I Want You To Know

Dear predator,

Maybe you weren’t in your right mind, maybe you learned this behavior, maybe you were trying to see if you could get away with it. No matter why I want you to know...

The blame is all on you. Do you have any idea how much damage you have caused our son, our family?

I never knew how deeply one could feel anger. Today, as I sat once again in the therapist office, my heart burst and anger, so much anger, spewed out. All he said was I gave up, l stopped fighting him. How do we explain to him he did nothing wrong? When you preyed on him, trapped him more and more each day.

Our son no longer sleeps peacefully.We rarely see him smile. He won’t attend church. Struggles even more now with family functions. You knew he was on the Autism Spectrum. Do you know how far you set back his therapy?

Do you feel shame? As a teacher you were meant to help my son but instead you stole his education. He has missed over 200 days in the past past 2 years. My son is extremely intelligent and has past every class including honors math with an A or B despite these absences. Except science. You stole this from him. Science was his escape. When stressed he would watch science videos then he would say mom did you know...now, we don’t talk about science. He talked about going to college. Now we are discussing early graduation, waivers to skip his remaining science credits, possibly allowing him to withdraw and take his high school equivalency exam. 

But it’s not about his schooling. We will love whatever he chooses to do with his life. We just miss our boy. His autistic mind can not see how to find hope. Our family is giving everything we have to hope enough for him too.

Do you know what you have stolen? Holidays, vacations, just sitting around the table at dinner together. Do you know the financial burdens you have caused? We are behind in all our bills to cover weekly therapy. 

But his schooling, our finances, these do not matter. We want to see him find peace, to know he will be okay because right now when we look at his face, we see defeat and pain. 

I want you to know...This is what you have done.

I pray one day you acknowledge the damage you have caused. I believe whether or not we see justice, our son will get through, one day we will see the joy back in his smile. We will not allow our son to be your victim. We will tell our son how sorry we are, because you don’t. We tell him every day how much we love him even though we do not hear those words back. 

I want you to know...he will survive, learn it is safe to speak out, learn you are the only one who should feel shame.

Sincerely,

My broken but healing family

If you or someone you know has been sexual abused. Please reach out and speak up. Find healing and hope. 

For more information contact:

www.rainn.org