DenimGirl, it is quite unfortunate and I have heard this from so many, and I have actually been involved in such cases. In one case I was trying to get a student admitted to a different high school and unfortunately they “heard” things from both what was then the current HS and the former elementary school. I was in middle of sheva brooches for my son at the time, but I sat down and wrote one of the heads a 3 page email about Loshon hora and how it was a killer, and what nerve it was for any administration to listen to l”H while at the same time “teaching” their students neither to speak it or listen to it. I explained to them that they should judge the student on their own impressions of her, and of their own judgments and not l”h that is making the child sick and want to leave the other school. The very next morning that Rabbi was on her doorstep ringing her bell and welcoming her to the school. He said that with them she has a clean slate and will create her own history starting with that day. Today she is b”h married to a very nice Frum young man.
DG, please don’t despair, people in power let their power get to their heads. They will each have to give their din v’chesbon when they meet their maker after 120. Please don’t keep score or harbor a grudge, Hashem will take car of them and give them what they deserve. She has done enough damage please don’t let her control the rest of your life. Hashem is i charge of shidduchim and not her. Not everyone believes these people and will believe your references more. They also realize that kids change as they mature, so even if they believe a tenth of what she said, they will just ignore it.
If your friends believed her then they are not worthy of being your friends. If your family believed her then shame on them. Please don’t allow her to make you lose faith in Hashem or turn away from who you really are inside or retaliate against yiddishkeit. It will only cause her to say “you see I was right all along”. Too many kids have gone OTD because of yentas like her and ill mannered and uninformed know-it-alls. I know all too well from my clients and the kids I worked with. Great kids with huge problems. I have never, ever met a bad kid, just kids with bad problems.
So if you can just choose to forget her, if you can’t choose at this time to forgive her and just give it over to Hashem’s hands maybe you can move past her. If you try to understand we can’t control other people nor change them, we can only control ourselves and work on changing ourselves for the better and by doing so, other people might change their opinions or reactions to us, then that might help you put her in your past. In other words, if friends or family mention what she said you can choose to say “I don’t know how or where she got that impression of me, but I have no control over what she thinks or what she says to others. Hashem will deal with that in his own way. L”H ruins people’s lives and her comments about me are hitting me hard, I am not going to play her game and retaliate with harsh words against her. I will leave it in Hashem’s hands”. What kind of impression would you make then?
If you are in a circle of people and they start talking about her, you can choose to say “can we please change the subject I really don’t want to say anything mean because I have been hurt by her. I am holding myself to a higher standard, please support me in that”. If you can turn the negative into a positive no one will understand what the fuss was about.
Let me take you back to my client’s story. Hashem has a very funny sense of humor. The principal that was making her miserable in her former HS wound up getting a job as a teacher in the new HS the second year she was there, her junior year. The original HS closed down. The Rabbi told her explicitly to stay away from my client, she was not her concern and that everyone loved her. But my client who was so sweet, felt sorry for her and wanted her to feel welcome in the new environment so she made it a point of saying Hello to her each day and wishing her a good day just as she did to all the other teachers in the hallway. By the end of the year they were best friends. That woman only stayed that one year, but my client not only invited her to graduation the following year but also invited her to her wedding. How is that for forgiveness?