Chapter 30: Becoming a Therapist, Becoming Myself

Graduating in May 1996 with my Master’s in Social Work should have been the climax of a long journey. But in truth, it felt more like a beginning. The real transformation—becoming a therapist, becoming myself—was just taking shape.

I accepted a position as a therapist at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital, a locked inpatient facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina, not far from Camp Lejeune. It felt like a natural next step after my internship at The Oaks. I was no longer an intern. I was the therapist—one of two on the adult unit, responsible for half the patients under my care.

Leading therapy groups was a routine part of the job, and I accepted that without hesitation during the interview. The person who NEVER spoke in small classrooms at Georgia Tech was now agreeing to fascilitate therapy groups. But now? It felt like a culmination. Beginning four years ago, I had stood at open mics reading poetry to strangers, declaring my love for Lynn. Now, I was standing in hospital rooms, holding space for pain, for hope, for change. All eyes were on me. Whether the patients thought the group therapy would help was less important than the importance I placed upon my role.

Group therapy sessions happened multiple times a week. Patients could also request individual sessions. And they did. Often. That meant the world to me—not because I had the answers, but because people felt safe with me. I was no longer the shy, unsure young man who avoided eye contact. I was a therapist, and I was showing up for people in ways I once thought impossible.

And I never forgot that I didn’t get here alone.

Lynn’s support wasn’t just moral—it was foundational. She had walked beside me through my transition from engineering to social work, believing in me before I fully believed in myself. Every step of my success was built on the foundation of her steady love.

Not everything about the job was ideal. Brynn Marr was a for-profit hospital, and it quickly became clear that treatment was often dictated by reimbursement policies. One patient, Victoria—a woman with anorexia and suspected Borderline Personality Disorder - quickly exhausted her covered Medicare days. My supervisor wanted to discharge her, but in the mean time, waiting for a new placement, she would continue to see me for therapy. Not the other therapist. Me.

I couldn’t turn her away. She needed care, not just a referral. And when it became clear that the unit was becoming a hostile environment for her, and when my supervisor asked me, I told him: “Yes, I think this is a hostile and non-therapeutic environment for her.”

When she was confronted by multiple staff, I made sure to be at her side. Not to rescue her, but to stand beside her. To be someone consistent. Someone who didn’t flinch.

That’s what therapy often is—just staying with someone in the hard moments.

She was volatile at times, and the term “borderline” was thrown around like an insult. But I never stopped seeing her as a full person. She might storm out one day and return the next like nothing happened. That was okay. I stayed steady. And when she was told she had to attend therapy groups which were conducted by either me or the other therapist on the unit, Victoria stated emphatically, “Fine, I’ll go to Bruce’s groups and that’s it.” The other therapist was a woman with maybe 2 or 3 year’s experience.

One afternoon, that trust was still unfolding—Victoria and I were in session when the phone rang at my desk. The storm outside had intensified. Hurricane Fran was aimed with the eye of the storm coming right up the Cape Fear river where we lived in Wilmington.

It was Lynn.

“What are you doing?” she asked—not panicked, not pleading, but with that firm, unmistakable tone she used when something mattered.

“I’m working,” I said, as if that explained everything.

“You need to come home now!” she said, emphatically “The roads are flooding.”

There wasn’t time for her to explain anything else about her worries about me arriving home safely or her being alone. I couldn’t believe that some aspect of the indifference I had known growing up from my parents had influenced this entirely different relationship. She might have been firm but it was out of love and not convenience for her.

Her voice carried what my parents never did. When I was 18, about to go to college, my father told me to get rid of the fort built when I was a younger kid. The only reason it was still there when I was older was as another place to hide or a temporary home for my friend Paul. I had the crazy idea that I could just burn it down. So, in the middle of the summer, in the evening as darkness arrived, my friend Ken and I decided to burn it down. Talk about reckless and crazy! There was a propane heater inside with tanks of propane in there. Two of them had shot up like rockets missing Ken who was on the top dropping water that I brought from the stream.

There was something different about this memory. I had lost hope that I could put the fire out. I ran up to tell my father to call the firestation. He said “no,” probaby thinking about how I could get in trouble. He didn’t confront me for having the irrational idea of burning it down. On the one hand he might have been concerned about me getting in trouble but I had only known indifference from my mother and father. Without taking time to explain more about how out of control the fire was, I rushed back into the woods behind our house to keep bringing water from the stream to put it out. It’s tragic that I had to wonder about all the tangled ideas that I had back then that came rushing back. Was he confident I could put out the fire? It’s amazing the neighbors didn’t pitch in. Was it just too much for a stoic and indifferent father to cause his son to get in trouble?

Why am I interveaving this memory into my narrative? This is one of those few times when I can only hope that the reader can infer some meaning to this.

Twelve years later with a hurricane coming at Wilmington, I realized that I mattered and I felt something entirely different when Lynn told me to come home now! My decisions and choices took on a different meaning with Lynn. There was love.

I told Lynn, “I am leaving now.” And I added, softly and with tenderness, “I’m sorry.” And I meant it.

I turned to Victoria and said in a hurried tone, “I have to go home.” She had put two and two together in this rare instance of a therapy session being interrupted.

I left the hospital and drove through streets that were fast becoming rivers. Water rose up to the hood of my car. It was pure luck that I made it back without getting stranded. But love—not luck—is what got me to leave.

That was the moment I saw something I hadn’t fully understood until then.

This wasn’t just a job I’d chosen. This wasn’t just a career I had trained for. It was a life I was building. And someone was waiting for me in that life—not out of obligation, but out of love.

She was home, alone, afraid. And she needed me. Not just safe. With her.

I’d never known that kind of need before - not from my parents, not from anyone. But I knew it now.

And I wasn’t going to take it for granted.