It had been months since I had any contact with John F. As mentioned previously, he moved in with Mrs. D who spoke to me following that initial conversation that I had with John when he said he thought she might have dissociative identity disorder (DID). It had seemed from the reports I heard from clients who went to that residence that he was setting up a treatment room and was providing therapy. I had a therapy group for people with DID, and at one meeting Mrs. D brought him.
Somehow, he had connected with those clients of mine who had come to that therapy group.
I had last spoken to him when I called on behalf of Tracy who had come down to Wilmington from New Jersey, where she was hoping to find safety from an abusive spouse. John had made her life miserable, and she felt unsafe after rejecting his sexual advances. The way it transpired demonstrated to me that those things that I was hearing about him and reading about him online were true.
Forced to Close
With the complaints to the licensure board, the malpractice claims, and everything else that had happened with Lynn, I was forced to suddenly and unexpectedly close down my practice. Lynn's mother had been selling the house after Lynn had said, "I am not coming back." There was never any closure. I just knew what was meant by what she said. Neither of us talked about breaking up, or the relationship being over. It was just surreal.
It began with John F., a wannabe therapist providing harmful therapy. He was a psychopath.
After harming vulnerable people, for some reason he became obsessed with me, an actual therapist.
The Complaint and Its Aftermath
He had written a complaint statement and had five of my clients sign it, alleging things like how I had planted memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse. And how my clients with a serious condition – dissociative identity disorder – were not getting better. Of course not - with his treatment, they were getting worse.
Much worse!
They forced me to get a psychological evaluation. Decades later, a psychologist would tell me I should have sued the psychologists who conducted the evaluation for malpractice. But at the time, I just wanted to survive.
I was overwhelmed. The shame was crushing. I was being sued for medical malpractice too.
Being so overwhelmed with everything that was happening, with Lynn staring down death at 34, I even let the claim that I lacked empathy stand when I signed a Consent Decree.
I was ordered to get a psychological evaluation. The psychologists went into the assessment with confirmation biases about the claims that were made. They also NEVER inquired about whether anything at all had happened in my life. I knew enough to ask a question like that long before I started graduate school and only had an engineering degree.
My malpractice lawyer encouraged me to sign a Consent Decree where I would surrender my license while explaining that I could present evidence in the future to defend myself against the claims and concerns.
I can't believe I let the document include the words that I might lack empathy for others. That is not something that I ever doubted – my capacity for empathy. I knew I had seen evidence that I had a tremendous amount of empathy. If anything, I might have had too much empathy because I was too overwhelmed to use the skills I had learned.
The False Accusation
Then, as if that was not enough, I was given a citation by the police for court as John F. had accused me of making harassing phone calls -a totally fabricated lie. He just made it up! How crazy is that?
I hadn't even been worried because I knew there was no evidence—no phone records, no recordings. I assumed the case would be dismissed outright. I went along with a public defender who was ready to go to trial right away.
But then, without a shred of evidence, the judge found me guilty.
I was livid when speaking to my court-appointed lawyer. Listening to him speak about getting the phone records...
He hadn't thought of that? He should have been the one to know that without a shred of evidence, someone could just make stuff up and the victim of a false accusation like this could be found guilty!
When my public defender, unprepared and careless, asked if I wanted him to appeal, I said "Yes," emphatically. There was no mention of a penalty for being found guilty but it was the principle of the matter.
Why do we even have lawyers when simple things like getting the phone records occur as an afterthought?
He also claimed that I had engaged in something called cyberstalking. The definition of cyberstalking would be something I had to look up. It was broadly defined. The things others had posted about John might possibly have met a broad definition, but I wasn't posting things about him. This accusation had been dismissed.
Leaving the Area
I had met some people online - a couple. One of them was one of the victims of John F. They invited me to move up to Durham, NC from Wilmington. This was my home, and I didn't want to leave.
When I lost another job as a result of John calling my employer and mentioning the issues with my clinical license (which was not required for that job), the company had to dismiss me. So, reluctantly, I decided to pack everything I had and drive up to Durham to stay with my new friends.
I had previously tried dating, using online sites, but I was still in love with Lynn, and I was in such shock, still traumatized, and not able to connect with others in any real way.
When I moved in with those friends up in Durham, I kept doing the same thing – using dating apps to try to find dates.
I applied to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) soon after moving to Durham. They encouraged me to pursue a different career direction. It seemed like my mind was in a fog, and I was not in touch with thoughts about who I knew myself to be and what type of career would be a good match for me. If that were not the case, I would have remembered that Web Design and Development was not a good match for me. If it was all about creativity alone, it might be a match.
The Downward Spiral Continues
In the meantime, I started working at Eckerd's in the photo lab. One day, I was asked to work at the main register. Based on everything that I had experienced, I was dealing with extreme anxiety. I had been traumatized.
On one occasion, I could not focus my eyes very well and thought that the license shown to me indicated that a customer was old enough to buy alcohol. I was wrong and I was given a citation and asked to come to court. The charge makes one think that I was corrupting a minor by buying this person alcohol when I just read the customer's driver's license wrong.
It was easy for mail to get lost, and my mind was not focused so I missed court. A warrant was issued for my arrest. I was terrified and desperate to avoid going to jail.
There was nothing that could be done.
The Jail Experience
I was put in jail. I cannot overstate how traumatic that was for me. As a shy person, I carried a great deal of shame, which I will describe in more detail in the next book, which will be part two of this story.
I had reached out to my family for help. They had to understand that I could not cope with this. But I had forgotten again just how uncaring they were... how little empathy and compassion they were capable of feeling. My pleas to my parents for help to get me out of jail were met with icy-cold responses.
My family had never been there emotionally or psychologically to offer anything resembling support. I didn't understand why I was the scapegoat of the family. It had felt like if my own family doesn't care about me, who would care.
I needed compassion and support like anyone else.
It seemed like my parents had a rudimentary sense of understanding how a person might feel if one loses someone that one loves. But beginning with the times when Lynn got sick, they started acting like what seemed like the application of tough love as opposed to understanding how a person in love would naturally feel when an illness threatens the life of the one that you love.
I had been put in jail for failure to appear and the bond was not very high.
While in jail, I learned that the appeal I had asked my lawyer down in Wilmington to file had already come before the court. He had never notified me. A reasonable person might understand that with all the changes, problems getting in touch with me, I deserved a bit of understanding. It would seem like my lawyer could have found a way to explain how he had not been able to inform me about the case – the appeal – coming before the court and made sure that I was not arrested.
Instead, I was extradited to Wilmington... which had been my home. Now, I was put in chains and put into the back of a vehicle with a metal frame. I was crying the whole way down there. I felt such shame growing and growing in me.
Once I had been the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers, with name recognition, a successful career with many clients. My colleagues knew me. Now, I was being brought down to Wilmington in chains.
Rock Bottom
I didn't have to stay in jail long, but when I was released, I had nowhere to go. The days and the skies looked like winter had come far too early this year. I looked up my friend Jean Jones, a mutual friend of Lynn's whom we both met at poetry readings so long ago.
He guided me to find a place to sleep at night in downtown Wilmington. I still reached out to my family for help, hoping that, at some point, they would care. However, nothing that happened to me could arouse parental instincts to protect me from things that were outside my control.
Jean also invited me to join him and his family for dinner on Thanksgiving 2002. I was carrying all my belongings in a bag. I was ashamed of this look. So, I hid the bag and my belongings in the bushes as I joined them. Snow had been falling so very early this year.
When I finally spoke with my lawyer about the appeal, he explained something that would haunt me for years to come.
He had managed to get the phone records around the date of one of the alleged harassing phone calls - proof that John had lied about at least one of the days. But he couldn't get the records for both days, even though they were only separated by less than a week.
"I have proof that he lied about one of the days," my lawyer told me, "but on appeal, that's not enough."
Then came the words that would echo in my mind for decades: "The truth doesn't matter, only what you can prove."
The truth doesn't matter!
Here was my own lawyer telling me that even with evidence of John's lies, even with proof that he had fabricated at least part of his accusation, the legal system didn't care about the truth. The harassing phone call charge wasn't serious enough to warrant any prison time, but I couldn't get justice even on a matter of principle. This pattern of someone fabricating a story without providing evidence would foreshadow something far more serious that was yet to come.
I finally decided some days later to get help at the Mental Health Center who referred me to the Department of Social Services to get a ticket back to Durham. I didn't have a home there, but I had a relationship with VR.
Maybe I should have just stayed down in Wilmington. I think I was just running away from reminders of the joy that I had once known. A few days ago, a police officer, trying to help me, gave me a street sheet. It was the one I had developed during my first graduate internship with the homeless program at the Mental Health Center.
The irony was crushing.
The Weight of Loss
The weight of sorrow, shame, loss, grief, emotional pain, abandonment, isolation, loneliness, trauma, had literally weighed down on me and brought me to my knees.
It was awkward at the Mental Health Center. The worker had recognized me from when I was the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers. She did acknowledge that fact. There was a sense of me wanting to explain how I could have arrived at this place, this situation. We just exchanged a few words about how I had arranged some workshops for continuing education credits for clinical social workers.
I was then on my way to Durham.
Beginning in late 2002, I moved from one friend's apartment or house to another, staying temporarily. These were people I met in the therapy group that I was attending through the local mental health center.
I wanted to heal and be able to return to a career that was so rewarding... helping others who had mental illness or emotional problems.
Struggling to Connect
I did date a few women who I met on dating sites. Eventually, I started seeing Shonda, a black lady, on and off. I was not able to connect with anyone in any real sense. I just didn't feel a connection. We were intimate, and I helped her children with math.
Shonda continued to see me when I was living at 721 Holloway Street in Durham. The place was described as a boarding house. I moved in there because the rent was only week to week, as opposed to monthly rent, where one must come up with the first month's rent, and potentially a deposit on top of that to move in.
It was early 2004 or late 2003 when I moved in there. Rent was paid to Scott, who lived around the back of the place.
We rented rooms in that building. The front door was not locked much of the time. Only guys lived there. Prostitutes were seen in the building. I had to reject them as they were assertive about selling their bodies. I had never purchased street drugs, but I got the impression that crack cocaine could be purchased for $10, as that was what the prostitutes were requesting.
I had been mugged more than once while walking from the bus stop to the building at night. I saw needles on the side of the street that must have been discarded. More than once, I had to run as fast as I could to get away from someone threatening me.
The landlord was James Vecchione, Jimmy. He had me working on an adult dating website in exchange for not charging me the weekly $100 for rent. It was not earning money fast enough. I had been working at various jobs doing the best I could. I had applied for Social Security Disability Insurance which would be backdated to cover this period. I wasn't just being lazy.
VR had paid for me to get a certificate in Web Design, and they were paying for computer equipment for me to start my own business because that seemed like it would work better than a traditional job.
Jimmy decided that the adult dating site was not coming together fast enough so he dropped the entire idea. He took me to court when I couldn't pay the rent. I appealed the decision. I was hoping to get financial assistance from various sources that existed including VR.
I mentioned that Shonda was black because we were getting close to the time when I would be victimized by a woman. The woman who would attack me was clearly white.
The Deepest Homelessness
I had been homeless on and off in every sense of the word from 2001 up until now. I had even slept outside or spent many nights awake outside.
My paternal grandparents were not living in their home. I am sure they would have wanted me to have a place to stay as they had paid off the mortgage. That was in Burlington, which was very close. I would have never imagined that I would find myself living so close to where they lived, having grown up in Connecticut.
Any kind of support to ease my suffering would have helped prevent so many things from happening. It would have taken away the stress of living as a homeless person with no stability.
Anyway, about the rent and the eviction... Jimmy would have gotten paid. There are resources to get a person caught up. VR was offering to help me out. I point this out because I would come to learn that his wife was the one who would attack me on October 1st, 2004. I am getting ahead of the story.
As someone who was homeless and dealing with very low financial resources, I got to know other people who came to the Urban Ministries to stay overnight, for financial assistance, or for meals. I made friends with several people that I met there.
Sadly, twenty years later, I don't remember their names.
The Approaching Storm
I was expecting one of my friends to meet me the next day, October 1, 2004. I couldn't imagine things could get any worse for me, but I was about to find out that things could get more terrifying and nightmarish.
The fall had brought a chill to the air, and as I walked the streets of Durham that evening, I had no idea that the next day would bring a new level of horror that would change everything once again. After losing my career, my love, my home, and my dignity, I thought I had experienced the worst that life could throw at me.
I was wrong.