Watching the Unschooling Pieces Crumble - Part 4 of Dealings With a Guru

Empty Apologies

WARNING: This may contain what some people call a rant. I am responding to several topics that have been brought to my attention. If you are looking for more information from others that lived it, you will want to skip this one and wait for those blogs. If you continue to read on, it is at your own risk and you may need to wash your eyes out with bleach.

Whew, it has been an active 7 days for me. I began writing my blog last Thursday morning and the whirlwind has not stopped yet. I am happy to be done with school for a few weeks. This will allow me time to truly get caught up and wrap up the bulk of what needs to be said. I have thought about having a blog for years, but I never took the time to do it. Being in a master’s program kind of takes the fun out of new challenges sometimes. My hope is that this blog will turn in to the truth about our family, as a whole, and not just about the fallen guru. I do not expect anyone to follow me, at all. It will only be a reflection of who we are and a bit about our planned travels. I would like to remind everyone again that my love for radical unschooling is the reason I am even writing any of this down and sharing. I believe the reign of Dayna may come to an end, so that all of us can trust our own voices and support each other. Just like in unschooling, we claim to be equal to our children, so let us reflect to our children, that gurus are not necessary and we can trust ourselves over anyone else claiming to have the answers. Only you have the answers for you. Never forget your power and the absolute gift you can give to the world by reflecting freedom and love in every relationship. Do not take shit from anyone, whether they are blood or not. Family can, so many times, be the cruelest of them all, so if you have that in your life, know that you have permission to let those unhealthy relationships go. You owe nothing to anyone. Celebrate your strengths and know you are the only you out there. It is your life purpose to be fully you!

I keep thinking that my posts will get much shorter, but this may be another long one. Dayna and her followers literally hand me things to reflect on each day, so it doesn’t take long for my list of topics to get out of control. One of the things that was mentioned to me was for me to present a bit of a bio about myself. It was thought that it would lend credibility to my story, but I don’t know if I see it that way. I really am just a person who had an experience who decided to do something about it, so if you don’t care about my background, please skip the rest of this paragraph. It is less than exciting. I am 41 years old, have been married for 12 years, and have 2 daughters ages 13 and 9. My life changed when I got pregnant the first time, when I married my soul mate, and when I read the book, “Conversations with God”. I was introduced to democratic schooling in that book and that was it. OMG, you mean we have another choice? I spent 3 years opening my own democratic school in Texas. Got as far as funding a place to open and all 500 families disappeared the moment I asked them each for $10 to rent the space for a month. I was crushed. I turned to the dark side and started nursing school. It would pay well and I could work for someone else and not have to try so hard. Our daughters started at a very small private and freedom based school and we were society for a few years. Nursing for me? Did not work. I am way too empathetic to work in an ICU. I take on everyone else’s junk and it wrecked me. Meanwhile, or oldest was diagnosed with multiple disorders, I was afraid of her, and knew I had to do something about it. I stopped working. I removed my kids from school, and we restarted the journey I had given up on years before. We have been unschooling for 5 years now. My daughter has nothing wrong with her. It took a few years, but the child inside was regained and she is a strong, beautiful person. Our youngest wasn’t tainted too much from school, so her path has been way easier. I fell in love with my family again and I could never ask for anything more. I did decide to return to school for several reasons, though. I wanted to use my current degree for something and I wanted to be able to support my family while we are on the road, so I am receiving my master’s degree in nursing informatics. This will enable our family to travel while I do contract work, wherever the wind takes us. When I say that I have researched something, what I mean is that I have the ability to perform master’s level research. I am also quite familiar with the law surrounding online activities, so I am in no danger of backlash from those who do not understand my rights. In addition, I am an educated nurse who could have never be told, “hey, I am sick, can you take me to the hospital” and turn around and ignore it. What would be the purpose? With the way Dayna was acting, do you not think I would have driven her anywhere she wanted, just to get her away from my home, in peace? Her pleas for help are for attention. She never claimed sickness until she had to cover her actions for her husband and then the story just kept going. I will discuss suicide in more detail down the line, but please know that Dayna threatens suicide any time she is in a rough place. Again, I think my story matters very little in any of this. I am a person who is sharing a very dark truth about someone because they would not get help or stop the abuse toward others.

I have been asked to share the apology letter that she sent to me after she got home and told everyone I refused to care for her and I am the one causing all of the problems in WLU. I knew the instant that I read it, that nothing we agreed upon would be happening on her end. This is when I blocked Dayna, Joe, and all of their children, because I knew they would just use the kid’s accounts to get to me and violate me further. It is also shortly after that I sent Josha a note saying that I would not be able to involve myself in the conference because Dayna is not taking positive actions and that is when I saw she copied my note and sent it to Dayna. If you have read blog 2, you know how well that went over and about the fun conversation they had about my “sad” life. So, here it is:

Dayna Martin

I've been thinking about what to say to you for days now.
The more I heal and wake up from this dream/nightmare, the more clear I become about what to say. Sorry isn't enough and saying what you want to hear isn't something I want to do with anyone anymore. One thing was, that I want to take responsibility for all that happened, without blaming being sick, being drunk, being confused, in pain, in a breakdown, but I can't because it all played a part.
I was completely out of alignment with my true self, since the beginning of all of it. It was never truly me, even though I thought maybe it could be.
I only wanted to be happy and feeling Kevin's kindness was such contrast to how I was treated much of the time. It was maybe never about him at all. Or you.
The feelings were all so overwhelming and brought to the surface of my being. Shit that was surpressed since I was a little girl, experiencing the fear of loss and that pain of that.
Anyway... What I have learned from all of this is:

I really don't want to tell people what they want to hear anymore to be loved and respected. I don't want to attempt to live up to someone else's expectations of me, becasue it truly isn't me. I don't want to make choices that feel bad from the beginning. If it is pain, it isn't love. I want to not have casual sex anymore. Ever. Without a loving, completely non-fearful, honest relationship, it will never be right. I never, for the rest of life, want to hurt anymore again like I hurt you all.

When I was there, I was not me. Period. I don't know who I was. I was lost, and tried everything to escape the pain of that. I couldn't see a way out of what we had created. I did not want to leave my husband, but things had gotten so deep, I simply had a complete and total breakdown. I am truly sorry you had to bear my suicidal, out of control moments. I do not remember 50% of that entire trip. The last few days are flashes of memories. I have no desire to remember any of what I blocked out. I am sorry you have to be the one to hold those memories in your heart, Jen.

I truly don't want our friendship to end, but I completely understand if it has. I still feel love and connection on some level. Maybe it is on the level of like a bond experiencing something so profound together. It was a turning point in my life, and I am a different person from this point on. I don't wish to drink anymore, have any other relationships other that with Joe, I never want to have an open one, engage in other stuff with Joe either.

I want to find out who I really am and convey that to the world. This year has been so scary and huge for me. I don't expect you to understand, but I do hope you can forgive me, someday.

I truly hope you never feel the need to share publicly what we all went through together. I can't say I am fearful of that, because I know you are kinder than that and know that there is still some level of love or family between us. I think there always will be.

I want to invite you to be involved in as little or as much of my Unschooling stuff as you want to be - both of you. I think we can get back to where we all were last year. If not, please know I totally respect and understand.

Anyway.... I just needed to tell you that you did not deserve holding the space for my complete and total breakdown and loss of self and loss of reality. You were both two of the greatest "teachers" of my life, in so many ways and I want to thank you for that.

In the end, know that I want to be the most authentic me I can be and hope you know my deeply sorry I am.

Please don't write back, for obvious reasons. I will just imagine in my head that you are feeling a little better from this and that the world, and all who I connect with in the future will see a better me now.

I love you guys.
Dayna

So, my responses to this empty letter…….

·         What you have had is a few days to think up this crap you call an apology while you continued to badmouth me to your other “best friends” you say bad things about.

·         So you want to take responsibility, but you can’t. Why even add that sentence?

·         You are not out of alignment with yourself when you don’t even have a self. You are a shell that holds the characteristics you have taken on from other people.

·         Yes, I agree Kevin is very kind and dealt with you way longer than he ever needed to. He is kind whether your husband treats you like crap or not. You don’t just use people to get what you want and then throw them under the bus the second they aren’t in earshot.

·         You keep mentioning your childhood, so please enlighten us on your childhood. This way it is finally out in the open and all can see which story you are going to stick with this time. Were you treated like shit by your mom? Did your uncle go to rehab and leave you homeless? Did you really tour with multiple rock bands and feel like one of the gang? Did your mom really send you to rehab because she didn’t like the music you listened to? Which one? Feel free to elaborate because it is obvious that is your go-to excuse for your actions. And while we are at it. Josha has now publicly admitted she had a tough childhood as well. I suppose I need to add the fact that I was molested for 9 years by my step father and my mother ignored my plea for help. You know what? I don’t take it out on other people, so stop treating people like shit because you never got help in the first place.

·         I agree with you that if it is pain, it is not love. But why did you not say that here? My memory tells me that you made reference to love not even existing and that it is all just a façade. And I do not believe you are hurting for a second. You are sorry you got caught.

·         I don’t think your time here was a turning point. You did nothing different. You did not go home and work on you. You did not take responsibility and you sure didn’t have any idea that this would be the real turning point, did you? This right here. It is real.

·         I applaud you for your decision to never drink again, although, sadly this did not change who you really are inside. And I am sure that Joe appreciates your decision to be monogamous to him finally. You guys can renew your vows and you can say, no, really really this time. I am very happy about one thing, though. I will never ever receive another nasty message from you and Joe telling me to eat my Wheaties because he is gonna wreck me. I loved how you threw me under the bus on that one, thinking you could then have my husband if I and Joe were occupied. I am as open as they come on the subject of sex, but that one sided conversation had me throwing up in my mouth a little.

·         I love the persuasion to keep me quiet. It must have worked because you definitely showed me the person I can become when put in this position. I guess I grew a little from the experience too. Do not mistake me as family because we are not.

·         Please don’t write back for obvious reasons. Really? Now that we are sharing all of our feelings, please tell me what those obvious reasons are because it was obvious to me that you meant you didn’t want Joe to know what really happened because he might beat you. Feel free to expand on that because now that you are home, Joe seems to be the most loving guy around. Might I remind you that you told multiple children not to contact you because Joe would hurt you. Are you lying to children or are you lying to everyone else. Pick one.

·         “I will just imagine in my head that you are feeling a little better from this and that the world, and all who I connect with in the future will see a better me now.

·         I love you guys.
Dayna”

·         I cannot express how happy I am that you can imagine I feel better. How great for you. Go back in to your fairy world and let everyone else deal with the crap you so easily left behind, since you can’t remember half of it and just can’t bear to.

Regarding the legalities of sharing. Sorry guys, what I am doing is not illegal. This crap literally happened to me. It is my story to share. For any of you crying libel and slander, it has to be proven to be false. Dayna cannot do that and if needed, the authorities have full ability to log any conversation that ever took place on a computer. Yes, even if you have deleted it, so involving the authorities will get nothing accomplished except to prove my own case more fully. I am simply responding to the things that you said about me or that involve me. Why did you give me so much material? In addition, when Dayna was here on the first visit, she was on my ipad and then handed it back to me. I said oh, I will log you out, and she said that she didn’t care if I kept it open and read her stuff because it is all just she would have told me anyway. I had verbal permission to read whatever I wanted to because she would always be honest with me. Pfftt! To cover my opinion on the fact that Dayna left her facebook open on 8 devices in our home, I will copy what I put on my facebook wall this week…….

“Not looking at a facebook page that is left open when you are concerned about the safety of multiple people, emotionally or physically, would be like a paramedic not checking at a car accident or watching a baby drown and saying, eh, the mom will get it. Whatever people. I did something about it. Pick something else as your go-to bad thing that occurred on my end. Your argument is not valid. And all the stupid legal terms that are thrown out.....check your law books. You would incur thousands of dollars in lawyer costs to go to court to fight the TRUTH and lose. So, either you are so broke, you can't even get cake pops at the store or you have the money to pay for lawyers AND refund RE registrations. Which is it? I have proof, get over yourself, and get the very clear fact that I am sending here. The REAL truth is what I seek and the refunds are a pretty close second to that. You are doing this to yourself. You have ruined your own reputation with little help from me. I am only your facilitator.”ll the stupid legal terms that are thrown out.....check your law books. You would incur thousands of dollars in lawyer costs to go to court to fight the TRUTH and lose. So, either you are so broke, you can't even get cake pops at the store or you have the money to pay for lawyers AND refund RE registrations. Which is it? I have proof, get over yourself, and get the very clear fact that I am sending here. The REAL truth is what I seek and the refunds are a pretty close second to that. You are doing this to yourself. You have ruined your own reputation with little help from me. I am only your facilitator.

Because I mentioned RE refunds, I would like to interject a piece of information I learned a few moments ago. When Patti paid for the unnanny services the second time, she was directed to pay through paypal to Willow Toys. When Patti received her partial refund, she was refunded through paypal from The Rethinking Everything Conference. You guys figure that one out. The missing part here is that Patti has still not received the rest of her refund from the unnanny visit and has not been refunded the registration fee for RE that we have requested multiple times.

I am ending this one here. I have many more things I need to respond to. Blog 5 will be posted pretty soon after this one, so I can respond to Dayna’s blog 1 and the comments.

Jen