. I didn't want to deceive these children, but I wanted to be real. I wanted them to see that it was real in me. The weekend before the camp starts I was praying to God, "God how can I do it if I'm disconnected from you?" I was praying for God to focus my eyes back on him; focus my life back on him. It was a night of no sleep, but it was a night where I was really pouring my heart out to God. I really know from that point that I understood that I was so far apart. Leading up to that point I didn't realise how far away from God I was, but then I realised how close I should be, and it was just wonderful.