Depersonalization

It was supposed to be a new chapter.

The job at Freedom House had shown me that maybe—just maybe—I could reclaim a career in mental health. I was working with children again. No one questioned me. My past, for once, wasn’t a disqualifier. I had begun to believe that the world might finally see me for who I was—not who Ana claimed I had been.

Then, I was let go.

No explanation, just an ending. The same old silence where there should have been reasons.

I scraped by, living on unemployment for a few months, then had to reapply for Social Security Disability. The shame of it crept in again, slow and suffocating.

Was I back where I started?

I kept applying for jobs. Interview after interview. Some hopeful, some perfunctory. Most leading nowhere. Then, in early September 2024, a woman named Yanique called. RHD wanted to hire me. They’d chosen me from dozens of applicants.

I felt a flicker of belief. Maybe the long shadow of 2004 was finally lifting.

But of course, there was the background check.

I gave them the same letter I always gave—my statement of truth, along with a letter from the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. I had disclosed everything. Again. Just like I had when I got the job at Freedom House.

It should have been enough.

Instead, the legal department delayed everything. They needed to speak to former employers, confirm the story I had already told in detail. I tried to track down coworkers from the Mobile Crisis Unit—but our company phones had been wiped clean, and I’d never saved their numbers. RHD's HR department pulled some random number off the internet and reported that "Freedom House had never heard of me."

That was the first gut-punch.

Still, I waited. I followed up. I took walks along Wrightsville Beach trying to stay calm, the waves crashing like my anxiety. I was 58, jobless again, walking a beach I had once shared with Lynn. I had dreamed of a life filled with love and stability. I was living in the ruins of that dream.

Eventually, RHD offered a compromise.

I wouldn’t work the job I applied for. Instead, I’d be assigned to a different unit—under tighter supervision, in a program for people transitioning out of prison. It was framed as a second chance.

But it didn’t feel like one.

I was being sent to work in a setting where I was automatically distrusted. Even though I had never committed a violent crime, never hurt anyone, I was treated like a liability. They wouldn’t let me meet with clients alone.

For a month, I was placed on administrative leave.

When I returned, I was monitored constantly. Everything I said or did was scrutinized. And still, no one told me why.

My supervisors—Wendy and Andrae—seemed determined to find fault in everything I did. Weekly check-ins became interrogations. I was written up for the smallest of things. There was no guidance, no support. Only discipline. Only fear.

Andrae was especially chilling—his presence triggered something deep inside me, the same terror I felt when I was wrongly arrested in 2004, when police didn’t believe the truth.

I had worked so hard to overcome that trauma. I had built a life back from the ashes. But here I was again, shrinking under the weight of unjust authority, retraumatized by people who claimed to work in mental health.

Eventually, I filed for ADA accommodations. PTSD is a recognized disability. I had letters from my doctors. I asked to be treated with dignity.

But it was too late.

They terminated me on March 14, 2025.

No more appeals. No more explanations.

Just another door slammed shut.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the drive to help others. I was the one in need of care, of support, of someone who could hold my story without recoiling.

I still believe in the power of peer support, in the healing that can come from connection. But I also know now that no matter how far I’ve come, the injustice of 2004 still follows me. Not just in the legal records. But in the assumptions people could make or have to make when the legal department of a company is worried about liability issues. The boxes they check. The decisions they never explain.

This book isn’t ending with triumph. But it’s ending with truth.

I am still unemployed. I still don’t know what the next employer will say when they see the results of a background check and make assumptions without hearing the full story. Sometimes they are not allowed to hire me even the hiring manager is fine with what they discover.

But I am still here. Still trying. Still writing. Still telling the truth.

Because if the world won’t give me justice, then maybe this story will or at least it will allow me to be heard.

Maybe someone will read this and understand. Maybe someone will see me.

This is a deeply traumatic and disturbing story, one that is both painful to relive and challenging to put into words. As I write, I imagine you, dear reader, sitting beside me—offering quiet support as I share this chapter of my life. What you’re about to read marks the beginning of the most terrifying, unexpected, and surreal events I have ever faced.

Losing Lynn rivals the pain of these events, but it was not beyond my imagination of things that can happen in life. Lynn had been born with a genetic and terminal disease and therefore, while it still surprised me how suddenly things took a turn for the worse with her health, it was not beyond my imagination.

The date was October 1, 2004. I had been evicted and appealed the decision. I just wanted a place to put my belongings. I also was aware of ways in which I could get financial assistance to pay the landlord, Jimmy, what he was due. Back then, everything was not up there in the cloud.

Every written and drawn item from Celta was priceless to me. Every photograph of her and of Lynn and the life we shared... all these things were on film and on CDs. All I had were memories.

I was teetering on the edge of homelessness once again.. My search for shelter led me to what was referred to as a “boarding house” at 721 Holloway Street in Durham, NC. The area had a reputation-it was known as a drug-infested, crime-ridden part of town.

Even Eric Peters, my Vocational Rehabilitation counselor, had reservations about the move. He cautioned against starting a home-based business there, but I had no other options. The boarding house was affordable: we paid weekly, and little to no security deposit was required. That was all I could manage at the time.

Living there quickly proved as precarious as its reputation suggested. The building lacked basic security—doors to the outside were rarely locked, leaving everyone vulnerable. One evening, I made the mistake of allowing a woman into my room. She crossed a line immediately, behaving inappropriately and bending over to expose herself. Snapping to my senses, I asked her to leave.

What followed was surreal and frightening. As I walked to the store, she followed, shouting threats and warning me about someone who would come after me if I didn’t pay her. Pay her for what? I had nothing to pay for.

Discarded needles were on the street in front of the building. I knew it was some form of drug paraphernalia. I have NEVER used illicit substances myself.

I had to run for safety when getting off the bus when I was being harassed on a recent occasion. I was robbed at knifepoint while living there. I had someone indicate they had a gun in their pocket at night on a different occasion.

I had confided in my sister about needing help after being robbed multiple times, but she didn't seem to understand. It would have been difficult to explain to her the concept of not having a car and living in a dangerous city like New Britain, which was closest to our hometown in Connecticut.

She had only experienced leaving work and walking to her car; she couldn't comprehend the struggle of living in a high-crime area because it was all I could afford. Like my sister, I never imagined myself living in such conditions, relying on public transportation instead of owning a car. Mentally, I was in unfamiliar territory and completely unprepared for the challenges I faced.

Despite all the threats I faced and the repeatedly frightening experiences, I had not been physically assaulted, yet.

Not yet!

Jimmy, The Landlord Wants to Know About Dissociative Identity Disorder

There are a few other important facts to know. One is that I had a conversation with Jimmy, the landlord, in which he was asking about my experience treating people with dissociative identity disorder (DID). This used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). He, Jimmy, didn’t want to know about the incredibly disturbing trauma that people with this disorder experienced or how emotional and traumatic it was for me to help any victim to cope with this because of my capacity for empathy.

I just mentioned that people with DID have personalities that have different names. I recalled that as a child, my grandpa called me Brucie. Using that example, I said that if I had DID, which I don’t, I might name a child personality or have a child personality named Brucie.

I had the opportunity to see Jimmy’s wife partially when she was inside his pickup truck. It’s important to note that I did not recognize her as the attacker, but I am getting ahead of the story.

This detail is very important - the conversation about what DID (pronounced D, I, D) is all about. I would hear about this conversation later.

I did meet a friend of the family named Grace. I would join her and her two children at Durham Bulls baseball games, and I helped her with her computer. She was a safe and decent person. I once thought Jimmy was decent. She was very attractive, far more so than anyone directly associated with the landlord, which is only relevant to her later encounter with the police.

I had been dumpster diving near the library up the street and had acquired many books, which other homeless people appreciated.

I had books in piles all over the room. My apartment was just a room in the house.

The room is about 18 feet wide by 18 feet from the front door to the back of the room. A wall is set back about eight or nine feet from the door to the apartment room. The wall has an opening on the right and the left as you investigate the room from the door. Behind the wall is a mattress on the floor where I slept.

There was barely enough room in the apartment today. My computer was set up on a desk against the wall, to the right as you entered the room.

About six to eight feet from the door, there is a couch.

I was waiting for a friend to arrive today. She was a black woman, and the woman I was seeing romantically was also black. Let me describe the apartment building better before I explain what is about to happen. Looking at the house from the street, there is a front door and a driveway to the left. Around the back, there is an apartment. Scott stayed there. He got a discount on rent, just like I was getting free rent for working on Jimmy's website. We paid our rent weekly to Scott, and he gave us a receipt.

There is a door on the side of the building that leads inside from the driveway. If you go through that door, you will see the kitchen, which is a common area for cooking meals. Past the kitchen is the bathroom with a shower. An apartment was also down that hallway.

Turning right, you would come to the vending machines that Jimmy kept stocked with sodas and snacks. Before you came to my apartment room, there was an apartment on the right and another two apartments on the left.

Across from my room was the stairway that leads to four apartments upstairs. Next to the foot of the stairs was another apartment.

It was an all-male boarding house, but females were there offering sex for money. I mentioned an unsuccessful attempt by one woman to get me to accept her service(s).

I had come to feel like the perfect victim. It’s not untrue that people can sense vulnerability. The urban scowl is something a more confident person might use during the day to walk quickly and with purpose if they found themselves in a potentially dangerous part of town. I had sensed danger at night and had run as fast as I could to my “home” - imagining that getting inside this boarding house at 721 Holloway Street would be safe.

However, getting inside was not always safe. In addition to the encounter with the prostitute, I had seen the police use tear gas to get a gun from a resident.

My door was open as I expected my new friend to arrive.

I learned about a phenomenon called the "cocktail party phenomenon" years ago. When you hear your name, it can penetrate the cacophony of other sounds. We can hear our name if it is called out, even in a busy and somewhat loud room full of people talking. Something causes us to immediately turn in the direction where we heard it.

I noticed this instant attention-grabbing effect years ago after I first learned about it. I was walking to class, deep in thought, when I heard "Bruce." Immediately, my attention was caught, and my head turned in the direction of where someone had called out my name. The person must have been a couple of football fields away.

That is what happened next. With my door partially open, I heard the words, “where’s Bruce?” coming from outside my room.

Without thinking, I opened my door, stepped into the hallway, and said, "I'm Bruce."

A woman stood a few steps up the stairway leading to the second floor. She was NOT the person I was expecting. She was standing half-way up the stairs, asking Danny who was just another tenant that lived on the second floor. Other than her being white and not who I was expecting, there was nothing distinctive about her, and I had no idea who she was or why she was looking for me.

Time froze for about one second… enough for me to register my confusion and to wonder who is this person that seems to know me?

Her eyes locked onto mine and she charged at me, coming down the stairs and around a corner as if propelled by a ferocious determination. I was frozen in shock, unable to react before she burst past me, entering my apartment.

I stumbled after her, walking past her and into the room just as she slammed the door shut and turned the lock, trapping us both inside. Before I could assess the situation, her fist collided with my cheek in a brutal punch that sent me reeling.

The blows kept coming, one after another in a flurry of violence that sent my glasses flying across the room. I could feel blood beginning to flow down my face as she continued to unleash a relentless assault on my face, leaving me battered and disoriented.

I was dazed and shocked. I staggered backward with each blow. There wasn't much room between the door and the couch where I fell. I was shocked by the fact that a woman would lock herself in the room with me, then attack me (someone who I didn’t even know), and I was shocked by the blows to the face.

She shouted, "Why do you keep calling me?"

I answered, immediately, "Who are you?" with genuine shock in my voice. I was wondering who the heck was attacking me. And why?

I was hurt badly. Blood was pouring out of my nose and across my face almost immediately.

Was she high on drugs?

I managed to get to my feet and noticed that there was a distance between us. I used the opportunity to move forward and unlocked the door that she had just locked. Then, I pulled her toward the door, trying to get her out of the room.

At some point, I brought my hand to my face and noticed my hand was smeared with blood. As I pulled her toward the door and outside, I touched the door frame for balance and I left a blood-smeared thumbprint on the door frame with my right thumb.

She didn’t have a scratch on her. I had not even hit her at all or defended myself in any way. I had always been non-violent, peaceful. I had never been attacked at all much less in such a bloody way.

One might ask why I didn’t fight back? There was something instinctual in me about not hitting girls or women. I never had to consider a moment like this.

At this point, I had no idea that it would be crucial to know that she was not bleeding at all. She was all perpetrator and attacker. I couldn’t defend myself if I wanted to do so.

I had no idea that none of her blood being anywhere in the room or on the property would be important.

In fact, as I was trying to get her outside, I was worried about hurting her!

This happened so incredibly fast and could not have taken more than 60 seconds. I wanted to establish safety from this crazy person so I could call 911.

As I tried to shut the door, she was pushing the door to get back inside!

I couldn't close the door.

I couldn't believe it. What more did she want to do to me?

I reached my hand to try to push her away. My hand connected with her face, and it might have been partially closed into almost a fist.

This was the closest thing to acting in self-defense. It seemed like all I had accomplished was pushing her away from the door so that I could lock it and finally feel safe inside my apartment room. Here I was worrying about worrying about hurting her because she was female! Those rules were probably not meant for situations like this.

I had not used anywhere near enough force for it to be considered self-defense.

Like every victim, I immediately picked up my phone and dialed 911. I then waited for the police… still bleeding profusely.

My mind flashed back to what had just happened. The door had been open partially in case my friend had shown up and didn’t know what room I was in. But she was black. My girlfriend sometimes showed up to see me. She was black as well.

The person I encountered halfway up the stairs was white. Who was she? Who was this attacker and why did she do this? Was she high and had she mistaken me for someone else?

Some of the guys who lived in the house had been returning from work. The voices outside must have given me the sense that she had left. Some had witnessed the commotion from outside my apartment room. Unfortunately, they would not have seen what happened after she locked the door.

There were several people in the hallway or on the stairs who looked with shock at me. These would be witnesses. Someone advised me to look in the bathroom to see how badly I was bleeding.

Another tenant, Joachim, told me to go look in the mirror. He was the most friendly guy I knew at that residence along with Danny.

I was shocked at how profusely I was bleeding across my face. I wondered why I was not bruised as opposed to seeing my face sliced up like this. I was trying to stop the bleeding.

The lacerations were not deep. The cuts were more like the way one gets cut up when shaving… I was not getting nauseous or feeling faint like after being accidentally cut with a knife in the past or on a glass window - occasions which had made me feel faint.

Joachim asked me, "So, you don't know her from Adam?"

"No, I have no idea who she was," I answered.

I registered some comments by the residents. I heard the words, “Why would you let her inside your apartment if you didn’t know her?”

I was pacing between the bathroom to look at my cuts, the hallway to talk to the tenants and my room. In the room I saw my blood on the floor and another place where my hand had smeared blood from my face onto the wall, in addition to my own bloody thumbprint on the door frame.

Obviously, she didn’t leave any bloody marks or any evidence to help the police find her! She had done all the violence. She had left without a cut or scratch!

Joachim and Danny could see my blood in my apartment room, places where my blood was on the floor, my bloody thumbprint on the door frame.

Looking in the mirror, down the hallway, in the bathroom, I was shocked by the extent to which I was cut. I was still bleeding from cuts on the left and right sides of my face. I had never been assaulted in this manner in my life. I had never known any violence in my life, only threats of violence.

Blood was also coming from my nose and mouth. I believe I was in such a state of shock that I was not aware of feeling any pain. I knew that the mind had dissociated from feeling anything at all physically or emotionally.

It was hard to stop the bleeding with so many cuts. I was wearing a dark-striped, green short-sleeved shirt; it was covered in blood. I was wearing shorts, and those were covered in blood as well. Even my socks and shoes were bloody. Within just a few minutes, my shirt, shorts, socks, and shoes had soaked up blood that had drained off my face.

This section dives into one of the most harrowing experiences of my life: not only surviving a violent assault in my own home but also the devastating aftermath of being disbelieved by the very people sworn to protect me. Here, I recount the assault by Ana—a sudden, unprovoked attack while I was simply minding my own business—and the surreal nightmare that followed when I found myself treated as a suspect rather than a victim.

That night, instead of feeling reassured by the presence of law enforcement, I faced an interrogation that felt more accusatory than investigative. It was a disorienting experience, one I could barely process as it unfolded. In my naivety, I assumed the detectives were simply gathering information to understand what had happened. I believed they would approach the situation logically, with an open mind. Instead, I quickly learned how skewed their perspective could be.

Adding to my confusion and frustration, there were witnesses—people who saw Ana enter my home and leave just moments later, unscathed. They weren’t in the room when she locked the door behind her, but they saw enough to corroborate my account. Still, their testimony did little to alter the course of events that night.

Having grown up with emotional neglect, I thought I had finally woken up when I saw myself through the eyes of love—with a girl, a young woman named Celta. That moment cracked open a new self. And still, the impulse to explain myself never left me. Maybe someone here knows that feeling too.

There was a time when I thought I had finally arrived—at love, at home, in a life of success, accomplishment, and peaceful contentment. Lynn was that life. Our love gave shape and meaning to everything else. It buffered me from old wounds, from the shadows of emotional neglect, and let me believe that, maybe, I was no longer invisible.

But then a meteor came crashing down upon my life. Lynn’s illness caught up with her. I was a healer—but only for the mind. All I could do was watch. It was like watching a fire consume everything I had built.

In the smoke and ash of that loss, I turned to my family of origin. I held out the ruins, hoping they’d see the devastation I couldn’t hide. But the truth is—I couldn’t even hide from it. The grief was all-consuming, like a fire itself—burning through everything I was, everything I’d built, everything I thought would last.

Instead of comfort, I received a bizarre sense of blame. As if I deserved it. As if I had brought it upon myself.

That was perhaps the cruelest wound—not the fire itself, but the silence that followed. I was no longer just grieving Lynn and the life I had. I was confronting that ancient, familiar ache: I am not worthy. I am not welcome. I spent a lifetime explaining myself to those who never intended to understand.

The moment I knew everything had changed was the day I walked into our home - Lynn’s and mine - and saw it being packed up. Her mother, who once bought us that house, was now preparing it for sale. It was too real. Too final. I stepped into the computer room—just to be out of sight of the boxes—and felt my legs give way. My body needed support; I slipped down the wall to a sitting position. The life force was gone.

This is the place these poems come from:
A world where identity collapses,
where memory stings like smoke in your eyes,
and where love, once lost, becomes a ghost you chase in dreams.

Dreamed I was a ghost 

I dreamed I was a ghost,
seeking you... screaming your name.
But you would not answer.

Then I could not find you.

I was alone,
an invisible spectator...
watching everything around me,
unable to be heard or seen,
haunting the once familiar spaces.
Now haunted - terrified - by the strangeness
of it all.

In the Boat 

This time it felt
just like a premonition.
In the dream,
I felt like a ghost -
I was there with you
transparent to your sight;
you looked right through me
not seeing me.  

My love for you
keeps these dreams alive.

There is something familiar
about the place.

There, by the water 
we stood,
yet you did not see me.
I watched you enter your sailboat.

I tried to call out to you;
I was scared
of losing you.

I watched you drift away,
fading out of sight.

The boat I enter
takes me back in time - 
back to you. 

Not Even Footprints Remain

Sometimes it seems that
I'm writing these words
on the sand,
like in that quaint picture,
"footprints in the sand."*

The wind is in my face...
Is this all there is?
Words that fade as fast as I write them?
My words dry as sand
that blows in my face
blinding me?

If only I could get you to look
before my words are lost.

In my vision, on the sand,
there are no footprints...
As if I'd never come here,
and never written these words.

Or it never mattered
what I said,
you would not see...
you are not here to see.

You are gone,
like our footprints,
like my words.

Gone!

Flashback

It’s strange how a place
can age-regress you—
fold back the years in an instant.
That’s what happened
when I stood there again.

There’s a man-made jetty
that arcs out to a small island
on the beach
south of Wilmington.

The photograph draws your eye inward—
just as standing there
drew me into myself.

Time collapsed.
Suddenly I was not just in a place—
but in a moment.

Our first day together,
our first real outing—
and the life we were about to build
had just begun.

Today,
the wind off the water
and the hush of waves
surprised me.

The place held the memory—
and the memory held me.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I like to believe
I'm just like anyone else—
that we all have limits.

There’s only so much
pain, fear, loss—
trauma—
we can carry
and still remain
ourselves.

Still hold on
to our values,
our sense of self,
the person we hoped to be.

But when the weight exceeds that limit,
something breaks.

We drift.
Not into sleep,
but somewhere else.
A fogged place.
Out of time.
Out of reach.

Sometimes,
if we’re lucky,
we come back.

But not everyone does.

Reflection: This poem echoes the confessional tradition of poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, whose work dared to name the raw edges of psychic pain. Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back still haunts me. I sometimes wonder if she ever could make it all the way back.

I did.
At least, I think I did.

But some nights,
the line between coming back
and simply existing
feels paper-thin.

Introduction to the poem

Fuge State

I come to,
or awake,
finding myself already walking
somewhere unknown.

I’m not sure how I got here,
where here is,
or even where I meant to go.

A misty rain drifts down,
mingling with tears
that blur my eyes,
slide warm down my cold face.

Fog lifts off the street like smoke
as day slips toward night,
unwinding the edges of everything.

Street signs leer at me —
unrecognizable,
taunting with names that mean nothing.

I want to run.
Back.
Back in time.

Somewhere in this haze,
my mind glimpses
what can’t be real,
must be the
dream within
this dream.

Hours slip by.
My hands have gone numb.
Cold seeps through my coat
and down my back.
There is no sidewalk.
The winter streets slick with rain
or ice — I can’t quite tell.

Cars whip around corners,
far too fast —
their headlights slicing through me.
Each time I tell myself
they will miss me,
just like the last did.
Just like the lightning
will wait —
let me reach somewhere.

Not home —
that was long ago.
Home is gone.

Dogs bark in the distance.
I hope they keep to their fences,
hope I’m invisible.

No one knows where I am.
No one is waiting.
No one needs me
to get home safe.

Awareness trickles in,
thin as the lifting fog.
I stumble,
knees hit the cold asphalt —
not in reverence, only weakness —
and I whisper into the wet dark,
“Please help me.”

How pointless.
Even if belief could matter,
what would it change?

Walking again,
I see a convenience store glowing ahead.
A phone inside.
A roommate’s number
I can almost recall.

Being alone,
lost,
is a state of mind
that endures.

I will keep walking
unknown streets
in unknown towns,
alone
with no
identity.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_fugue

Lost

How did I get
so lost?

At first,
I thought I recognized the road.
A curve, a sign—
faint echoes of somewhere I’d been.

But then—
nothing familiar.
The signs made no sense.
The darkness deepened.

So I drove faster.
“Eventually something
will make sense,”
I told myself.

Fear crept in—
not ordinary fear,
but an existential kind.
The kind that whispers
you might not be real,
that no one is coming,
that even you don’t know
where you are.

My palms sweated.
Heart raced.
I was alone, in a dream
wearing the face of a nightmare.

So I turned off the road—
onto another,
even more unfamiliar.
No signs.
No map.
Just an instinct,
like something inside me screaming,
Anywhere but here.

But the fear didn’t fade.
It grew.
A new kind of terror -
not just from being lost,
but from knowing
I had once been found...
and still ended up here.

I’ve had this dream before.
Always the same turn.
Always the same ending.

The moment before waking,
I whisper inside the dream,
No. I can’t face this.

And I wake.
Still unsure
how I got
so far from myself.