Harassed for seven years at school, Diane Lemaitre committed suicide at the age of 21, on May 5, 2016. The young Toulouse native left many writings discovered by her sister, Agathe, who drew Liana’s book, published by Harper Collins France (March 2023, 19 euros). The violence began in 6th grade, in college, with mockery about looks, glasses, good grades, before the harassers discovered in 5th grade that Diane is a lesbian.
Diane recounts this school harassment to a school nurse, who minimizes this violence by evoking “childishness”. Later, the young woman would write in her diary that she felt “desperately misunderstood and abandoned” during her years in college and then in high school.
Minimized violence
Once at the university, the violence stops. The young woman finds herself alone in her studio in Toulouse. She is living through this past in the worst possible way… No one in her family knows that the student is in the worst possible condition, the young woman not telling her family about it. Diane, who dreamed of becoming a writer, writes down her ailments, consults shrinks for depression, school phobia and post-traumatic stress. She is dismissed from legal proceedings, for lack of evidence. Diane develops a permanent fear, reinforced by the fact that one of her former bullies has moved to her neighborhood. The pain is getting too strong. Before her suicide, she wrote in her diary: “I affirm it loud and clear: words can kill (…) Words can heal, too”. It was from his notes and the investigation carried out after Diane’s suicide by her sister Agathe that Liana’s book.
In this podcast, which receives Agathe Lemaitre, the 30-year-old returns to the mechanisms of harassment, and the need to talk about this violence. “Mental health is not something that shows on the face, on the physical. And if we don’t ask the question, we can miss it, ”says Agathe Lemaitre in this episode. ” [Diane] chose not to tell her family about it, she told herself that she was going to ask for help from professionals trained to support children who were victims of school bullying rather than from her family who was going to be worried, and who was going to ask him if he was okay every five minutes. Maybe she didn’t want to have us on her back, ”regrets Agathe Lemaitre.
Thousands of students bullied
Like Diane, 700,000 students are on average victims of bullying each year in France, or two to three children per class. And one in four harassed people have thought about suicide, according to a UNICEF survey. Listen to Agathe Lemaitre in this episode, tell the story of Diane, and the need to fight this violence that kills every year.
Witness or victim of harassment, you can dial 3020 to report a case. This free number from all positions, and offers listening, advice and guidance to callers. 3020 can be reached from Monday to Friday, except public holidays, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. In the event of cyberbullying, you can dial 3018, a listening device for victims of online harassment and digital violence, accessible 7 days a week from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., free, anonymous and confidential.
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