It never made sense to me that those who victimize others were themselves victims. Others like me can empathize with what others have experienced and feel motivated to help them.
Things had changed when I moved to Wilmington, not just in that I found love again but I got my life back on track. I started graduate school at the University of South Carolina - pursuing the Master of Social Work degree.
Upon my graduation, I almost immediately had a job as a therapist at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital. I was expected to lead several therapy group sessions each week. It was during one of those sessions that I noticed Karen.
She was a small, medium-complexioned Black woman in her late 20s. She looked hardly alive—her face blank, her eyes vacant. She sat there like a ghost of herself.
Later, Mary, the intern I supervised, brought her to my office after doing the initial social work intake and said gently, "Bruce can help you." I could see the hope in Mary's eyes—that something could bring Karen back to life.
"I can stay," Mary added.
"No. I don't want you to see," Karen replies.
That request alone said so much. The shame victims carry—shame that doesn't belong to them—often makes them want to hide.
I understood. She didn't want another witness.
Karen had seen the other therapist on the unit, a woman, but perhaps the way Mary had said, "Bruce can help," gave her hope—maybe a different kind of hope.
"You were raped," I said gently. "I can help. We can go back to when it happened."
She looked at me, eyes cautious and searching. "Will you come with me?"
"My voice will go with you," I told her.
Victims take us to places so dark that most people wouldn't dare follow. But that's the job—to go with them. That doesn't mean it's any less disturbing for the therapist. I had to focus on what she needed. And what she needed, perhaps above all, was someone to witness what she had carried alone. Someone to remind her: You're safe now.
I helped her relax. I asked her along the way if she knew she was safe, and reminded her we could stop anytime. We continued, slowly, gently. Again and again, I reminded her that she was safe now.
She told me everything. I listened. Horrified, yes—but I stayed grounded, present, a steady connection to this moment, not the one that had hurt her.
At one point, fear and pain overwhelmed her. She grabbed my hand, squeezing it so hard it hurt. I helped her push the images away— asked her to project them onto a movie screen, outside of herself. I walked her back toward the present, toward survival.
Again and again: You're safe now.
It took time. But then her eyes opened. And a smile, unexpected and luminous, crossed her face.
After a few moments orienting herself to the room, she looked at me. She now looked alive.
"Thank you," she said.
"No—thank you," I replied.
I didn't have the words to explain that it was rewarding to witness such change - such healing. She knew. This wasn't about me. But I was grateful to have walked with her.
Karen wouldn't be the last rape survivor I would help. At Brynn Marr, I treated people with a wide range of conditions - from psychosis and eating disorders to war trauma from nearby military personnel. In one case, I initially assumed a client was describing combat memories, but quickly realized he was experiencing delusions. This was the breadth of my work: everything from severe mental illness to the aftermath of trauma.
While I didn't focus solely on trauma work, cases like Karen's reminded me of the power and privilege of being a therapist—of helping those who seemed emotionally dead come back to life. My compassion for clients often clashed with the facility's for-profit focus, making my time there meaningful but brief.
After a short winter stint at a clinic in New Bern, I joined Duplin County Mental Health Center in early 1997. This position allowed me to qualify for my full LCSW license by the end of 1997.
Private Practice Work
By early 1998, I was ready to open my private practice. Chris Hauge, DSW, LCSW, had been my supervisor as a volunteer, then as an intern, and now offered to rent me office space at $15 per hour. The relationship had come full circle.
My practice grew so rapidly that within months, paying $15 per hour for office space was costing more than the $500 monthly rent for my own office. In what was considered a "saturated market," this kind of growth was remarkable.
I treated everything from social anxiety and shyness—conditions I understood intimately—to schizophrenia and severe trauma. Later in private practice, I worked with more clients who had been abused as children and others who had survived assault as adults. I always tried to create a sense of safety—a space where the shame they carried could be named and left behind.
Around this time, I became president of the New Hanover County chapter of the North Carolina Society for Clinical Social Workers. I organized continuing education programs for clinical social workers, gaining name recognition in the field while building my practice.
This was success and joy, beyond my wildest dreams. People were paying me to help them with a wide range of disorders, and couples came for my therapeutic support. This wasn't just about career success—it was rewarding to help others heal as I had healed so much myself.
Who could have imagined that the person with no social skills when starting college would someday be doing these things? More importantly, I had discovered love.
I didn't know then that I would later carry profound shame, myself. Years later, when I would desperately need a professional reference regarding my character, I would learn that Chris had developed Alzheimer's disease. His wife, who had read three of my books in a week including a memoir over 500 pages long, could only offer her sympathy for what I had endured.