I'm sharing my daughter's story.

When she was in the third grade she made friends with another girl. One day, the girl asked her to be her girlfriend and my daughter said, "I'm too little for that, Silly!" That was apparently the trigger to set that girl monster off. She slapped my daughter in the face in a rage and began a campaign of bullying that started with name-calling. My daughter was called things that no 8 year old girl should even know, especially one who was from an upper-middle class family. It didn't take long for the bullying to become physical. This monster would hunt my daughter down at recess and drag her out of sight of the teachers, and beat her up.

After forcing my daughter to ask to go to the bathroom, she then did the unthinkable and sexually assaulted her. This, along with the sadistic physical torture, stabbing, choking, and threatening to kill her if she ever told, went on almost every day for a year.

We didn't know what was happening. The physical signs we saw and personality changes made no sense because she steadfastly denied being bullied, out of fear of retribution.

Fast forward 5 years, our honor roll student began to develop severe anxiety and panic attacks. Her condition deteriorated until we had to bring her to the hospital, where she spent the next three weeks. When she left, she was diagnosed with PTSD, and was now disabled. We made arrangements for her to be in the hospital homebound program for school. This was when we finally learned about the physical and sexual assaults.

All I know for sure about why that child did what she did, was that she was acting out things she saw on the internet with the Slender Man meme. Beyond that, I don't know. I contacted my daughter's teacher from that year and she confirmed that a few students had told her something was happening, but in her words, "I could never catch her in the act." We were never told of her suspicions, but it would have alerted us to why she had bruises, and why our once confident and happy child was now painfully shy and moody.

This should never have happened. The school needs to be held accountable, and that child predator needs to be locked away. Instead, she is free of all punishment because she was too young to charge criminally. Meanwhile, my beautiful, kind, smart daughter is living in unbearable pain.

I will never stop sharing our story- this is just the beginning. Things need to change.