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Old 04-02-2012, 06:40 PM
  # 64 (permalink)  
wanttobehealthy
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Join Date: Mar 2011
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here's the more detailed version of this morning... i couldn't post it all while at work...
i have to say that feeling the freedom that comes from having the worst imaginable thing happen, get publicized and now having survived it and have the support of others -- well, i feel really strong and like i can conquer anything. i am ready to fight and feel empowered and it's nice for a change to not feel like i'm a victim.

so here's the whole story:

the school i work at is part of a larger organization and there's one executive dir for the whole place. she and the board make all decisions about anything significant. so, this exec director is the woman i went to meet with today.

all weekend M (my boss who is the principal of the alternative school) told me she had no idea whether i would have a job or not and that the exec director and the board had to meet with the lawyer for the umbrella organization to determine what to do.

so i went in today not sure whether i'd have a job or be fired. i was praying it would be the former but wasn't feeling good about it at all. i was expecting the worst and prepared myself for it.

i got there and the exec director hadn't yet arrived. she came in a few minutes later and was friendly and warm and i felt better instantly. we sat down in her office with her pulling a chair up next to me and she patted my arm and right off the bat said that while she didn't know me well, she knew that there was no way i was guilty and that in her experience (she is older) many many abused women get set up by their abusers and she's seen more than a few women arrested just like me in her lifetime and she knew right away what the real story was.

i was stunned (in a good way). she hardly knows me, doesn't know AH at all and believed me without my ever saying a word. my boss M had apparently told her what she knew and unbeknownst to me, my colleages (all of whom had been emailed about the article by M over the weekend) all wrote letters to the exec director over the weekend saying that i was wonderful and the kids love me and they all love me and that there's no way i would do anything i was accused of. people i barely know all standing up for me. just amazing.

so the kind, caring, amazing exec director and i talked for well over an hour and she said she knew a little about personality disorders and that what i was going through with AH sounded to her like classic narcissistic personality and borderline personality (both diagnoses fit AH's behavior to a 'T'). she said that it was her thinking that when someone finally divorces and breaks free from crazy men like AH that that's when they usually get worse (got him pegged!) and she said that reading the article there's no way anyone should think that i was the guilty party. (i thought that was a stretch bc i think i sound guilty in it but that's an aside!)

she kept asking what she could do to help and i explained that i have a lawyer and what he was doing and she told me that the umbrella organization has lawyers on retainer and if i ever need to speak to another attorney to let her know and they would help with advice.

she also told me that she is good friends with the man who is the executive director of an organization similar to the one she runs that is here in my town. i know this man bc AH and i worked for him once (not sure if my current exec director knows that). anyway, he has a lot of connections in the education world and she told me that unless i had an issue with it (and i said i sure didn't) that she would like to share some of this with the the exec director of the program in my town so that he can perhaps influence some of the lie spreading that AH surely will try to do here in town.

i can't really capture how amazing the meeting with her was but she was more caring and compassionate and totally GOT it about AH than i could have ever imagined.

she apologized (which was unnecessary) for making me a stress case all weekend but said that she had to meet with the board and the lawyers before she could assure me my job was secure even though she wanted to tell me it was safe from the get go.

she assured me over and over that my job was totally secure from now until forever and that she was amazed at the job i did at the huge re-accredidation presentation i did last week considering all i have going on. she was really complimentary and kind and i assured her that my personal crap would not impact work anymore at all and she continued to tell me that if there was anything she could do to help, she would. she offered that i could send D4 to the day care/pre-k that is at the main building of the umbrella organization and said that she will set the record straight with anyone who brings up the article.

it was totally the opposite of what i expected and i feel blessed (and i am NOT religious at all) to have such an amazingly caring boss and boss's boss. my colleagues were amazing today too...

so, that's the story...

remarkable huh?!

this is a job i was hesitant to take bc it is not a public school and last fall when i was offered it (after being unemployed due to budget cuts) i was worried about things like salary and benefits not being as good as a public school. i can tell you that there's NO way a public school administrator wouldve been like my exec director was. she was amazing.

she told me over and over that everyone has issues, everyone has skeletons and that my being forthright and totally open about what the whole story is was honorable and brave and made her respect me more than she already did. i almost was crying at that point.

i feel blessed-- in spite of all the crap that has gone on, i recognize that things could be so so so much worse tonight. i still have my job, i have my girls, i have the support of people who have no reason to support me (they have known me only since late october) and i can see how much more fortunate i am than i could be right now...

so... maybe things are starting to look up?
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