So sad in my little part of Paradise. The news is not good. A young woman of 19 lost her life yesterday whilst walking her dog. A taxi swerved onto the pavement after colliding with a car and knocked her over. The driver of the car is 15, and his victim was only 19. I am so disturbed that I feel completely irritated and out of sorts with the daily grind. In addition to this tradegy, we heard of another fatality to the swine flu, this time very close to home, also a young person.

What is happening to the world, when young people succumb without living their lives fully. My own dear daughter is leaving home again.

I wrote her a letter that I will not give to her. I am so worried about her as she is not fully functional due to her ongoing problem with a major depressive disorder. The letter detailed all the things that make me believe she is not ready to leave home and cope in the real world.

What is the real world? Plenty of work, responsibility, time-tables and the constant round of eating, deciding what to wear, and self assessment of whether or not we got it right. The vicious cycle of needing money and skills in order to survive.

She is back to basics of course. Without love nothing makes any sense, even getting out of bed in the morning is a heavy task. As I reflected on the events of the past week, I cannot deny her the right to be happy. Life is too short.

I want her to accomplish so much for her own self worth. She believes she can do all of this when she leaves home. I could not find a thread on this board to write down my questions about my child leaving home when she appears to be so unprepared.

How do I let go again?? Will she be okay...... She has a devoted partner who is willing to take her away with him to his family and a new job. They are both so young and have very little money. Just the stars in each others eyes and the will to succeed together. I have no right to hold her back.

I am going to pay for all her medical costs while she once again takes a big step into the real world. It is so very hard to know what is right.

I wlll let go again with grace. My own life will not be better for it, but there is the hope she will return, at least I have that.

Take good care, love from Eve

I was taught many years ago about undying love not separating us from things below nor things above. I was also taught that we must do unto others as we would be done by as strict religious mantra. What we are taught therefore is if we do something that does not match up to someone else's expectations we will be dammed into a pit for the rest of our lives. This pit is a euphemism for ostacism and condemnation.

This is a constant source of angst, when we feel beholden to other people's opinions and reactions to our own actions. So often we are misunderstood, rightly or most often, wrongly.

The ghosts and demons we are taught to fear are usually other people and the words they can use to discredit us with and sew complete mischief into the tapestry of our lives.

Why I am on this topic is because of the misery caused in our lives by a person who should have been a pinnacle of society. His very actions condemmed my daughter into a shadow of herself, shunned and ostracised by her peers and the community and not least of all the school where this man was a teacher.

Not everybody who know the full story took this action. The people with compassionate hearts who too had perhaps witnessed human fallibility or used the lessons of a truly ethical faith, which took nothing and gave all, understood how she had been abused and broken.

Years have passed and we have been cautiously optimistic that the therapy and medication are helping her to mend. She sleeps better than when she was at the university where even after four years, the flashbacks came back and tormented her with a vengeance. She smiles more, and every day even though sleeping for the best part, when awake she would partake in family activities.

No matter that the year started badly, she reassures me she learnt how to socialise with people and make new friends in the three months away from home. Notwithstanding the tablet episode at the unniversity, we believe she is making progress.

Healing is in the form of a new love, a young man who is devoted to her. She quietly explained her ordeal to him and the cause of her pain and loss of standing in the community. If one can truly believe, he is the next best to an Angel, for he takes no pleasure in condemming her ordeal, nor the barbs of his "friends" who can dredge up this story that was played down as much as possible in the early years whilst she was in the recovery phase. Why would one want to carry on the story if not to cause unhappiness to this entire family who have so willingly forgiven the perpetrator and his family and those who do not understand the cirumstances. Do we not deserve to move forward?

I am on the Neighbourhood Watch team, sending out warnings of criminals lurking in the vicinity and caring for the wellbeing of folks who would enjoy spreading gossip about my child and ruining her life further. I am confused with those who would pull up their noses at the "sins" of others that they do not bother to understand nor take action to prevent it happening again. We had a personal attack on our family in what was supposed to be the safest place for her, and yet the recogniseable criminals are the only demons we can fight? People do need to take the plank out of their own eyes before they comment on alleged splinters in others eyes.

Yes, she wrote a book. We have a web-page dedicated to her ordeal. I campaign constantly like a small thistle in the wind for a change in laws to prevent this type of abuse happening to our girls at school and in all walks of life.

This August is Women's Month in my country. My very fearless premier has spoken out against the abuse these girls endure before the age of 20. There is so much more awareness of the huge problem that has largely gone undetected in the bigger picture of a young democracy.

I do not agree with a gender campaign. I do however believe that the demons that walk amongst us are real people, alive and well and with agendas to cause as much mischief as possible. They are not always dressed a vagabonds, they are respectable and intelligent. We need to be vigilant and not take everything at face-value. They can be our leaders, role-models and teachers. Family members can also betray our values.

If I had been taught that in Church, a lot of what happened to my daughter could have been avoided.

There are Angels alive and among us too. We are blessed to have met one. The Healing will continue.

Take care, love from Eve