Daughter Letter 4, Stay. See.
This piece is part of The Daughter Letters—a series of love letters written from the perspectives of mother, daughter, divine child, and divine mother.
To the daughter I am,
You don’t need to worry so much about loving your mother. That was never your job to do. Nor should it have been your job to make it seem like she could love you.
I am so sorry, sweetheart.
You deserved to be loved. Look at you! You—who survived annihilation with your soul intact. You, who broke from reality, betting all your faith on your ability to survive it. You, who found your long way back by refusing to believe the lie.
You, who chose to believe your body over everything else.
I offer my truth for me and anyone it serves.
It will not be for everyone.
My truth involves trauma — including childhood sexual abuse and incest.
Some parts of this page may feel heavy or intense.
Please care for yourself as you move through it.
Staying does not mean never leaving.
Leave as often as you need to. Return only if and when you want to.
I’ve shared the work of others whose wisdom, labor, and generosity
guided and sustained me.
I’ve also included many of the ways I regulate, orient, and stay present —
beauty, sensory experience, music, humor, love, rest. Please use them.
Do not see me at the expense of yourself.
What am I leaving?
1) II of Wands, Wild Unknown Tarot
2) I Existence, Osho Zen Tarot
What is emerging?
3) 7 of Wands, Light Seer’s Tarot
4) 6 of Pentacles, Shadowscapes Tarot (pulled 2nd night in a row.)
Where can I look for resource?
5) 444 Service, Rainbow Warrior Awaken
Statement Read at Appeal Hearing
I read this statement in December 2025, as part of an appeal process for a disability discrimination complaint I filed against the school district in May 2025.
Names and identifying information have been redacted for protection.
I am sitting before you today because in May, I withdrew my daughter from school to protect her from disability discrimination—and the district’s complaint process has now replicated that same discrimination.
The school district has consistently shown that it does not understand high-masking Autism. Without that understanding, the district cannot claim to have provided a safe, inclusive, or legally compliant educational environment for my daughter, a high masking Autistic student.
Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change and Building a Disability-Inclusive World
By Tiffany Yu
The Anti-Ableist Manifesto
Unmasking Autism
Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity
By Devon Price
Care Work
Dreaming Disability Justice
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samrasinha
The Softest Octopus
…to rub on my face.
Paper Lantern Lights
…to stare at.
Formal Complaint of Disability Discrimination
This is the introductory letter to a formal disability discrimination complaint I submitted to the school district on behalf of my child in May 2025.
The text appears as originally written. Minor redactions have been made solely to protect privacy.
May 2025
Re: Formal Complaint of Disability Discrimination on Behalf of My Daughter
Dear District Official,
I am writing on behalf of my daughter to file a formal complaint against her elementary school and district for disability discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
This complaint outlines the specific failures of her school and district to provide legally required disability supports, and documents the resulting educational exclusion and psychological harm my child has endured.
7. 4 of Swords, Light Seer’s
8. Page of Pentacles, Shadowscapes
9. 3 of Fire/Experiencing, Osho Zen
10. 4 Wisdom Action, Rainbow Warrior
11. Mother of Wands, Wild Unknown
Am I Safe Now?
1. King of Cups, Light Seer’s
2. Seven of Wands, Shadowscapes
3. XVII The Star, Wild Unknown
4. 10 of Rainbows/We Are The World, Osho Zen
5. Ace of Rainbows/Maturity, Osho Zen
6. 2 Creative/Belly, Rainbow Warrior
Will I Get What I Desire?
This email was sent in April 2025, when I escalated ongoing concerns about my child’s safety and wellbeing at school to district officials.
The text appears as originally written except for minor redactions to protect privacy.
Since my daughter was in kindergarten, I have been doing everything I can to advocate for her needs at school. I’ve offered education about Autism, been transparent about her struggles, and explained—again and again—that the pain and exhaustion she experiences at home are the direct result of how much she is suffering at school.
Each time, what we’ve been offered is a review of her 504 accommodations and minor adjustments to how her breaks are managed throughout the day. It has never been enough. My daughter is drowning at school. She is barely surviving her school day through sheer grit and determination.
I’ve been telling the school this for two years. Her dad, has told you. She, in her own ways, has told you. Look at her absences over the last two years. But it’s as if you see a child treading water, smiling at you—because that’s what masking is—and you shrug and say, “She seems fine,” and walk away while she drowns. At this point, it no longer feels like a lack of understanding. It feels like willful disregard for what I’ve shared.
An Email I Sent the School and District
“Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.”
Kiya’s Meltdown, A Children’s Story
Content Note: Depicts self-injury during Autistic meltdown.
Story by Stacey and Wren (8 years old). Drawing by Wren. Shared with consent.
Right now, Kiya is at first recess, lifting single drops of dew off the grey metal monkey bars with her index finger before sucking them into her mouth. The playground is a loud cacophony of too much noise and too many kids, but here, counting dew drops, Kiya can quiet the world a little. She doesn’t always mind being alone.
Kiya looks over to where her best-friend Bea is swinging with another girl, and a sharp poke of jealousy stabs her chest. Kiya loves the swings. Swinging is one of her very favorite sensations (right up there with bouncing and spinning). But in this moment hiding feels more important to Kiya than swinging.
Kiya was playing with her friends when first recess started, but they didn’t listen to her ideas, and she got mad. Like swinging, Kiya loves inventing games, but she hates when the people she’s playing with change the rules she’s created, and they almost always change the rules. When Kiya tried telling Bea how she felt, Bea got mad at Kiya for being mad at Bea—which Kiya still can’t understand—and she fled to the monkey bars.
As Kiya sucks her finger into her mouth again, her stomach twists and lurches, and Kiya feels a slight breeze stir inside her chest. Sometimes, Kiya hates being alone.
Past
1. Mother of Swords, Wild Unknown
2. Father of Wands, Wild Unknown
3. Ace of Wands, Light Seer’s
4. IX Aloneness, Osho Zen
5. Nine of Wands, Shadowscapes
Present
Ancestral Message & Resource
6. 11 Balance, Rainbow Warrior
7. 7 United/Crown, Rainbow Warrior
8. 20 Judgment, Light Seer’s
9. 4 of Rainbows/The Miser, Osho Zen
10. VI The Lovers, Shadowscapes
Future
Love Letter 25: Exile, Despair Love
Darling [Recipient’s Name],
You are loved far out beyond what you can think and feel. It will surprise you in the wildest, most wonderous places. That part of you who others will surely look down on for how unskillful, unenlightened, and much further behind she is. The part who has too big feelings far too frequently. The messiest, ugliest, and meanest parts. The ones with so many desperate needs. The part who says, “No.” The one who asks for exactly what she wants and doesn’t feel ashamed. The part of you perpetually afraid she’s not enough of what They want.
Wherever the hurt is most exquisitely tender. Where the tears threaten to never stop. Where it feels like agony. Out where you wail, and out past that where you rage.
To listen:
What My Bones Know
A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
By Stephanie Foo
The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
By Francis Weller
Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
By Resmaa Menakem
My Grandmother’s Hands
Content note: This contains discussion of childhood sexual abuse.
I sent this email to my parents and siblings four years ago. What I know of my trauma history has changed since then, as I’ve become a more faithful listener to my own experience and to my body.
This email marks a step on a path I will always be walking, and I share it as such—a record of where I was then, on my way toward fuller truth.
I insist on making one clarification here: I do not love the men who abused and raped me, nor the adults who colluded to cover it up and silence me.
Everything else remains as written, even where my understanding was incomplete. I share it as an honest record, not a final account. The only changes I made to the email text were minor redactions for privacy.
There was a time when I felt faced with an impossible choice: myself and the truth, or getting to have a family. I made the only choice I could. I share this email to honor the version of me who wrote it — and to stand with anyone who’s had to make the same choice.
An Email I Sent My Family
Hi Family,
I hadn't been planning on doing this now, but a spark of fury drove me
to start this email Monday morning. I kept writing after the fury
passed and noticed that it felt good. It feels good to recognize that
I'm safe enough to speak my truth. This email is about the sexual
trauma I experienced as a child. It's a doozy so please take care of
yourself while reading it.
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”
Telling the Truth to the Child I Was
Content note: This contains discussion of childhood sexual abuse.
Two years ago, I asked my ancestors for guidance, and the response came immediately as a clear and sudden inspiration.
I asked my therapist if we could work together to create a trauma narrative—one that explained to the terrorized child I once was what she had lived through, in language she could understand.
In session, my therapist read this narrative aloud while I connected with my younger self, supported by EMDR and IFS.
I expected it to be difficult. Writing it had been hard. What I did not expect was the profound relief that moved through my body as my early experiences were finally spoken, named, and given language. Truth—even when horrific—feels like sanity to me.
This marked a turning point in the integration of my trauma history. I walked forward from that session settled with the truth in a new and profound way.
My understanding of what I survived continues to deepen and expand. This is not the full story, but I offer this narrative unedited, as a step on the path that has brought me here — and as an example of what telling the truth about trauma can look like.
This narrative was written and used for my personal healing. It reflects my lived experience and embodied knowing at the time it was written. Where it speaks to the lives of others, it does so from that perspective alone and is not meant to define what is true for them. The only truth I can tell is my own.
My Sweet [Recipient’s Name],
I wish I was there right now, sitting in front of you, gazing back softly. My smile would widen tenderly like a bud unfurling. We could be in the quiet together. I might start to cry, my love for you cracking my heart wide open. I would ask to hold both of your hands in mine. We could sit knee to knee and hand in hand, breathing the same air. It would be as if a prayer came to life.
I would tell you the million things that make you incredible to me. I would use the whole of my being to reflect back to you how gorgeous and magnificent you are. My words could wash away all the doubts you have that you are anything less than perfectly beloved. I would say, if you needed me to, that you will always be okay. Always. If you started to weep, you could see in my face that I know exactly how you are feeling.
Love Letter 27: Tenderness, Devotion, Presence
Or listen:
1. 7 of Swords, Light Seer’s
2. XVII The Star, Shadowscapes
3. I Existence, Osho Zen
4. V of Pentacles, Wild Unknown
5. 3 Powerful/Sun, Rainbow Warrior
Reflect Me
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
By Sangu Mandanna
The Gilded Ones
By Namina Forna
Legendborn
By Tracy Dean
This piece is part of The Daughter Letters—a series of love letters written from the perspectives of mother, daughter, divine child, and divine mother.
I read this to my daughter before it was shared with anyone else. Shared with consent.
Hi sweet girl,
You are right that a lot of people do not understand you, but that is not your fault. Even I—your mama, who loves you so freakin’ much—sometimes don’t understand you. And I know that hurts you. I am learning how to be your mom by being your mom, and that can be hard for both of us sometimes.
You are a little ahead of us. You haven’t learned to hide as much of yourself as we have.
Because of that, we sometimes treat you like you are bad or wrong—like you should have to hide those parts of you too. We have made you feel small and scared. Sometimes we’ve made you feel like it’s not okay to be you, like you shouldn’t exist. But we are the ones who are wrong, my darling.
Daughter Letter 2, For the Child She Is
❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜
© Stacey Plate. All rights reserved.