Continued Gossip and Unfriending

The rumor has spread and a small group of colleagues have chosen to send me nearly identical messages a couple hours apart essentially telling me that they learned about my past, think I'm a horrible person, know I'm going to prison, and never want to talk to me again. These are people in my classes, research colleagues, and in a top ranked phd program. This is what I wrote back to the first one today:

"I am very sad to read this as I've always had so much respect for you. You are certainly entitled to your beliefs and I will honor them. I want you to know that reading an indictment is not reading facts. It is what the prosecutor hopes to prove. I chose to plea guilty and my plea does not include many of the arguments the prosecutor made. I never claimed my current leave was for health reasons, but for personal reasons, which was supported by [our university's] ombudsman and is not a lie. I am going to a medical facility. I struggled for 14 years with a horrible addiction that nearly took my life. Today, I am able to be a different person, make amends, and be in school because of intense therapy and my 12 step program. In education you will work with many educators and youth needing second chances, I have not run away from my past. I never lied and I face everything one day at a time."

I chose not to write back to anyone else. They each messaged me on Facebook and then proceeded to unfriend me. It was so similar in wording and action that it became obvious that they each knew what the others were doing. They timed it all out, so I would receive emails at different times, each affecting me, just a bit more.

This same behavior is seen in junior high and high school and is referred to as bullying. Can a 40 year old woman be bullied by colleagues younger than she? One of my classmates wrote that they hope I am never allowed to return to my university or my program. Such anger, such manipulation. Do I have a right to question the behavior of others when I am the one who is a felon?

Well, I certainly did a bad thing, but that does not make me a bad person. I never lied to these people, I chose to keep a part of my life private. They were not my inner circle. There is no responsibility in life to tell everyone everything. Should every woman reveal the abortion she may have had to have? The time her dad beat her mom? The day she drank too much and regrets her actions? The world she lived before she changed her life for the better? The answer is no. No for everyone. 

My friend wrote in response to today's incidents to another friend "I think the very people she chose not to tell are showing exactly why she chose not to tell them.  They are not friends to [her].  She is surrounded by many friends and family who love and admire her."

So, yeah, today was a horrible day, but inevitably, my friends, my real friends, my chosen family, come through and show me that I am loved and I need to put all my energy on that and not waste my time on those who don't even give me a chance to give my story. They are obviously able to cast stones unworried.