The Blessing of a Good Teacher - WHY Teachers Shouldn't Blame Themselves for Everything.

Sometimes I wonder if my "telling all" like I do is actually more selfish than anything else. I'm able to purge some bad memories by writing about them, and I manage to reach a lot of people who think I'm terribly brave for sharing my story. Of course I don't do it for the praise - and in fact I'm terrible about taking compliments as they're meant to be taken. Still, when I talk about the past and when I tell the entire world about what I went through, does it hurt the people who knew me then? There aren't many, but there are a few of them still around.


One of my most favorite people is a teacher who knew how to handle kids with behavioral issues when I was in the fifth grade. He's a friend of mine on Facebook, and he's been incredibly kind since I found him online several years ago. Still, I can't help but to notice he's never commented on or acknowledged any of my lengthy posts about the abuse I suffered or how I came back from Hell a stronger person. I have to wonder if that's because it hurts him in some way. I've asked, but I have yet to receive a response. Maybe he's like me and needs time to process. Maybe it's too hard to say. I can't imagine what it must be like to be a teacher, helping to raise someone else's children every year, trying to guide them through life, helping them to make the right decisions, teaching right and wrong. A teacher does so much more than teach writing and arrhythmic. As much as I learned from him, does he ever feel like there was more he could have taught?


I did a good job, even at that young age, to hide the abuse I'd been suffering through. No child is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but what would have been different if I'd told someone what I was going through? Would I have been taken away and put in foster care at a younger age? Would my family have received the counseling they needed? Would certain family member have been forced to own their mistakes and admit to what they'd done to one another, to themselves, or to me? What IF I had told my beloved teacher about the abuse? Would I have been believed? Chances are, no. There were many times through the years when my parents were reported for abuse, even times when I denied it vehemently (rightfully so in those times), and no matter what they always ruled that it was a safe home and I would go back. Even when I was in foster care at 17 years old, they eventually sent me back home saying that there was no proof of abuse after a 'thorough' investigation where nobody ever talked to me or asked me a single question.


To all the teachers out there who have ever had students later in life admit to suffering abuse before, during or after their time with that teacher, I want to let you know - just like all the victims and survivors out there - it's not your fault. You did nothing wrong. You can't read minds. There's no way you can know if a child is being abused 100% of the time. If you see marks and bruises, that's one thing. But there are many forms of abuse that will never leave a single mark on a child. The abuse is not your fault. The inability to report what you can't see isn't your fault. The abuse itself is not your fault. NONE of it is your fault.


YOU are innocent. Keep doing what you do. Keep shaping those young minds. Keep working to guide and teach the kids, just the way you did for me. In the end, when I'm looking back on my life, you were one of the few good memories of that time. I wouldn't take that away for anything in the world. I needed a good teacher - and there you were.

P.S. - I'm the one in pink.