Four years ago today I was assaulted. It was a day that changed my life and a day that will always be with me. As a letting go moment this year I wrote a letter to my attacker. I may never be able to forgive her, but I can let it go. I can let it sail in the water out of sight and out of my life. I am choosing to do that today on this four year long long journey I have been on. You can’t let go of something until you are ready, until you have completed the journey in full, until you have road the waves and have come in to shore safely, and you have let the the waves go back to the ocean, and with pride know you’d didn’t die in the water, but completed the ride in one piece.
……TODAY I HAVE FINISHED MY JOURNEY AND I AM I CHOOSING TO LET IT GO.
2/26/2014
Dear Ms. Attacker,
I am writing this letter to you as part of my healing process. It has been four years today that you assaulted me both physically and professionally. It is something that drastically changed my life and my health and was an act that scared for the rest of my life. I have a permanently damaged hand, arm, shoulder from where you beat me with your fists on the afternoon of February 26. I also have post traumatic stress disorder from you accusing me of child abuse and Milwaukee Public Schools putting my through 19 months of hearings, school board meetings, testimony, and finally arbitration. I lost 10 weeks of work with out pay and it left me with no way to pay my bills or my mortgage. It was hell. Nothing but pure hell. Then during that process MPS froze everything about me, my pay, my rights, my life and forced me to work in a building with you for three years. I had to go to special counseling to learn how to face my attacker and if I wanted a job, I had to work in the same building as you….the person who so assaulted me so badly that my had is permanently damaged. This year I had surgery on my hand trying to alleviate the pain and get the feeling back in it but I am still very disabled with it. I had to live with you running after me calling my name like nothing happened and when you did that I would be covered in sweat and look like I just showered. I would drip with sweat fearing for my life. It was a long long three years. Surviving was more then I could stand …..I died a little each day. There was no way I could master the fright or flight response, I tried. I still go to therapy once a month to try and deal with being a victim.
I know you lost your temper and assumed something happened that did not happen, but you are a professional and you were my friend. You know that I would never injure or hurt a child…. ever. How could you accuse of that much less assault me so badly that I lost use of my dominant hand? I also can’t go in crowds or public places without being accompanied by someone. I can’t sleep at night without sleeping pills, I couldn’t eat and lost 50 pounds. My stomach, nerves and intestines will never be the same. I will never be the same. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it’s not true. There is very little left of me.
I have lived with a lot of things and many deaths of family and friends, I always took that next step and went on but I can’t get past if there was a moment in time I regret, it was you assaulting me. Do you even understand that Durango was afraid of you and he wouldn’t let go of me? When you kept hitting me over and over I had a 120 pound weight on my arm and my arm was in full extension….and he wouldn’t let go. You picked him up, slung him over your hip with his arms outstretched to me yelling “save me teacher”. It damaged him and it damaged me. Neither of us will ever be the same. I will never know what you were thinking or what happened with you but you changed my life forever. Why would you even consider hitting me over and over? You know me, I would never hurt one of my kids. Why would you think you could just pound on me like that? I will never understand that, never in a million years…..and then expect me to talk to you like it was nothing. Do you understand what you did to me and how badly you injured me? my life? my career and my health? This is my healing letter. I hope after I tell you how badly you hurt me I can let this moment in time go and live with limitations it caused in my life.
victim
Note: it took 19 months of hearing, of listening to how terrible I was ( which was made up) and arbitration but I was found innocent of her charges. Nothing was ever done to the teacher that attacked me.
My hand today and next to the photo of my hand after I was assaulted.
