Preface

I spent twenty-two years learning to be visible, only to discover that becoming real is not the same as staying real.

As a very young child, I hid behind a telephone pole when my mother told me to go play with the other kids. Not because I was playing hide-and-seek, but because without a secure base at home, I didn't know how to reach out to the world. I climbed trees and disappeared into the woods—not to escape the neighborhood, but to escape my parents. From the sudden punch or kick that could come out of nowhere. From parents who built a pool and took us to Disney but never once asked if I was happy, never seemed to notice or care who I actually was. 

Even as a child, I could see the disconnect—the performance of family for the outside world, the indifference behind closed doors. By fourteen, I was asking questions I had no language for yet: Why are you doing these things for us when you don't actually care? The only time I remember being held was around age three or four, in swimming lessons, my arms wrapped around the young instructor's neck, and even then I felt certain I didn't deserve it.

By high school, I had perfected invisibility. I sat silent in classrooms, never called upon, a ghost among my peers. I went away to college and immediately started counseling—not because I believed I could change, but because I couldn't keep living this way. I set goals: speak in class, ask someone out. 

For most of my undergraduate years, I remained the third person with every couple—best friend to both the boyfriend and girlfriend, even best man at a wedding, but never part of a couple myself. I finally got two dates my senior year—one date each with two different people. I never spoke in class. I'd come so far, but something fundamental was still missing.

Then, in 1990, after graduating from Georgia Tech, I was seen through the eyes of love. For the first time in my life, I had proof that I was special, that I mattered, that I was real. It was the missing piece—the experiential knowledge that no amount of therapy alone could provide. She died at the end of that same year, and for a time I wondered: what good is it to find this love and have it taken away so suddenly? But something had awakened in me that couldn't be undone.

In April of 1992, I took a microphone and read poetry, choosing to be the center of attention for the first time in my life. Three months later, I met Lynn. What followed over the next eight years—from 1992 through 2000—were years of success and joy beyond my wildest dreams. Graduate school in 1993, becoming a therapist in 1996, full licensure in 1998. Leading therapy groups and counseling couples despite having gotten only two dates in all of college. Building a life with Lynn—enduring love and earned secure attachment, learning in adulthood what I should have known as an infant. 

I want you to understand what's possible. I could have become like so many others who can only connect with narcissists like their parents because it's familiar. I want to show you that it doesn't have to be that way. That even from a childhood like mine, you can find real connection, meaningful work, genuine love. The kind of success that looked, for all the world, like I'd been cured of my past.

By July of 2000, everything seemed perfect. By September, I'd lost it all.

And that's when I learned what I'm still learning now: psychological wounds don't heal like broken bones or diseases cured by vaccines. You can grow, transform, build a beautiful life—and then lose it and discover that all your old patterns are still there, waiting. Letting my parents back into my life recreated the trauma of childhood. By my mid-fifties, I finally did what I should have done decades earlier: I cut off all contact with my family. This is the story of learning to be real, forgetting I was real, and finding my way back—not to where I was, but to something I'm still discovering. This time, with tools I'm learning to use.

My Invitation

Have you ever felt invisible? Not just shy or like a wallflower, but truly unseen—not noticed, not known for who you really are? Noticed social anxiety in yourself? This book is for you.

You might also recognize yourself here if you grew up in a home where you had many things, but your feelings were never validated or didn't seem to matter. Where everything looked normal from the outside - maybe you even say things were good, you weren't abused—but somehow you became responsible for a parent's happiness or emotional needs. That's called covert narcissism, and it's more common than you might think. And narcissistic patterns don't only show up with parents, they can appear in partners and other relationships throughout our lives.

This isn't about blaming parents. It's about understanding what happened and finding your way forward. As the title states, this book covers Complex-PTSD and/or Developmental Trauma—regardless of where those wounds originated.

You may not relate to everything in these pages—everyone's experiences manifest in different ways. Because we have much to cover, take it slowly. I hope you'll relate and know you are not alone.

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.