Cheryle Gail & Donna Bulatowicz, Part Two. Educate Teachers- Prevention. Opendoor policy, volunteers in class room. Ask kids,"Tell me More"

00:00 Shows up. Yep, here we are. All right, part b. Cheryl Gail 59 years young. Today I'm recording this interview from Los Gatos, California.

00:13 And I'm Donna Bulatowicz I'm 45 years young, and I'm in Billings, Montana.

00:18 All right, and this is part B. Part a was a phenomenal interview with Donna, sharing with us the observable evidence. I'm going to use the word evidence, just a beautiful description that helps us all understand what is grooming. We hear the word grooming. So if you have a chance, please listen to that interview as well. And today we're going to start with going back to one of the things that I heard you say, which was that the reason that you told was your fear that another child might be harmed if you didn't. And I hear some version of that over and over and over again. And so I just want to explore how hard it was for you and a little bit more about your intuitive, instinctual longing to protect other children.

01:23 Thank you. Of course, I didn't tell when it was happening. There were ways I tried to tell, but the adults didn't hear me. Like when I told my parents she was too pushy right when I started telling them I didn't want to go to school. And this is from their child, who always wanted to be a teacher, who loved school, who was mad when she was sick. So that was very out of character. They just figured my teacher and I didn't get along because sometimes, to punish me, if I told her no, she would call my parents and tell them I was being disrespectful so that I would get in trouble at home.

02:00 Okay.

02:02 And she had threatened me so much that I was terrified to tell on her. And I couldn't find the words to explain what she was doing, especially not to another person, because there was so much shame bound up in everything. Over the summer, I went to my brother and I went to our grandparents farm up in northeastern Montana, like we always did in the summer. And my grandparents knew I was not the same. And my grandma kept trying to get me to tell her what was wrong, and I could just get out my teacher's name, and then I'd just start crying hysterically because my teacher had assured me my. My family would no longer love me if I had told on her.

02:44 Yeah.

02:45 So I was just absolutely terrified, especially because I was very, very close to my grandparents. So losing any of my family would be. Well, it is for any child. It's hugely traumatizing. On top of the trauma that was already there.

03:00 Yeah.

03:01 So then I started 7th grade, a very different child from a year before. I liked sitting in the back in the corner because then I could see everything. I didn't like anyone coming up behind me. I was absolutely horrified by having to change for PE because taking my clothes off at school had been very bad. So having to do that and having the female gym teacher in that locker room was horrible for me.

03:36 Yeah.

03:37 And then I thought about telling, but I just. I was too scared. And then one day it entered my head about halfway through the next year that if I didn't tell, she could hurt another kid.

03:54 Yeah. Yeah.

03:58 And so I got very worried about what was going to happen to someone else. I knew people who were in her class, and from what I could tell, she didn't have any favorites, so I didn't think anyone was being hurt, but that doesn't mean no one was. So I gathered up my courage and I went to talk to the school counselor who listened to me and new questions to ask.

04:32 Hmm. Can you give us a few of those? Yeah.

04:35 Yeah. When I told her that my teacher made me uncomfortable, she wanted to know more. Can you tell me more about that?

04:46 Great.

04:48 When I finally started just telling her a tiny little bit, like I said, my teacher put her arm around me and put her hand on my chest and started crying. She had asked me to repeat to make sure that she heard it correctly and then asked me if I knew that was sexual abuse. And I said yes. I was doubled over at that point, just crying. And she asked if anything else happened, and I nodded.

05:15 Okay. Yeah.

05:17 So she was eliciting more to know that more had occurred, but she didn't ask any leading questions. Just, can you tell me more?

05:28 I love that we can all practice that when a child's talking to us. Right. Can you tell me more about that?

05:34 Absolutely. Because that leaves it open for the child and it doesn't make the child think they have to say a particular thing that maybe they won't think you want to hear.

05:47 Yeah. Yeah.

05:49 Because, you know, kids do want to please adults.

05:53 Yeah.

05:53 So it's very important to remember when you talk to children to ask them open ended questions and general questions.

06:05 So I just want to quickly go back to your grandma because she recognized you weren't the same. You mentioned your teacher's name and you cried.

06:15 Yep. That's all I could get out. And she just would tell me that I can always tell her anything and that I'm always number one in her book, no matter what, you know, trying to reassure me. But I was just too terrified.

06:30 Yeah. And this is the part that I really want to have people digest, is how hard it is for children to speak up and say what's happening. And in your case, you had your dad, that was in the industry that started the sexual assault program in your town. You had your grandma saying, hey, honey, I love you, what's going on? And still, right? The fear. And it sounds like the threats were that you wouldn't be loved.

07:06 So the teacher threatened to kill my pets. I had two dogs. She threatened to kill them. She threatened to kidnap me and told me I'd never see my family again. She threatened to ruin my life, too.

07:20 Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a. It's. Can you imagine, prior to this thought coming into your mind, that, hey, I have to tell somebody else, otherwise another child might be harmed. Who in your family could have given you some reassurance that, babe, what's going on? What's happening? It, you know, like, what can we, as adults, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, do to reassure our children that we are safe to talk to?

07:59 Well, first of all, I think it's important to always listen to your kids if you can't right at the moment, because sometimes kids come and want to talk to you when you're in the midst of something else. Tell them, as soon as I'm done with this phone call, as soon as I'm done with this meeting, we will talk. And then listen to them, full attention on them, because everything they're telling you is important to them.

08:24 Right?

08:25 And if you listen with the small things, they'll tell you the big things, too, and ask more. If my parents had asked and they didn't know. So I'm not blaming them.

08:38 Of course not.

08:39 They had asked, like, can you tell me more? Why don't you like your teacher? Why don't you want to go to school? Why are you behaving this way? I may have been able to say, but probably not because the words would seem to get stuck in my throat, which is why I suggested in the last one, I want to repeat it because I think it's very important. Give kids options. Can you show me with your dolls? I had dolls. Can you show me with your dolls? What happens at school that upset you? Can you show me with your dolls why this happened? Like your teacher said, you were disrespectful. Can you reenact that for us? Can you draw it? And then I think I may have been able to, especially with the dolls, because when nobody can, could see me, I would, like, go in my room and I'd close the door, and I would reenact some things with my dolls to try to make sense of what she had done to me.

09:46 Yeah.

09:47 And then I would, like, beat the doll that was her on the floor and make her a little lego jail that I would put her in, but just things that would help me process what had occurred.

10:02 Yeah. And for boys, maybe it's action figures. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

10:08 Or stuffed animals.

10:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But some other way, other than words, because the words, you seem too hard to get out. Yeah.

10:18 Well, absolutely. Think about adults, though, too. I mean, when adults have consent, sensual sexual encounters, they don't go telling everybody about them in detail.

10:27 Yeah, yeah.

10:28 And that's. That would be hard for an adult to do with it being consensual.

10:33 Yes.

10:34 When it's not consensual, it's even harder. And when it's kid, your brain's not ready to process all of that.

10:42 Yeah.

10:43 And you don't have the vocabulary to explain what occurred.

10:48 Yeah. And had your parents sat down and been very open just about general sexuality and preparing you for menstruation and, yes.

11:00 They had given me a book about menstruation and about, like, just the basics of sex because I was a huge reader. I would read anything you put in my hand and then had a conversation with me after they'd read it first and then had a conversation with me to answer any questions, and they were very open to any questions that I had. So I was very lucky in that regard to have that. But of course, you know, when I'm reading it, I was like, okay, this is really gross, and I want nothing to do with this. So I didn't want to ask any questions because I just thought it was all so gross.

11:37 Yeah. And was that before you were harmed or.

11:41 That was before I was harmed. But, you know, that's. I've taught elementary kids get grossed out by that stuff.

11:48 Totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And so this is a great place. I just want to mention sex positive parenting.

11:56 Yes.

11:56 Because it has wonderful resources and so, you know, not only talking about the puberty, but all of our longings and sexual or animals were sexual. And so sex positive parenting is a great. To help us get comfortable. Right. So that there are more words to describe what's happening.

12:23 Absolutely. And not just relying on schools to teach the kids because, you know, there are those videos, or at least there were, that they would play and then the kids could ask the nurse any questions by writing them down on paper. Or whatever. But kids need to know that they can go to their family members.

12:45 Yeah.

12:45 Parents, guardians, whomever.

12:48 Yeah. Yeah.

12:49 Because especially now they'll find it out from the Internet, and you don't want them learning from the Internet.

12:54 Definitely. That's another good idea, is offering the kids, hey, honey, you know, write me a note. Yeah. Because some, some of us are writers and we process through writing, and so if a child's old enough to write, maybe they can say what's going on there, too.

13:12 Absolutely. And giving them something to write and that you don't invade unless you've got, you know, suspicion something very bad is happening. But giving them a private space to express their thoughts in words, drawings, etcetera, kids need that. And I did have a diary where I was writing down what she did, but she made me bring it in and she destroyed it.

13:43 Hmm. So the power over that she, she had was so much. And is there any thoughts about, like, how does somebody get that much power over children?

14:02 Well, first of all, she was an adult.

14:05 Yeah.

14:06 And this was, you know, 30 years ago.

14:08 Yeah.

14:08 And adults had absolute power over children. She was a teacher. Teachers had even more power, especially back then.

14:21 Yeah.

14:22 And she told me, like, that she knew what I was thinking. And, I mean, sometimes it was very easy to guess, I'm sure, but I really thought she knew what I was thinking, and so I thought I couldn't keep any secrets from her. Plus, she went through my stuff in my desk and my backpack, etcetera, very regularly.

14:44 Oh, okay.

14:46 We had a class journal where we would write a couple times a week, like, stuff about what we were learning and all that. And one day she had us write what we were feeling because I was flat out refusing to talk to her because I was so mad. And I wrote that I didn't like what she was doing to me.

15:03 Ooh, great.

15:05 So that ended up, of course, ripped out of my journal. And that's when she demanded to see my diary from home.

15:12 Oh, my goodness. Okay.

15:15 And she said that if I didn't give it to her, she'd just show up when my parents weren't there and take it. So I didn't feel like I had a choice.

15:25 Yeah. And the big learning here is teaching our children by action and words that, yes, we respect elders, except in different situations, and making it really, really clear.

15:42 Absolutely. I'm. Don't teach your kids blind obedience.

15:47 Yeah.

15:48 Like, if somebody is asking you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, it's okay to tell them no.

15:54 Yeah.

15:55 It's okay to come get another adult. Me or another adult?

15:59 Yeah. All right. Thanks for slowing all that down. And then talk to me about. Yeah, you tell me. What's the next. What would you like everyone to know?

16:18 I do want to talk a bit about the retaliation, because that significantly impacted me.

16:24 Okay.

16:25 When she was suspended and came back, she told all her students that she was gone because Donna Bulatowicz lied about her.

16:32 Right.

16:33 She told other teachers that as well.

16:35 Yeah.

16:36 So I was starting to get a reputation as a liar, even though I was the one who had told the truth.

16:42 Right.

16:43 But that increased bullying from students and some teachers. I had some teachers who were fantastic, but I. There were some who were engaging in bullying because they thought that I was destroying this poor woman. And it's never okay to do that, regardless of what you think. But that's why they were doing it. I made a couple of some hang up calls to her house because I wanted to ask her to stop. And then I would freak out and I'd hang up. But for whatever reason, she had a tap on her line and she charged me with harassment. And so I got in trouble. I got probation and community service, which seriously pissed me off because it's like I'm the victim. Yes. I should not have made those hang up calls to her house, but it wasn't. I didn't do anything egregious enough to get the punishment that I did. It felt to me like the police were helping her retaliate. Whether that's true or not, that's how it felt, because that's a lot for a few hang up calls. And that really upset me and terrified me. So I just quit talking about her at all. Like, I didn't talk to my friends, I didn't talk to my parents. I stopped saying much in therapy. So therapy ended because I was too scared what's going to happen next to me? And then she started passing around a paper at school to all my teachers that said some of the things I accused her of and then said some things that I never mentioned to the police that she did to me and said I accused her of that, too, but it wasn't in the police report. So she told on herself in the paper, basically. But she passed that around every year until I graduated from high school to all my teachers saying that I was crazy, that I was a liar, that I ruined lives, all these vicious, vicious lies. And so some teachers treated me pretty badly. She especially made sure that teachers who were associated with things that I loved, like music, would get that. And I was second chair in the top group my freshman year in high school, which is a pretty big deal.

19:14 Yeah.

19:15 And all of a sudden, I lost my place and went to the second row, and I couldn't figure it out until I heard about that paper being passed around there, too. So I could never get up again to where I should have been. And this is with other people in that same section saying, but Donna played better than anyone, so they stopped doing public tryouts, and we had to go into a room and play individually so that they could hide what they were doing. And several of my english teachers, not all, I had some phenomenal english teachers, but several of them trashed my creative writing to the point that I lost my writing confidence and didn't want to do any creative writing anymore. Academic writing was fine, but not creative. Because of that, I also no longer wanted to be a teacher, which I had forever before her. And through high school, it was incredibly hard with knowing all of that was being said about me.

20:30 Yeah.

20:30 And throughout middle school, too, it was hard knowing all of that was etcetera. It's hard to go to school each day knowing that people are being told these lies.

20:43 Yeah.

20:43 And then she sued us for defamation. Meanwhile, she is the one who defamed me. So we countersued, and I had to give an all day deposition. Her lawyers were absolutely horrible. It was incredibly traumatizing, and they would not allow a parent to be with me, so I was underage and they wouldn't allow a parent. So it was extremely traumatic. But afterwards, my lawyer told me that now her lawyers. No, I'm telling the truth. And that he was sure she was going to drop it. And sure enough, that happened.

21:28 Okay.

21:30 But that was something that was very hard and scary as well.

21:34 Definitely, yeah.

21:37 And she kept up retaliating, even my first year at college, because I stayed local at the time to where I was at the time. And she did not stop until I moved over a thousand miles away.

21:52 And this was all of the negative effects that you had to live with on a daily basis. What were the consequences of her actions for her? Yeah, yeah.

22:04 Did she ever. No, nothing. The only thing that I know of that was a consequence was with the lawsuit. She did end up in the paper. She. The. Our lawyer said that if, obviously, we have an unusual last name, and the lawyer said if you put her parents names and they're going to know who it is, so she's underage, you cannot put her name in. So they wrote about her and that a student had accused her of sexual abuse. So that was in the paper, but that was the only consequence that I'm aware of. She was at. She had been moved to a different school, a younger grade level, and a school that had a lot more hiding places, right. Where she could take kids so they didn't do what they should. But other than that, no consequences for her, as far as I know, for anything.

23:04 What would you have liked to have had happened? Can you, you know, for your health and, you know, just to. How. How would you like things to have gone?

23:20 I would have liked her to have had, whether it was jail or something else, where she could not harm another child, I would have liked her to. At the time, I didn't know that really. It's not. I mean, some can be rehabilitated, but a lot can't. And since she would never admit to what she did, I'm not sure she could have, but I would have wanted that to at least be attempted, and I would have wanted her to never be in a classroom again, to never have that power over kids again. But my entire goal, I didn't necessarily need her to be in jail. My entire goal is figuring out how to protect other little girls from her. And I would have liked some sort of apology or something, you know? And I would have really liked it if she didn't retaliate.

24:16 Yeah.

24:17 Because that made things so much harder. It was like she was continuing to abuse me for so many years.

24:28 And so the attempt at rehabilitation would be some forms of therapy and.

24:35 Yeah, but she would have had to be honest, and I don't know that she could. I mean, she told me that we were making love. I mean, she wouldn't admit what she was doing to me, even.

24:52 Mm hmm.

24:54 She saw it as something else entirely. Orlando claimed she did. One thing I do want to say is that my first year in college, I realized that she had taken so much from me, and I didn't want her to take anything else. So I decided that despite everything she had done, I was going to reclaim my dream of being a teacher. And so I became a teacher, and I taught elementary school and absolutely loved it. One, my favorite school that I taught at, and I want to share this just so that parents and guardians and teachers, etcetera, will know something that makes a school safer. In my favorite school, we had parent volunteers come in a lot or guardian volunteers or other family member volunteers. I had kids whose aunts or uncles came in, but all of our classrooms were open door classrooms. As long as they weren't disrupted, we had no problem with people coming in and even just being at the back of our classroom, like, hey, they're having trouble helping their kid with this math concept at home. So they wanted to come in during math and see how it was being taught to, or they just wanted. They liked hearing me read aloud. That happened a lot. So they would come in during the read alouds because they enjoyed the book or they were helping with science, or they were helping with small groups, with anything. But we had open doors. There was not a way at that school for someone to take a child off alone.

26:44 Fantastic.

26:45 Had so many adults.

26:48 Yeah. Great. And now, at least in our area, in order for a parent to volunteer, they're needing the background checks and the fingerprints and.

26:58 Which I completely understand in all four. But background checks don't catch sex offenders unless they've been convicted. Like, my teacher passed a background check.

27:09 Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

27:13 But having more adults, even if it's. You've got more paraprofessionals in the classroom to help out with the kids. But just. So it's not just one adult.

27:27 Yeah.

27:29 And one thing, too. Because of all that had happened to me, I was good at spotting kids who needed more encouragement, who needed, you know, something more. So I made sure, like, every day, no matter how many kids I had in my class, that I connected with just them, even if it was for 30 seconds to a minute, and that's all. But they got my undivided attention at some point every single day. And that made a huge difference for kids, too.

28:06 Absolutely. Great. So how did you get to the point? What helped you to reclaim your dream of being a teacher?

28:15 Just. I was all of a sudden when she started pulling stuff at my college campus, I was just sick of her. I was just done. I was like, you can't stop me from doing things anymore. I am an adult, not a little girl, and I'm still going to do this. But it was easier doing that over a thousand miles away.

28:40 Yeah. And did you do. Did you do any kind of specific.

28:47 Therapy or not at the time, I just really wanted to reclaim my dream.

28:56 Yeah.

28:57 And I actually didn't start going back to therapy until a year and a half ago.

29:04 Okay.

29:06 I had started having dreams of my abuser. She had been dead for a while by then, and where she was, dreams where she was apologizing and the anger that I felt at her still is like, okay, I need to work on this.

29:23 Okay. Uh huh.

29:25 So then I started going to therapy for that and reading healing books and doing other things, doing EMDR to help resolve some of those flashbacks. And I found out that I realized I had really minimized what she had done to me because, hey, it was only a school year.

29:46 Yeah.

29:46 But, you know, it was hundreds. It was hundreds of times during that school year. My therapist classified it as extreme abuse, and I sat there in shock because I was like, wait, what? Because to me, I kept comparing it to all these others. There's no comparing.

30:05 Yeah, no.

30:06 Anything is that.

30:08 Yeah, yeah.

30:10 And any of it is traumatic. No matter if it happened once or more than once, no matter if it happened for a year or multiple years, all of it is bad.

30:21 Yeah.

30:22 And that was something I had to realize for myself. I could apply that to others, but I wasn't applying it to myself. And that's when working through all that, I decided I wanted to do what I could to try to help kids, to help protect children. So I created a training for pre service teachers on sexual abuse, talked about signs of grooming, etcetera. I did the same for teachers. And I will expand the training because I only had 50 minutes at the conference, and that's not enough, but I'm expanding that training. I'm creating a website to put all that information on there because I want anybody to have access to it. How you can prevent sexual abuse at the school. And I also know I put some of that stuff on my facebook, and I know for a fact that someone who is a teacher read those, read the signs of grooming and realized that's what was happening at her school, and that person was able to talk to those who needed to know, and that child was protected.

31:39 Mm hmm. Great.

31:40 So I want to do more of that. I've started reclaiming my art that I had stopped doing and crafts that I had stopped doing. I mean, granted, I haven't been practicing, so my art is not up at the top, but I'm reclaiming it.

31:58 Awesome.

31:58 And practicing, and I'm reclaiming my writing for national novel writing month. Last month, I wrote my first draft of my first middle grades book, 60,000 words in 20 days.

32:12 Namo ramo. I know that.

32:15 Yes.

32:15 That's fantastic. Congratulations. That's wonderful.

32:18 Thank you. So I'm letting that sit. I want to write books that will help kids see themselves, that will help kids know ways they can communicate, etcetera. So that's really important to me. And then just talking more about it. And I want to be more of an advocate, which is why I'm sharing my story, too. I don't want anyone else to feel alone like I did until about a year and a half ago, I had never read another story where a female abused a female. And so that feels very isolating and very lonely. Now I have. And that is very empowering to know you're not alone.

33:08 Yes, definitely. Yeah.

33:11 So I want to try to keep others from feeling as alone as I did.

33:16 Fantastic. Yep. Because we know it is happening and thank you. So with our six minutes left, let's just. Anything else before we touch on moving forward. All right, thank you so much for, from start to finish, two parts, sharing observationally what happened to you, the ramifications of that, and the healing process. And as a brave voice, the request is that every person I interview go on and interview to others. So I want to support you in doing that in any way that you can. And knowing that as people listen, you will inspire them to want to share what happened to them, their lived experience. And we know everybody is on their journey and is in different stages, and we never do a thing to push anybody into. It's only when they know they're ready and they've done the work and they want what happened to be archived in the Library of Congress and documented. So, yeah. So it's wonderful to hear the journey and the arc and to know all of the ways that you've reclaimed your life and independence. And being a teacher who is educating other teachers and parents on how to protect their children, it's all education, isn't it?

35:01 Absolutely, yeah.

35:04 All right, any closing thoughts?

35:06 I'm just. I'm looking forward to interviewing others, so I hope I can find some people who are ready to share their stories.

35:14 Yeah. And I know from personal experience, because people hear you, that is that they're going to come to you, they're going to knock on your door and say, I, too, want to share. I want others to know the specific details. So I say each lived experience is the same and each one's completely different and we learn from each one. Who would have imagined in a classroom with other children there, that this could happen? And we now know, thanks to your observable description.

35:54 Thank you so much.

35:56 Yeah, thank you. All right, we'll be in touch.

36:02 That sounds perfect. Take care.

36:04 Bye.