Wow! Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice:) I am new to the site, thanks for the many welcomes :) First and foremost, YES! I am extremely happy I am free...I will post my story at a later time, but one of the things that still weighed heavily in my heart was the fact that I was not allowed to go to college when I graduated HS. I'm now 31 and now that my children are in school full time, I've decided I would be doing my 15 year old disfellowshipped self a huge disservice if I didn't accomplish the goals I had in place then. I've always wanted to be an elementary school teacher but I realized only a few years ago that I REALLY wanted to be a school teacher not caring about the salary...in fact, I'd gladly do it for free. Teaching children to be critical thinkers is very empowering, and even more so empowering if it happens to be a student who is not getting encouragement at home or worse, being abused or in dire circumstances. School was my only escape as a kid. Had it not been for public school and the amazing teachers I had, I would not be here. The toll the WT takes on your life as a child is unbelievable. So I'm compelled to give back. Way too many teachers nowadays become one for the wrong reasons or simply couldn't care less once tenure sets in. Or often times people chose not to persue a career in teaching because well, it just doesn't pay the big bucks, and its really the students who suffer. PS- I live in California so the Civil Act of 1964 would apply to me :)
@KateWild, I see what you mean. But I've given this a long hard thought. I do feel the need to share my story and have conversations with those who are just like me because it really really helps. However, I wouldn't do it to the extent of hurting a child or jeopardizing something I've worked really hard to do. I just figured someone would find out somehow, idk, maybe one of my family members leaking the info to the other parents or something, but yeah definitely wouldn't bring it up at this point. Like others have said....my job is going to be to encourage that little boy or girl who say they want to be a doctor or an astronaut and let them know it is within their reach whatever they want to do:)