Chapter 3: Between Graduation from Undergraduate College to the Next Phase of Life

My life took a sharp turn when I met Celta, a person who would change everything. With no job prospects, I had no choice but to move in with my parents after graduating from Georgia Tech, a decision that almost immediately seemed like a big mistake.

My mother's relentless pressure to find employment weighed heavily on me, her constant reminder that I could go to school at night if only I had a job as an engineer. But it wasn't just her words that stung - for the first time, she actually wanted to spend time with me, only to use it as an opportunity to criticize and belittle me. The toxic atmosphere that pervaded our home left me feeling ashamed and unworthy. No wonder I avoided spending time with my own mother.

I didn’t eat too much food and so I was not a major extra burden on my parents. I wasn’t asking them to pay for graduate school.

I thought I would have a chance to prepare for the next phase of my life. Despite having 6 psychology classes, I knew I had much more to learn, more growth was necessary, and experience in something close to psychiatric social work.

I graduated in 1989 from Georgia Tech, moved in with my parents in North Augusta, South Carolina near Augusta, Georgia. I found out that there was a state psychiatric hospital called Georgia Regional Hospital in the nearby town of Augusta, Georgia. I approached the volunteer department and told them I was planning to get a Master of Social Work degree and wanted to get relevant experience and was willing to volunteer.

I was connected with the lead social worker on the intake unit and I explained that I wanted to get some experience in the field because I was coming from an engineering program which was a radically different type of background.

By the first part of January of 1990, I was a volunteer at Georgia Regional Hospital on the intake unit working for the social work team. I wasn’t just observing or doing busy work. I was doing the psychosocial intake assessments that the social work team did. I was learning what social workers did in a setting like this and I was learning about how diagnoses are made.

I continued to develop my capacity for empathy, my active listening skills, and I noticed that people were opening up to me. This setting created even greater challenges due to the nature of various mental illnesses.

I had met Celta early in 1990 in this same setting. She was in hospital due to her health. She had anorexia. One of the medical school interns had suggested that I could maybe talk to her to understand about anorexia because I had a cousin with that.

Later in my career I might have known and worried more about boundaries. I had not been assigned to do a psychosocial assessment or anything related to my role on the staff as a volunteer.

When I met Celta I explained that I was not approaching her as part of the staff or as part of my role on the social work team. The moment I approached her, she smiled before I could even explain these facts.

Celta and I never talked about her health. She was in the hospital for just over the first three months that I knew her. She would write diary entries of all her observations and she would share these inner personal thoughts with me when I saw her or she mailed them to me.

After her release from the hospital she stayed for a short while in Augusta but then I took her to stay with her mother in Athens, Georgia - an hour and a half away from me. Her father then put her up in an apartment.

I would see her every weekend. I also spoke to her everyday on the phone. It was almost like magic because I couldn’t imagine that love could develop so quickly and in such an unlikely way.

It was not long before I was telling her “I love you” and hearing those words back on every phone call, everyday. I felt such a sense of joy. Something that had always been missing was being fulfilled.

During my Georgia Tech days, I had friends who were couples. I would be friends with both partners. My best friends were Thomas and JoLee who got married to each other. With each of them, I knew I was not the most important person in their lives nor was I their top priority. I suppose there are echoes of the words from my mother speaking about my cousins and saying that “they have their own lives” and that idea existed with every friend I made while I was away at Georgia Tech.

I had still carried the beliefs from childhood when I was growing up. The truth was, I didn't know what love really was. I had experienced some degree of connection or validation from my friends. In my family, I was an inconvenience—something to be tolerated, not cherished. My world had been shaped by emotional deprivation, shame, and the belief that I was fundamentally unworthy of being seen, let alone loved.

Things were different with Celta. I had not told anyone before her those words “I love you” or heard those words from anyone. Not in the way I was experiencing things with Celta.

Celta and I would have a relationship that was just slightly more than platonic with so much time cuddling together, holding each other, walking hand-in-hand. Looking into each other's eyes. 

With this transformative experience, one event stands out. There was a moment where we were having a picnic at the Botanical Gardens. I was talking about something that I didn't think was very interesting but looking up, I saw that she was smiling with delight as she looked at me, transfixed upon me, hypnotized. 

This was just one of many moments… Moments like this transformed my sense of my value and worth to a person. I felt special finally.

As we took pictures in the park, I couldn't help but notice how delicate she seemed. Her mother suggested a pose where I would kneel and she would sit on my knee. But as we got lost in each other's eyes, she started to sway and almost fell into position, her tiny arms and body barely giving me any sense of how to catch her.

I was only 5’7” tall but with her 4'11" stature and her weight of only 70-80 pounds made me worry about how to catch her. Luckily she didn’t fall far, coming to sit on my leg with my soft gentle arms around her side and back. Luckily, I was instinctually very gentle and using instincts alone, faster than concrete thoughts, was able to find a soft way to catch her.

My friend had recently confided in me about the physical abuse she endured from her husband, even though he was not very big but as a guy he was stronger, she said. Indeed, this difference in size and strength was most profound between Celta and me. I was always a gentle person by nature and the idea of causing harm to someone I supposedly loved was unthinkable, as was harming anyone.

Despite the toxic environment at home, all those moments spent with Celta still allowed me to experience something amazing. She brought me immense joy and a sense of the possibility of love which I had never experienced before, and eventually this would open up opportunities for me.

But at home, I was constantly belittled and pushed into mundane jobs, with my hard-earned degree from Georgia Tech being dismissed as insignificant. The pressure to conform to their expectations and take any job available left me feeling small and ashamed because of my education. I would not judge others the way I was made to feel about myself.

In Celta's presence, however, I felt like a giant towering over the negative voices and expectations from my family.

At no time did my parents ask who was making me happy… What I might want for the future… How might I achieve my goals and plans? They were utterly disinterested in anything that mattered to me or made me happy.

I learned about the death of Celta on New Year’s Day, 1991. I cried more than everyone else at the funeral combined.

For the next year and just over 3 months, I lived with my parents. This time without the support of Celta. I did go to a grief recovery group. I turned 25 in 1991, and the other members of the group were older people, mainly ladies past retirement age.

I had various jobs, with only one related to my software engineering degree.

I questioned how I could help others while dealing with my own problems and how I dealt with the loss of Celta.

My mother introduced me to a professor and poet named Martin Kirby, who became my mentor in writing. Through a temporary job offer, I moved away from my parents for the last time.

These experiences with Celta and working at Georgia Regional Hospital helped me continue to make advances made at Georgia Tech in overcoming social anxiety and would be useful for leading therapy groups as a clinical social worker/therapist in the future. Despite the tragic loss of Celta, I gained valuable personal growth.