In the last chapter, I told you about the joy I found in finding someone to love and someone who loved me. I told you about the experiences I had, and I hope it was clear just how meaningful this was in my life's trajectory. It was so important to present the profound and positive impact this had on my life.

This was life-altering.

The experiences I had growing up, in my home environment were toxic to the development of the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that I would need to achieve my career goals. Something had been missing despite all the improvements I had made in my sense of worth.

It's hard to know what you need to overcome a problem that has existed throughout your life. My therapist or counselor in college was very talented, competent, and profoundly helpful. However, we failed to fully appreciate all the negative impacts of abuse and devaluation that I had experienced in my home life from my parents.

Then I met Celta, and something happened. She seemed to delight in me. She was so interested in my experiences. She also was concerned about my well-being and happiness. I knew she was thinking about me for most of the day each and every day! Her diary-style, stream of consciousness letters told me this.

I knew she was thinking about me for so much of her day, each and every day, because of the letters she wrote to me - her diary of sorts composed with me in mind as someone she wanted to share her life with. I had realized that I previously thought that I was not that important to anyone. This is what I meant by seeking a relationship with some aspect of exclusivity or the idea that I could be the most important person to someone.

I knew that I was the only one that Celta loved the way she loved me. Previously, I had friends, but they all had a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse or the relationship wasn't as close.

After I was with Celta, I felt like I was ten feet tall... confident... worthwhile, and deserving. My self-esteem was higher than it had ever been in my life. I also felt safe trying new things. This idea might seem unexpected. She was just a small girl (woman). I sensed that she deeply cared about me and thought about me and that was transformative.

It's important to underscore these important points before I move on with this story.

When I say that our relationship was platonic, I mean that we were not boyfriend and girlfriend. We didn't have a physical relationship. That being said, we did exchange "I love you" on a daily basis or whenever we talked on the phone or saw each other. We were close and perhaps somewhat intimate and physical but not in a sexual way. Then later there was the fact that she said in September that she loved me but wasn't in love with me.

What did that mean? What made it so complicated was the fact that Celta knew exactly what I was feeling and experiencing. It bordered on two people being psychic and connected to one another. I didn’t have to tell her much about the abusive and toxic experiences with my parents when I came to see her. She knew. She comforted me. In her presence I experienced something no medication ever offered - total and complete serenity.

As time passed after she said she was not in love with me back in September, I was afraid to ask if that changed. It wasn’t because of anything that we were doing together physically. It’s just that she would have known how I felt and wanted me to experience love. Instead our eyes and our time together screamed that we were in love without her saying “I am now in love.”

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as we spent so many countless moments of perfect serenity together holding each other, arms wrapped around each other. It was impulsive.

Her lips were so thin that I didn't feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She didn’t turn away or suggest that this should not happen. It just happened. It was what we did that day. If either one of us had not wanted or let it happen it would not have happened.

I discovered for the first time that some expressions of love our outside our control. This is relevant when one thinks about the religious brainwashing to which I was exposed. At this point, the words from September that she was not in love, would have been something I would eventually have asked her to clarify if she had not more likely reflected the truth that we were in love.

She had such tiny lips due to her low weight, a fact of her condition of anorexia. This made it seem like not what I expected. It was on the drive back from the visit that I realized that this had to be explored further. We needed to do something more to express our love for one another.

Sometime later I pictured my face turning to the right and moving closer to her as she moved toward me. I had been in sync with her and felt so comfortable. I knew that she might have said that one time that she was not in love but when we were together there were so many times when she had that look of someone who was so happy, comfortable and it sure looked like she was in love. Well, she definitely had "romantic" feelings.

Also, when I was with her, I could see myself and my feelings. You just know those things. There were so many subtle behavioral cues that told me what she was feeling and how she was responding to my touches... how I held her... where I touched her. Everything had been welcomed. I played back memories of how when I touched her she moved closer to me.

No, what a minute. This was NOT about the ways I touched her. By saying that, I am leaving out so much. What was so profound is the way she touched me. She was NEVER an object to be approached and desired. I was comfortable enough to be close to her all the time and at those times, she was touching me - it was so natural and right… Dreamy eyes looking at each other with my leg on the side of her bed and her leg moving over to rest on mine. Moments after my arrival when we faced each other in the fetal position staring into each others eyes.

Those were some of the moments in which I was the first to say “I love you” with her immediate response, “I love you, too.” Indeed, I would reflect on whether I always said it first.

As I replayed that imagined kiss – next time - I would begin to tilt my head to the right, bend down, she would be acting on instinct, without taking the time to over-think it – that's what I would do, and she was my mirror. Sometimes we do things as if the moment is such that it is inevitable. She would move to meet my lips... she would be transfixed upon my eyes and I hers. I felt excited as I replayed this in my mind.

It was as if it had happened already, almost.

It would never happen.

On New Year's Day of 1991, I received the most devastating news of my life. A phone call shattered my world. I was in my room on the second floor of my parents' house when I heard the words, "Celta died last night."

"How?" I demanded, unable to grasp or accept the harsh reality. I was paralyzed by shock, desperately willing it all to be untrue! The question of “how?” seemed like every part of me was challenging the mere possibility that this news could be true. The person I told every single day that I love her was gone! No, that couldn’t be true.

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation." The fire had ignited from an exposed electrical cord on a TV.

As details of the funeral, its location, and time filtered through my numb mind, I struggled to articulate the turmoil within me. I had spoken with the caller a few times before—a family friend—but now, tears blurred my vision. "Okay, I'll be there, but I can't talk..." I choked out, my voice breaking. They needed to know I would be there.

I let the phone slip from my hand and erupted into a storm of anguished tears.

The pain was unbearable!

Tears streamed down my face as I drove to the funeral, my heart heavy with sorrow. Standing before the closed casket, a tidal wave of emotion consumed me. A fleeting, irrational urge to open it and confirm that it wasn't Celta inside gripped me.

At the funeral, my grief overflowed, my sobs louder and more profound than everyone else's combined. I was beyond caring about appearances.

It was at the Episcopalian church, the place Celta and I attended together, where I would sit beside her mother and Celta herself. I was still a practicing Christian, attending church regularly, but now, everything felt unbearably different.

Standing outside after the funeral, I was caught between murmurs of consolation and the overwhelming sight of the closed casket—a painful, unyielding reminder that this was real. My tears streamed unabated as I grappled with raw grief, and all the while, Celta's mother, with a mix of stern protectiveness and unspoken pity, forbade me from witnessing the burial. She believed, as did I deep down, that I was too fragile, that I wouldn’t survive the storm of that final goodbye. Torn between obeying her and my own desperate need to honor Celta, I felt pulled apart.

At the burial, it was as if the universe had decided that the one heart that loved Celta most, the one whose grief cut deeper than anyone else’s, would be absent from that final tribute. I wasn’t there, having followed Celta's mother’s command by fleeing Athens (Athens, Georgia). In that absence, I was consumed by a bitter sense of betrayal—not just by fate, but by God himself. I questioned why the one force that should have sheltered me had left me to drown in my sorrow. Why was I shown something so beautiful as love is only to have it suddenly taken away.

Despite this inner tumult, I sought help at a grief counseling group led by a nun at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia—a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. The sessions, revolving around guided imagery, relaxation, prayer, and scriptures, felt at once both comforting and painfully clinical. I met with her a few times and even asked for tape recordings, as if locking away her words might somehow patch the gaping wound inside me.

In those group sessions, where the stages of grief were laid out like a cold roadmap, the members shared mementos of memories with their lost loved ones. I listened intently, a wide-eyed outlier among older, seemingly more stoic souls. Yet, I felt like I fit in and belonged. The cold reality of death screamed and cried out that I was meant to be here. I had been in love and she was gone. That was true.

And then there was my family—the constant, yet strangely absent, presence. My parents, with their indifferent instructions and vague expectations, never quite understood my inner chaos. There was a persistent, stinging desire within me to share with them the overwhelming experience of having been loved so wholly by Celta. But instead, I was unable to share my story with them because I never did share things with my family.

It would never occur to me that they would know how to comfort me. This silence about something so profound was a reminder of the callous indifference of my parents. They had NEVER shown me compassion, empathy, kindness, comfort. Having never had real nurturing parents, not ever, I couldn’t even imagine what I would want from them.

As I recount this, it’s painfully clear that it was the first time I had ever truly been loved, and that love both illuminated and cursed me. Could it be that my parents sensed I had never truly loved them in return?

Anyone who saw me regularly would have noticed that something was terribly off—that I carried a secret sorrow beneath my composed exterior. Yet, it was as if my parents and even my brother were haunted by their own denial, unwilling or unable to confront my transformation. Despite the emotional chasm that separated us, all I wanted was to celebrate the unique, transformative relationship I had with Celta. But how does one begin to articulate such complexity?

That year with Celta, brimming with vibrant meaning and fleeting joy, now felt tainted by loss. The experience of being loved and loving in return can never be fully grasped until it is lived, and in its absence, I was left wrestling with both euphoric memories and unbearable pain.

In the midst of all this conflict, I found myself turning to alcohol—a desperate, self-destructive attempt to drown the duality of love and grief, to escape from the inescapable truth of my shattered heart.

I was put on a tricyclic anti-depressant by a psychiatrist. I had developed panic attacks as well. The anti-depressant had the effect of creating a sense of positive feelings even with my mother standing there one morning ironing something for work with my father getting ready too. Those fake feelings were only transitory. It is reminiscent of the song by REM titled "It's the end of the world as we know it."... and I feel fine. I guess I felt "high."

The days flowed around me like a mystical experience in which I flowed in and out of my body. I wasn't fully alive or so it seemed... betrayed even by God.

It was all a blur. My entire existence.

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.

December 2019.

It hadn’t come out of nowhere. That’s the first thing I need to say.

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t a breakdown or a psychotic snap. It was more like a slow erosion—a quiet, daily wearing away of hope, purpose, and identity.

It was the accumulation of years spent trying to live in a world where a lie had become the first truth associated with my name.

That day, I had Googled my name. Again. I don’t know what I was hoping for—maybe that the link had vanished, that the internet had finally moved on, that something had shifted in my favor. But there it was, like always. The headline. The charge. The lie.

And this time, it broke me. John F had reposted on his website the article that falsely characterized the perpetrator as a “girl.”

The lie was digital. Permanent. You could search me online and find it: the false narrative, the charge, the slander that said I was capable of something I knew in my bones I would never, ever do. And not just capable—but guilty. My name, next to hers. A violent offense. The words “girl” and “felony” and “sexual assault.” The distortion of it all was enough to make the air feel thinner every time I looked.

She wasn’t a girl. She was the perpetrator. I was the one who bled. And yet, for the past fifteen years, I’d lived under a shadow that didn't belong to me.

I had done everything they told me to do. I had gone to therapy. I had tried trauma processing. I had written the story, again and again, trying to make sense of it. I had tried telling the truth out loud, only to find the words disappeared into a society that didn’t care.

I couldn’t live in a world where people thought I had harmed a woman. That was the mantra I had repeated to therapists, advocates, friends—anyone who would listen. But the thing about mantras is, they aren’t spells. They don’t change the world.

They just echo in your head until they become unbearable.

And in December of 2019, it became unbearable.

I called my legal support service one more time, the Pre-Paid Legal law firm, the only law firm I could afford. I explained the case again, tried to argue that the statute of limitations shouldn’t apply to someone who never truly consented to a plea deal, who had been shut down, frozen, dissociated in the courtroom. I asked whether the website quoting a misreported news article could be taken down. I pleaded.

And they said no. Again. They said in a matter of fact way that the article was true based on the fact that I had been arrested and charged. I tried to argue that it was false in the fact that Ana, the perpetrator who was believed to be a victim was not a “girl.” It didn’t matter. John wasn’t even alive.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

Those words. The final verdict. The end of the line.

What do you do when the lie wins? When justice is unavailable? When the past isn't just haunting you—it’s stalking you, shaping your future, dictating your limits?

I wasn’t in a panic. I wasn’t screaming. I wasn’t even crying. I was... quiet.

The vodka wasn’t for oblivion. It was for courage.

I couldn’t do it sober. The pills in the bottle stared back at me—Effexor, antidepressants meant to keep me from getting to this place. But they hadn’t worked. Not enough. And tonight, they weren’t going to save me. They were part of the plan.

It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t some dramatic gesture. It was simply the only thing that made sense after the law firm said what they did. After the same lie kept rising to the top of every search. After hearing again that John F.’s reposting of a misinformed article—one that wrongly referred to my attacker as a "girl"—was untouchable because it was “quoting a news source.”

Even in death, he had power over my name. Even after all these years, my name was still tangled in something grotesque and false. It didn’t matter that Ana was a grown woman. It didn’t matter that she was the one who assaulted me. The framing had been set, and every new acquaintance, every employer, every curious stranger who Googled me would meet that framing first.

I picked up my phone again and typed out a message to Elee. I told her I was sorry. I told her I regretted bringing her here, to the U.S.—even if I hadn’t made her choices for her. But mostly, I told her what I was doing.

It was late. I didn’t expect her to see it in time. I didn’t expect anything, really. I was just apologizing for her having given up her old life for me. Some time passed. I had come close to falling asleep before taking enough pills to end my existence.

But then came the knock on the door.

Police.

Disoriented, I opened it. My thoughts were scattered, blurry, but not gone. They asked if I was okay. I was tearful. Something in me still wanted to be heard, even now. I told them how much I was hurting. About the hopelessness. About what I had done.

They listened. They didn’t threaten. But I knew—I was going to the hospital.

And I knew I couldn’t take the patrol car.

Even the idea of handcuffs made my chest tighten. I had worn them before—not as a danger to anyone, but as a victim of a system that saw me as something I wasn’t. I told them I would go in the ambulance. Thinking, please, no cuffs.

They agreed..

I lay on the stretcher in the emergency room at UNC, the lights buzzing faintly above. The hospital air smelled sterile, overwashed, distant. It was December 11, 2019, just past midnight.

I wasn’t crying anymore. I wasn’t resisting. I was embarrassed.

A hospital volunteer sat beside me. I couldn’t bring myself to say much. But there was a strange sense of peace—not comfort, but surrender. I wasn’t in control anymore. That pressure was gone.

Part of me thought: Maybe this wasn’t even a real attempt. I hadn’t taken all the pills. I hadn’t lost consciousness. But that’s not what mattered. I had crossed a line inside myself. And I didn’t know if I could go back.

Eventually, they moved me to another floor. I hadn’t seen a psychiatrist yet, just nurses who checked my vitals and asked quiet questions.

I remembered this process. I had once been the one doing the evaluations—visiting patients on medical floors to decide if they were going to be going home or if their suicide attempt was serious enough. Now, I was the patient. And I knew exactly what was coming.

When the psych resident finally arrived—a woman younger than me, calm but firm—I tried to talk my way out of it. I tried to argue that someone with my background would have known what was suicidal. Later I would admit to myself that if I had not nearly fallen asleep, or if I had the chance, I would have continued to take pills until I had taken enough.

She looked at me gently. “You’re going to be admitted.”

There was no convincing her otherwise.

Elee decided to leave, even though she had nowhere to go and no means to support herself. Despite eight years in the U.S., her struggle with English persisted, and that day her departure was unmistakably clear.

I had invited Johnetta over, hoping she might help us untangle our unraveling relationship—even though she wasn’t a therapist or relationship expert. Instead, her presence only deepened the chaos.

For months, silence had settled between Elee and me like an impenetrable fog. I wasn’t sure she still cared about our marriage—perhaps I had grown indifferent too. Then Johnetta’s question shattered the tension: “Do you love her?”

The air cracked. Under the weight of the moment, I admitted, “I don’t think I do.” Elee’s face remained unreadable, as if she already expected it. But Johnetta’s reaction was explosive, and before I could comprehend what was happening, Elee was taken away.

In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. We never talked about our problems. While she was busy studying for the USMLE exams, I would fill up sheets of paper with things to discuss to keep the relationship alive and post them on the wall of the kitchen. Johnetta had no knowledge of how long and hard I had tried to work on our problems. It had gotten to the point where literally every day for the past year and a half I repeated the words that it didn’t seem like Elee cared that the love was dying.

When Elee said she is an alone woman in America Johnetta heard something that suggested that Elee should go to the domestic violence shelter. Elee got the impression that if she took out a Domestic violence protective order she could get into section 8 housing. To Elee’s credit when they pulled up my criminal history she rejected and refused to mention that at all in court. To this day she has remained passionately angry at Ana, the court system, my lawyer, everyone involved.

She had to come up with a reason why she was upset and needed a “domestic violence protection order.” The only thing I remember seeing was that I mentioned the Trump Muslim bans and how her family couldn’t visit. It was almost funny to see that on the document in court. After trying to get Elee to talk I went to a protest gathering in downtown Chapel Hill and spoke about my wife from Iran and how her family can’t visit. She knew I had not voted for this president and I vehemently opposed the ban. It was also strange to realize that she knew where I was but I had no idea where she was.

I was thinking that all she had to do is say that she didn’t want me to visit. That was not what she wanted. She just wanted to pretend for the next 12 or 18 months that we were not seeing each other.

I haven’t discussed it yet but I had begun trauma therapy and I was beginning to look at returning to Clinical Social Work. Elee knew this and supported me. I said, “don’t you see how this makes me look? It looks like I could have done the things that Ana alleged.”

She didn’t seem to be able to appreciate how standing in a court room made me feel. Of course, she invited me to visit. She had no reason to fear me.

“Just pretend for a little while,” she said.

Past Trauma and Marriage

Flashback to the early days of our marriage. Sexuality brought with it reminders of my past. Sometimes as a guy one can feel like one is a willing participant in an event. Things had happened long before I met Elee. In early 2001, someone who I had been dating had jokingly spoke of having a gun and she was a prison guard. I didn’t want anything to happen that night but she came over anyway. It had been easy to forget about this incident in all the chaos of that time. Yet, after I got married to Elee flashbacks began.

I had mentioned Kathy earlier in the book. She had different personalities ( like someone with dissociative identity disorder) and one child-like personality had come out during an intimate moment. Later I moved in with her, her boyfriend and her son. I had to ask the police to show up for me to finally leave and to get my girlfriend, Shonda, to help me move out. I hadn’t had a car since I lost my last car in early 2001. So, in early 2003, before the physical assault by Ana, I had left Cathy’s residence. I had felt trapped and there were sexual overtures to what was happening.

Some of Kathy’s personalities wanted me as a therapist, which wasn’t possible, others were child-like. There was one personality that was seductive and sexual and I had felt threatened.

All this was coming up and had caused problems in our marriage. It was triggered by these flashbacks and nightmares. In some way, this drove me toward starting therapy and eventually I would find the courage to reach out to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center where they supported the idea that any form of non-consensual sexual behavior was sexual violence. I had even been remembering my hernia operation when I was five years old.

It’s strange how so many ideas could come together where any one of them might be overlooked or insignificant. 

Despair weighed upon me as I wandered the dark Durham night. The shelter was full, so I tried to sleep on the grounds of Duke West Campus. No signs warned against trespassing. I didn’t feel comfortable so I left and taking a shortcut I scaled a 4-foot rock wall, unaware of doing anything wrong.

Then, as if summoned by fate, a police car appeared.

A block down the road, its lights flickered in the night. The car slowed, then stopped. My stomach clenched as the officer stepped out, approaching me with a cold authority.

“License."

The request made no sense. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Why were they stopping me?

And then, those dreaded words. Words that had already shattered my life once before.

"Warrant for your arrest."

Time collapsed. My thoughts spiraled. A warrant? For what?

Then came the explanation—something about using someone’s credit card without permission.

I couldn’t breathe.

A credit card?

Panic surged through me. How? I hadn’t even had the chance to meet anyone with a credit card since my release from jail. How could I have committed a felony without even knowing it?

I barely had time to process the accusation before cold metal closed around my wrists. Handcuffs. Again.

As they led me away, my mind raced to make sense of the impossible.

How the hell did this happen?

A Rabbit Hole of Betrayal

To understand this new nightmare, we have to go back—back to a time before Ana, before jail, before my life unraveled.

I had once been part of therapy groups in Durham, trying to build a community, trying to heal. That’s where I met Kathy.

She knew I had worked with people diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)—once called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)—a condition made infamous by movies like Sybil. It was rare, misunderstood, and yet, here it was, again, threading itself into my story.

Before my time on Holloway Street, before the assault that would alter my life, I had briefly lived in a spare room offered by a friend, Elaine. During that time, Kathy and I became intimate.

Then, one night, everything changed.

In an instant, she transformed—her voice, her body language—childlike.

It was as if I was suddenly in the presence of a child in an adult’s body.

I freaked out. I pulled away and got dressed immediately.

It didn’t matter that she was an adult. It felt like I was with a child.

Kathy soon returned to her boyfriend and Elaine wanted to live alone. I moved into the home of Kathy and her boyfriend —sleeping in the same room as her son, on the bottom bunk. But our relationship had become twisted, toxic.

She demanded my attention, needed me to play the role of therapist. I had already explained how inappropriate that would be after what had happened and I wasn’t licensed and practicing at that point.

Some of her other personalities were angry at me.

Some were obsessed with me.

Some were jealous—especially when I spent time with my girlfriend, Shonda.

The situation was untenable.

And then came Christmas.

The Credit Card That Would Ruin Me

December 2003—less than a year before Ana’s attack.

Kathy wanted to give me a gift.

She offered to pay for my website domain renewal—the same poetry website I had started with Lynn back in 1995.

The life I had shared with Lynn felt so close, and yet, like an entirely different lifetime.

We sat together as she entered her credit card details into my GoDaddy account. It was her choice.

Neither of us thought much about the card being saved on file.

At the time, it meant nothing. But that decision—the smallest, most mundane act—would later become my undoing.

A Dangerous Shift

Tensions escalated.

Kathy became more unpredictable, more hostile.

One night, things turned dangerous.

I felt threatened—physically and sexually.

I ran.

Outside, hands shaking, I called Shonda. She offered me a place to stay, a bed in the back of her family’s store.

Then, I called the police.

The authorities came. They didn’t arrest Kathy, but the report was on record—a crime of a sexual nature, with me as the victim.

I should have seen the warning signs then. But I didn’t.

And now, here I was—being arrested. Because of her.

The Forgotten Charge

Fast-forward to 2005, after Ana, after my release from jail.

I had forgotten about the GoDaddy domain.

My cards on file had no funds, so Kathy’s was automatically charged.

Instead of asking for her card to be removed, instead of seeing this for what it was—a mistake—she pressed charges.

The charge? Felony credit card fraud.

The amount? $15.

Fifteen dollars.

And I was back in a cell.

Trapped in the System Again

This time, I spent a month in jail, mostly in protective custody.

The same lawyer—the one handling my pending trial—was assigned to this nonsense case.

"I’ll enter a plea to misdemeanor larceny," he told me when he got around to contacting me at all, after I had been there almost a month!

"You’ll be released right away. No court appearance necessary."

I should have been furious but I was in such a state of shock during this period of time. I was detached from feelings and living life as if in a bad dream.

Misdemeanor larceny? Over a clerical error?

A System That Doesn't Care

I was too numb and detached to feel the anger that I feel as I write this almost 20 years later.

I was too beaten down, too traumatized to feel the full weight of my indignation.

But looking back?

This shouldn’t have happened.

A competent lawyer—one who actually cared—would have had this dismissed immediately. Instead, my public defender took the path of least resistance, pushing me through a legal system that wasn’t about justice, only efficiency.

I just wanted out.

So, I did not protest when he told me what he was going to do. As soon as I was free, I left Durham—straight for Chapel Hill.

Because even in homelessness, I had learned: some places were safer than others and Chapel Hill was safer.

Some people have questions like what happened to my first wife, Lynn. She died in 2015, I found out. From cancer. There had been no "we" for all these years. Merely talking about her and what happened has been so painful.

Before I met Elee, my second wife, I had tried to get back with Lynn, but it never worked out. As I said in the last chapter, the times when I saw her down in Wilmington were very awkward and surreal. What could my friend Thomas do? Other than understanding what I must have been feeling.

 I couldn't say anything when she was right next to me. I’ll get to that scene below.

I had been more comfortable with her than with anyone else in my life. We had trusted each other implicitly. We had such a connection. I had stated the fact that I would have done anything imaginable to hold onto a relationship with Lynn. That fact cannot be understated.

I should have said something when she was right next to me. I had previously tried so hard. I didn't want to call her after a certain point about three years after we had started living our own lives - she with her mother and me in another city.

I had asked others to contact her and convey how much I felt for her. Obviously, those who heard my story were moved to call her and to convey this information. I had hoped to get some information that might lift my spirits.

I believe it was too painful for her to have to move on without me. I didn't want to cause her more pain. I don't know how she dealt with the memories of when we were in love. 

 I am so sorry!

Lynn had this survivalist instinct due to her illness. After we watched "Titanic" we were discussing the movie with a friend of hers who had cystic fibrosis like her. Her friend and I had agreed that we would jump back into the boat as the girl did to be with the guy.

Lynn disagreed. We had been living together for years at that point. So, I guess she was saying that she would not jump back into the boat to be with me. I know with one hundred percent certainty that I would jump back to be with her if she was in peril instead of getting into the rescue boats that would result in my near-certain survival.

I would NEVER be able to go to safety on a rescue boat with Lynn in a sinking ship. She would not find any justification in dying on a sinking boat just to be with me a bit longer. She might have found it senseless to stay on a sinking ship. I would have done anything to be with her, to help and protect her, no matter what.

So, there was a combination of factors that kept me paralyzed from contacting her from 2003 until her death in 2015. I had not wanted to make her life more painful. What I was going through was extremely traumatic for me and she was in survival mode.

There was another occasion when I almost spoke to Lynn during another awkward moment, years after we had been apart.

It was in late 2009.

Jean had invited me to come to a lounge on a Saturday evening in downtown Wilmington. He told me he was having a workshop for poets. We would share a poem to be workshopped. We would read it and ask for support or feedback from the group.

I had called him earlier that afternoon from Wrightsville Beach near Johnny Mercer’s Pier.

I had been here at this location not long ago… up at the front area is where they have the poetry readings and music. I don’t think this place existed in the 90s.

I heard Lynn would be there.

My mind had been racing with ideas about what I would or should say to Lynn if I said anything. This would be an interactive event… My heart raced throughout the next few hours as I headed in that direction.

What would I say?

I didn't feel the need to explain what had happened to me regarding the false accusations and conviction. I knew that she would not have wondered about that. She knew the kind of person I was.

Recently, I figured out in my mind that I had been a good person - always. So, the idea that I was undeserving of her was a false belief I had back then. It's sad that I figured this out after she died!

I had gotten so close to saying something on another occasion.

That evening came… I was told to go to the room in the back by Jean. 

A few people were talking and then they left the room. Lynn was standing there - alone. I was right nearby.

Had others planned this? Left us in a dark, quiet, private room.

I was thinking and at the same time, my mind was trying to muster the willpower to do or say something. I was thinking of something to say. My heart pounded hard in my chest. I felt frozen – not cold but motionless. I was composing thoughts "I... I what?"

I imagined myself saying "I love you." and her answer would be "I know."

Wow! I just realized what a cliché that would be. It's right out of "The Empire Strikes Back" when Han Solo is being frozen in carbonite and Lea tells him. "I love you."

I'm sure I would have broken down, falling to my knees, weeping bitterly, crying "I love you so much. I NEVER stopped being in love with you."

My mind’s a bit blank as I think back to what happened after that uncomfortable moment when I was there alone, close enough to touch Lynn. 

Others filed into that room from the front. They took seats. Four to my right. Jean is the “leader” – he sat on the right. Three on my left. And then Lynn. My hands and arms were trembling. My breathing was fast and shallow. I’m sure others could hear me nearly hyperventilating.

The rotation was coming around toward me. I had selected a poem that I wrote called “Fugue State.” A fugue state is a symptom of some dissociative disorders. I said they are caused by “trauma”, but I could have just said extreme stress or distress. I had written this about the dark times I had known not too long ago.

Sometimes I don’t know what I want to say until I say it. Below is the poem that I wrote. It’s in free verse. 

(I realized later that it was the imagery of dreams, disorientation, desolation, and despair are that I was trying to convey. I didn’t know how to do this with rhyme or metered verse.)

Holding the poem in my hand I begin to read.

Fugue State:

In the dream…
I think it’s a dream -
I’m not sure how I got
here or where I was going.

It’s dark.
I look at the street signs
that I walk past,
and for a time I’m
not finding any that I recognize.

Then I begin to think
that things look a bit
familiar but I’m…
uncertain.
I want to run
but I’m tired
and unsure how far
I have to go.

I try to remember
but nothing comes to mind
to explain
how I got here…
where I am going…
where I live -
where my home is -
or if I have a home.

I don’t seem to be injured.
I want to remember…
I begin to question
whether I even know
for certain
who I am?

The people I pass
look unfriendly - 
not dangerous;
they just don’t convey
anything resembling kindness
or friendship.
They don’t know me.
They don’t pay much attention.

What should I say anyway?
Ask them to tell me who I am?
Or ask where I am?
I cannot ask how to get
where I am going
because I do not know that.

I don’t know if I am afraid of the ridicule
or convinced of the futility
in even trying to get help.

I want to fall down on my knees
and cry… cry out to someone, 
“Please help me!”

But I’m paralyzed by my fear
and all I can do
is keep walking
and hoping that somehow
things will become clear
and make sense.

--------------

I can’t remember the feedback that I got. 

When it came around to her, to offer feedback on my poem, she said "I pass."

I got up moments later, the feelings were overwhelming me. I walked out into the night, moving fast. I stopped into a bookstore and looked at some books. I got a call from Thomas, who was on the way. 

“Okay, I’m heading back there, I’ll see you in a little while,” I said.

I returned and took a seat near Jeff Wyatt in that front room near the bar. He had been friends with Lynn and me just like Thomas had been. He went into massage therapy at some point. 

I suppose that my last words to Lynn were "Fugue State." My life had been a trance since I had to go on living without her being a part of me and me being a part of her.

I wasn't even mentioned in her obituary.

To this day that hurts so much to think about it.

I mean it really hurts. My tears blur my eyes and roll down my cheeks as I write this in 2021. It feels wrong that I didn't try harder when she was right next to me. 

There was no closure. I had failed to just say those words. I love you!

I had been victimized and didn't even defend myself. Yet, I was the one convicted of a violent crime. I was the victim of a brutal and bloody assault where I did no wrong.

That was the end of my normal life and all the hope that I had ever had in life. I believed that my life was over, and I would only live a wretched existence with no hope of any future.  

It was Edmund Burke who said at the time the US was being formed into a nation that the only thing required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.  

I would argue that a person who doesn’t respond to the pleas of a victim is not good. That is so much eviler when it involves your own family!

To have maintained a relationship with them after this was a sign of my inability to act with love for myself or with self-compassion. By maintaining a relationship with my parents and siblings after this, I disrespected and dishonored myself. 

I would NEVER forgive anyone who did such a thing to anyone else. It was evil, pure and simple. They had known the nature of my character and had admitted later that I am a good person and that they never thought I was guilty of what I was accused of doing.

It was evil, pure, and simple as far as I am concerned!

They had been doing me wrong repeatedly over and over for going on six years when this plea deal went into effect. They also didn't speak up and say "oh, you should appeal it, let's get you a lawyer." I have heard of parents who make it their mission to save their adult children who are falsely accused of crimes.  

My so-called family, my now ex-family, did nothing! That sickens me and a quote I heard somewhere comes to mind, “I hate them with the burning hot passion of a thousand suns!”

Until I found I could be indifferent toward them. I have gone “no contact” which is a strategy I heard for dealing with narcissists.

I would be hard-pressed to find anything good or redeeming about them, now.  

I was struggling with this and my finances in March of 2020 when I called the Catholic Social Ministries. I needed help with rent, and they were listed as a community resource for this.

I spoke to the lady who ran the social ministries there, Mary Ellen McGuire, and she said, "Can I pray for something for you?"  

I didn't really answer because I wasn't much of a believer after everything I had experienced. I had once believed. I had prayed so desperately when I was in such desperate need of comfort. From the depths of my soul, I had prayed repeatedly over and over many times per day when I was in jail for seven months. I had said, "My God, you know I am the victim and I need help. Please help me!"  But I got no aid.  

This was going through my mind.

I heard Mary Ellen ask again, "Is there something I could mention in prayer for you?"

I said, "You know, I was raised Catholic. I used to go to church until recently. I always lived my life according to the highest morals. I NEVER harmed anyone, ever! Yet, I had everything taken from me and every hope of happiness."

"I loved helping others and I worked as a psychotherapist. It was so amazing to be able to help others who were suffering from emotional pain. In a world that makes sense, I would be of great value. But years ago, there was something bad that happened. I was falsely accused and convicted of a violent crime. Me! I have NEVER acted even remotely aggressive in my entire lifetime. Now, they say it's too late to get justice or to clear my name."

I continued, "You know, I studied the Bible and the book of Job. Job had it better than me. In that story, it is revealed in the end that he wasn't being punished for some wrong that he did. You could say his innocence had been revealed. He was vindicated."

"For me, there is something called a statute of limitations. I was supposed to have appealed the plea arrangement back when I was in a very dark place and all alone."

I added, "and my own family abandoned me and didn't do anything."  

She then said, "well, Jesus never got justice. He was never vindicated. He died yet he did no wrong."

Wow, I could agree with that from a historical perspective. I could relate too. Jesus went around healing people. 

I said, "I actually had thought about that before. Thank you for reminding me."

The imagery of the cross is about the idea of someone who has done no wrong facing a shameful crucifixion.   

The first books of the "New Testament" - the gospels - end with a good person being executed. There was no stay of execution at the last moment with the truth setting Jesus free.  

The friends of Jesus faced execution if they were associated with him when he was arrested. Those who abandoned me, the woman who gave birth to me, the sister who claimed to love me, faced no such threat to their well-being.  

My entire future was on the line and I was thrown out into the cold streets and without a home. They didn't even give me warmth or shelter during those years.  

I met someone who was assigned to be a peer support person in my recovery from mental illness last year. He kept insisting I needed to find a "higher power." I protested saying that I do not believe in such foolish ideas.  

I said it would be a miracle if I got justice for a crime that happened sixteen years ago way past the statute of limitations. "If that happens, I'll believe," I said to shut him up.  

He was insisting that God would or could not do anything for me now. What? Your god can reanimate a dead body, bring someone back from the dead but that same God cannot inspire and touch the hearts and minds of people. That god cannot persuade people.

That makes no sense to me. Why would you believe that the God of Easter can raise a person from the dead and all it takes for justice is to persuade others to recognize the truth and embrace justice. 

When I was a believer, I heard that God is all about justice. This would be the most obvious and pertinent thing on the list of things that God would want to do.  

It doesn't matter how much time has passed or other difficulties. For God, all things are possible. This is certainly less complicated than creating a universe and raising a man from the dead.

This individual who said I should believe in a higher power was part of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. I asked for a different peer support person to be assigned to me.

Mary Ellen McGuire sent me a book called "Everyone Has Someone to Forgive."  She understood how seemingly impossible it was for me to forgive my family. In sending this book to me she respected and recognized that a great wrong had been done on their part by their betrayal.

I have a takeaway from my present insights. We do not contemplate forgiving those people who mean nothing to us. We just don’t think about them because other things are on our minds.

That is where we are as I am about to wrap up my autobiography.

Hopefully, you are wondering, dear reader, what exactly was happening to my career. I left out some details with the focus on Lynn's health. I said that individuals who were also getting treated by John Freifeld were suing me and they had filed grievances with the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board (NCSWCLB).

The NCSWCLB would have the final say as to whether I could continue to work in my field. So, this was not just about my private practice. This was not like losing a job. This was career-changing, or it could end my career. I was a mess at this point and I needed time off to heal but I had my entire future on the line.

The role that John Freifeld played in this situation is important. Some of what I was being accused of doing either I had heard that he was in fact doing those things or I could see how if there was someone to blame for the deterioration of the mental health of my clients, the fault should go more toward the individual who did not have any training or expertise. I am NOT saying that this means I didn’t care about my clients.

As you will recall, John Freifeld had admitted that he was not a trained psychotherapist and he had no degree, had no specialized training, and no credentials. He had admitted to my client Jessica that he had misrepresented himself previously as a therapist.

If asked, he would say that he is "just a support person.” My colleagues had readily recognized the problems that I was describing and had advised me to tell my clients that I cannot be their therapist if they are receiving services from John.

However, I have sought to explain how and why his actions were not helping others and were in fact making people worse. I would later in 2020 begin to talk to his sister Ruth.

She said recently when I asked if John would have stopped hurting me if he knew it was hurting another innocent person (a fact I will get to later) and she said “John had no sympathy, compassion, or empathy for other people… if he sought out to hurt someone and he found out indirectly he was hurting someone else they love that was more power to him he lacked empathy.”

As a psychotherapist who wanted to work in private practice, I had to obtain malpractice insurance or liability insurance. It is standard practice for this to cover up to $1 Million per claim and $3 Million total. I'm not sure where I heard this, but I heard that Freifeld knew about this insurance coverage and that he expected to benefit in some way from this. It is hard to imagine that a specific detail like that would just happen to be made up by someone.

One could imagine the proceeds of a civil suit being used to set up a treatment center in Wilmington, and Freifeld would imagine a role for himself in that treatment center. I have no proof of this. I can point out that when my client went over to where John was staying, she said, “the place is like a damn treatment center.”

I felt like I was on the run during this time.  

I regret that I had to end things with my clients so abruptly, but my life was falling apart so fast. I didn’t feel competent for the first time in my career. At least temporarily, I was not well.

I closed the office and turned in my key. Some of the office furniture was thrown away or left for someone to pick up. The owners of the building had a say in how that was handled. 

As I took one last look at the office I thought, “It was amazing how Lynn had made the office look so nice and comfortable/inviting. I felt so good about how I had fixed up the office without spending too much money. I had gone from renting an office that was used by Chris Hauge, DSW, LCSW to getting my own office fast, within a couple of months. That was an amazing accomplishment and not something my colleagues had expected. 

It's hard to believe that that was just a couple of years ago. It seemed like another lifetime.  

I tried to store the client files somewhere stable but nothing about my life was stable at this point. My entire life had collapsed in just under two months! So, other than furniture, I packed everything into a car and tried to figure out where I was going to store everything. I brought some of it to our house, but then all of that was being packed up in that first week of September. Plus, the last thing I wanted to do was to overwhelm Lynn with the details of what I was confronting at this time.  

I had bought a new car after the car that I previously had was stolen and then totaled. Yes, I felt guilt and shame for having burdened Lynn with that expense because she had cosigned on that car when our life had been "normal."  

The company that provided my malpractice insurance had assigned a law firm to represent me. The issues of the grievances and the malpractice claims were both being handled by the same lawyers. Obviously, they needed documentation to review the method and nature of the treatment interventions that I had employed.  

This was happening at a time when I was emotionally distraught. I was overwhelmed. I was moving from one place to another without any permanent residence. I had never been prepared for days or events like this.  

How do I put together the treatment notes for clients A, B, C, D, and E? I couldn't focus. This wasn't life as I had ever known it to be. My lawyers were not mental health counselors who could help me with the overwhelming stress of everything I was dealing with. They only knew about facts and evidence.  

Maybe if my life had been more stable and if I ever had a moment of peace, I might have been able to provide detailed notes, treatment plans, observations and so much more. Plus, we all sometimes get behind in our notes and documentation. In an ideal world, I would be able to document everything and find experts to explain how nothing I did was wrong, unethical, or amounted to malpractice. 

My life was a million miles from an "ideal world" scenario.  

I also believed it was all my fault that I lost Lynn. I was consumed with guilt for not being everything she had wanted and expected. I had been that way until she got sick in late July or August of 2000... until I broke under the overwhelming pressure. 

The fact that Lynn could have understood that was not registering at all to me. 

It was not like Lynn and I broke up, there were no goodbyes. I just could not persuade her to find a place for me with her. With Diane selling our home, I was on the run and I didn’t feel I could ask to move in with Diane.

Continuously, I kept seeing in my mind examples of how I had not been there for Lynn or how I let her down.

The point is that I was having a hard time focusing. It seemed like I wasn't going to be able to offer evidence to act in my own defense regarding the grievances with the NCSWCLB or in my civil suit. I was having trouble providing what was needed by my lawyers to mount a defense.  

I would come to see how the NCSWCLB was not provided with sufficient or complete information that they could use to make a decision regarding my licensure. They were not made aware of the tragic and stressful events that I had just experienced. They were not aware of the role that Freifeld played in the lives of these clients. 

How do I know this to be the case? Let me explain. 

First of all, with the chaotic nature of my life, I had trouble providing documentation to inform them. My lawyer was therefore unable to present any useful information. Being disorganized and overwhelmed does not mean that my actions were unethical. 

It also does not mean one is incompetent or unskilled. 

The NCSWCLB also hired two psychologists to do a psychological assessment on me. They were David Ziff, Ph.D., and Dr. Williams. From my experiences meeting with these psychologists, it was clear that they were not made aware of the recent stressors that I experienced. And they did not ask any questions about what might be happening in my life. That fact in itself is rather bizarre because even before I started graduate school, I would have known to explore recent events and stressors.

So, these psychologists had only the information in the grievances to go on.

In just one day, they would come to a conclusion that no one else had ever made about my competency and mental health. 

My perceptions about them were that they were cold and indifferent, lacking in empathy and compassion. That seemed odd for mental health professionals, though I have felt the same about some of my colleagues where I had worked – psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, and psychotherapists.   

I made a feeble attempt to defend myself with Dr. Ziff which must have come out wrong. I might have stated that I didn’t think that the problems that my clients were having were my fault. I know that was misunderstood when he asked, "what about how this affected your clients?" 

I was speechless. Of course, I cared about my clients. How had this session devolved into some caricature of how not to build trust, empathy, and a working relationship with another person? I also had assumed that he would have known that I was not living with them and providing therapeutic interventions with them as Freifeld had been doing.

It was clear that Dr. Ziff wasn't even curious as to the veracity of the claims being made. Neither seemed to wonder how I had been so successful over the past decade. I must have fooled every colleague, therapist, and supervisor who came before them.

My lawyers told me that they didn't think they could defend me with the licensure board - the NCSWCLB - at this time and because I wasn't able to provide documentation. So, they advised me to just sign what is called a Consent Decree. I should just sign what is called a Consent Decree.  It stipulated that I would surrender my license, but I could dispute the findings later. 

This was in March of 2001.

I was profoundly depressed already with low self-esteem and a low sense of self-worth. So, I didn’t think I had anything to offer the world. It’s truly astonishing that I would believe this based on everything that had happened over the past years.

I felt a profound sense of helplessness and powerlessness. Of course, the loss of the life I had with Lynn was perhaps a greater contributor to that feeling at this time. 

Remember this psychological assessment lasted only a few hours in one day.

David Ziff wrote that he thought that I lacked social skills and empathy. That was the most profoundly untrue thing that anyone could say at this point… any of several hundred people would strongly disagree with that statement.

I had told my lawyers that we could dispute that by interviewing 10 or more colleagues and therapists that I had over the years.  

It's ironic that he was accusing me of not having empathy. Neither one of them had demonstrated even the most rudimentary capacity for empathy or interest in connecting with me as a person during our interactions together. 

I could compare and contrast that to everything I had ever observed from psychologists and psychotherapists that I had ever worked with. While I have known some psychotherapists or psychiatrists who lack empathy and compassion but none of them had the audacity to describe someone else as lacking those qualities.

You might think, oh, you are saying that because you are mad at them or upset with their findings. That’s partially true. But as I have said previously, empathy is a dynamic that exists between a client and therapist/psychologist/counselor. It’s somewhat subjective and it’s something that must be experienced by the other person.

I cannot comment on their abilities in general. I can only comment on how they acted in this situation.   

He also wondered if I had a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Apparently, no one ever noticed that either. None of my therapists, psychologists, supervisors, or colleagues had questioned my reality testing before Dr. Ziff. In the decades since then, no psychiatric professional has ever diagnosed me with a disorder that involved problems with reality testing. 

Unfortunately, I didn't think I had any options but to sign the agreement that was drafted - a Consent Decree. And that is how I surrendered my license. It was a condition of the Consent Decree.  

I could challenge that later. 

Diane was Lynn’s mother. In my healing, I have come to forgive myself for my mistakes and to love myself. To develop a sense of self-compassion. It was devastating to discover that I was not mentioned in Lynn’s obituary. We will get to my reflections upon that in a moment.

Dear Diane:

What I am about to write is not about me or for me. I need to honor Lynn and her legacy … to talk to the world about her value. I’m not writing this letter for personal reasons. 

I wanted to announce a book that I wrote that honors Lynn and what she offered the world. This letter is a chapter from that book. It’s up to you if you want to read the book. It’s my autobiography but Lynn features prominently in the book. I titled it “Memoirs of a Healer/Clinical Social Worker – Autobiography of Bruce Whealton.” It can be found online at https://brucewhealton.com/autobiography

I spend a large portion of the book trying to make sense of what happened in 2000 to me. At some point during this period, I heard that you thought I needed to have learned more about emotional intelligence. That my impulses were not in check. 

I couldn’t forgive myself for not being there for Lynn when she needed me in 2000 when she got sick. I never reached out like this because I imagined I didn’t deserve any compassion or understanding. I understood what I would feel about anyone who caused Lynn any pain.

So, I get it. Let me repeat it. I know how I would feel toward anyone who caused Lynn any pain! 

In Lynn’s obituary, I read nothing that comes close to conveying just how profoundly amazing she was and how she made the world a better place!

We might think, “well, that’s okay, Lynn didn’t have anything to prove, or she wasn’t looking for recognition in her actions.” 

I know differently – at least when she was with me. She loved that I had been willing to declare my love loud and clear for anyone who would listen. I give examples of his in this book. 

Take, for example, a time when I got up in front of a group of people at the poetry reading at the Coastline Convention Center and read a new poem – a love poem – that everyone knew was about Lynn and dedicated to Lynn. She had been doodling because she thought I was going to read only poems she already heard. She felt so embarrassed when she realized what she missed.

After that, she would read that poem of mine, dedicated to her, about my love for her, whenever it was her turn to share at some poetry reading, and perhaps she didn’t have something to read of her own. 

As I was saying, this letter is part of a chapter in a book that does just that. It’s my autobiography. 

Diane, you are right, I was acting crazy in 2000. I know I was supposed to be there for Lynn. But when it came to matters of the heart, my personal life, my choice of Lynn, I was driven by my passions. 

And it seems like we are dishonoring Lynn by not acknowledging or accepting her judgment as you once did! 

Lynn wanted someone crazy in love with her! Do not EVER doubt that I was not totally and completely in love with Lynn. That is something that can be known to be true above all else!

There are few things in life that I know or believe for certain. My love for Lynn is one of those things that I know with absolute certainty. 

There might be many things that one might say about these things, but no one can say that I stopped loving Lynn ever or that I wasn’t still totally and completely in love with Lynn even during the 2000s!

During that next decade, I was still in love with Lynn. I would break down in tears ten years after we went on a different path.

I have no idea what Lynn was going through. I was afraid that reaching out to her directly would cause her pain by reminding her of the love we once had that had not lasted. I have no idea if that was the right choice.

I used to ask people who I met on Facebook. They were nice and I was only giving them her phone number which was available to the public. They were really moved by the love I had conveyed and my desperation. I heard a few of them called her but we didn’t get anywhere. 

I didn’t know what to do. 

I made a new friend who was a writer named Ryan Miller who was introduced to me by Jean Jones – a mutual friend of Lynn and mine. I would stay with him when I visited Wilmington and I would share stories about my life with Lynn, revisiting places where we had gone.

To this day, I do not have a full understanding of what was going on with me during a period in 2000 – I think it was August. I have tried with the guidance and counseling of others to find those answers. 

It wasn’t like I was always that same person that let down Lynn when she needed me and did such crazy things. To believe that would be to dishonor Lynn and her judgment. Winning, earning, deserving the love of Lynn was not something I took for granted. For all those years, I would think about how lucky I was and how much I needed to continue to deserve Lynn’s love. 

I couldn’t believe when I saw her in mid-1992 that she didn’t already have someone in her life. 

Then when I gave her an engagement ring, I saw tears of joy and there has been a no more joyful moment in my life – that I could make her that happy! We had picked out the ring together and I thought she knew I was coming with the ring that day. I was taken by surprise when I saw the happiness that I brought to her. I’ll never forget that. 

What I am saying is that I could not possibly have been in my right mind back in 2000 when she decided and told me that she wasn’t coming back home. I wasn’t myself.

I had so many draft letters that I consulted with therapists upon that I meant to send to Lynn. 

Earning her love was the single greatest accomplishment in my life. To lose that… to hear that she might not or isn’t coming back home… I’m speechless. 

Lynn saw something was happening to me. She said she wished I had kept in touch with our friends because she couldn’t provide the support I needed. 

There was no closure. Lynn didn’t say “I need you to get help before we can go on together because you are acting crazy.” 

I came to feel worthless and undeserving of her after what happened. I also had no idea what she was feeling or wanting later. I certainly didn’t want to cause her any more pain. The way I was in 2000 at a certain point during that year, was completely different than the way I had been. 

Sometime in 2009, I went to a poetry workshop that Lynn attended as well. I was in the same room with Lynn, she was right next to me. My heart was racing. I was so nervous and confused. I couldn’t form any words. It almost seemed like someone had created this opportunity… but I wasn’t able to realize if that was true or not. 

The poem I read was called “Fugue State.” I suppose I had been lost and confused, in fog, without Lynn. 

Then when it came around to her to comment, she said “I pass.” I had already been shaking and nearly hyperventilating. Within moments I got up and went out into the night walking.

I did not know I would go crazy when Lynn got really sick, and I feared losing her. It doesn’t mean I loved her less than you did. 

There was a moment when I just shut down while you wanted me to pack up things from the house as you were selling it. I wasn’t trying to be difficult nor was I acting out. I have studied the Polyvagal Theory recently and it seems that what happened was that I had reverted to the primitive brain’s method of coping by shutting down. Drawing inward and away from the higher brain functions that are typical of social animals.

Something inside of me died during that time period.

So, I suppose you shouldn’t have been calling my mother when I shut down and you didn’t know what to do.

My mother’s abuse and emotional neglect left me vulnerable in a way that I had not expected. I had been in therapy for so long with so many therapists, trying to be sure I worked on all my issues. If any of them got a hint that there was something more to work on, they would have told me. 

Lynn would have noticed too. Trust her judgment. You did from the day Lynn and I started seeing each other. 

Lynn wasn’t shy about telling me what was not acceptable! About where I might want to improve or what I needed to work on.

Crazy in love is just that. I felt like I was going crazy at the thought that I would not have Lynn!

Lynn wanted that or she would not have stayed with me as long as she did.

I think everyone should know that if Lynn truly doubted that I was in love with her more than anyone or anything else, she would NOT stay with me. With my book, they will know this.

That was real. 

Year after year, I lived as your son-in-law. 

Lynn wanted someone who came and apologized right away when I said something hurtful. Someone who didn’t let us stay angry at each other for long.

I would apologize profusely and demonstrate how sad I was to have upset Lynn. She saw that and knew that. I always felt that I could not take for granted having Lynn and that she could and would leave me if I was disrespectful toward her or if I wasn’t making her happy…

If she doubted that I was in love with her, I believed she would leave me. 

I never found an instruction book with answers to what one should do if anything like this happens or if one finds oneself in the situation in which I found myself beginning at some point in 2000. 

Even now I understand my choice of words might sound odd because I am talking about things happening to me instead of my actions or inaction. I often felt like I couldn’t find self-compassion regarding these matters because I didn’t have a disease that was threatening my life. However, I had been overwhelmed beyond my capacity to cope. If anyone saw that coming, I would have welcomed their counsel and acted upon it. 

Regarding the situation of what happened with Lynn and me.

There was no formal discussion between Lynn and me about going our separate ways. I had been visiting her at her mother's. Then she said she might not be coming back. 

Just as so much that was good about our relationship didn’t need to be said, we knew it before it was said, so had Lynn slipped out of my life. All I knew was that she had to focus on her health and that she couldn’t help me – it was too stressful for her. 

Did that mean she lost her love? I never let myself contemplate that. She had a strong survivalist instinct. I find some slight comfort in knowing that her desire for my happiness and success was part of the reason why what was happening to me hurt her and overwhelmed her.

Instead, I became aimless and without a sense of what to do to get Lynn back. 

For a few weeks in mid-2000, I had been making over $1000 per week. Yes, indeed. I had forgotten to mention that previously in this book. Things were really taking off for me. In June, I had been putting in more than forty hours per week and loving that. I wouldn't want to do that forever, because I wanted to enjoy the life I had with Lynn - before everything happened. There were a couple of weeks where I brought in over $2000.     

I had plans. All that collapsed in August and into the first week to ten days of September of 2000. I am not going to offer an itemized list of how I went from being on track to make six figures per year to nothing. The funds that I had were not all for me, of course.  

I want to try to comment on the nature of what was stated by the clients who filed grievances with the North Carolina Social Worker Certification and Licensure Board (NCSWCLB). I mentioned that I knew that John Freifeld had composed the entire grievance/complaint letter for the clients. I found out from my lawyer that the board was aware that he composed the entire statement that they made.  

Some aspects of this complaint letter were vague and likely a form of projection. He filled their heads with the idea that I had only been interested in meeting with them each week because I found them attractive. It seemed to me based on my experience that he was projecting his own motives toward women onto me.  

I do not know exactly what was going on at the home of Jessica, the first client he referred to me when he was still living in Virginia.  

I had heard months earlier that she was having "flashbacks" and "panic attacks" and that was why she and her husband needed John to be living there for free. Yes, that was stated at some point. They thought he was helping her. My efforts to point out how they were getting worse and not better with Freifeld's help were not effective enough.  

These individuals who met in one of the groups that I had I believed were spending time over at Jessica’s home. I heard that he had a few rooms set up for helping them process or deal with their memories/flashbacks of past trauma. Again, they were well aware, as I explained earlier, that he was not trained to know how to set up anything of this nature.  

I had discovered the "conspiracy theories" on the internet following some interactions with two of my clients. I had just done some searches online with various keywords and that led down a rabbit hole.  

I remember how I had as an activity for therapy groups that were like scrapbooking. It seemed like an icebreaker or a way to facilitate discussion. I had used this with various clients over time. I'm only mentioning this because I remember a book that I stumbled upon online called "Paperclip Dolls." That made me think of that workshop on dissociative identity disorder (DID) that I organized in early 1999 with Louise Coggins, MSW, LCSW.  

Louise had mentioned ritual abuse in more than one context, including at that workshop. And she talked about using scrapbooking with magazines as a creative form of therapy. 

I thought I was hearing facts and I did not put "ritual abuse" into a context with "satanic ritual abuse" which was part of the conspiracy theories that were being spread across the internet during this period. My discovery of these "conspiracy theories" was only after I had noticed a bizarre theme coming up in therapy with Jessica and one other client.  

Anyway, the book "Paperclip Dolls" was another book that was in that same vein of a person discovering and reconstructing memories of "satanic ritual abuse" and mind control programming. By "programming" I mean something like behavioral psychology techniques where some cue or trigger could elicit a deliberate programmed response. Think of how Pavlov's dogs would salivate in response to a buzzer or a light because it had been paired up with dispensing food for the dogs.  

Somehow the author of "Paperclip Dolls" had discovered that she had been abused as a child and she had discovered the memories of this from various images in magazines that caught her attention. These discoveries and the sense that they caught her attention seemed to confirm that her new memories must be true. She came to believe that she must have been part of a government program that involved mind control.

This is what the author of Paperclip Dolls had discovered. I hinted earlier in this book that I had been flipping through that book on a very memorable moment and sexually intimate experience that I had with Lynn back in April of 2000. At the time, I had no idea that I was going to be accused of planting false memories of "satanic ritual abuse."  

I wish I could offer more details about how any of my clients had begun to believe that things like this happened to them or why they believed it happened to anyone for that matter. Again, I didn't know what was happening at the home of Jessica, where John Freifeld was living and seeking to help a few of my clients.  

I had mentioned that my colleagues - members of the local Society of Clinical Social Workers - suggested that I tell these clients that I could not help them if they were also receiving treatment from Freifeld. For one thing, everything had been happening so fast that I had not had time to implement this policy. I also don't know how he or the clients with whom I spoke about this felt.  

Family Connections

I mentioned that I had turned to my family for support when Lynn became ill. Any reasonable person would understand how traumatic or tragic all this would be and why I would need support.  

Up until last year, I have maintained a relationship with my parents and my sister. I mentioned earlier that I had not spoken to my brother since shortly after I made a call to child protective services. I had seen him lose his temper and push his daughter Emily up against a wall like she was a rag doll and she had told me when I asked her about some marks, that “your brother did that.”

As I was saying, I had maintained a relationship with my siblings and my parents until recently.

Then it hit me. It seemed so insane that they were not there at all during this period. They had not visited Lynn in the hospital to see how she was doing. Heck, they never even sent a card to me or her. They seemed indifferent to my suffering.  

My sister, Carrie Whealton, has never married or been in love. However, it's not reasonable or rational to suggest that she would not understand what it would be like to lose the love of one's life. She has parents and grandparents.  

I'm not saying that I am JUST angry that this happened. What I mean, is that there has never been any explanation offered for how or why they could have acted that way. It made me feel like I did not matter at all in their eyes. My success did not matter. My happiness didn't matter.  

I cannot spend my time speculating on how or why they made those decisions. I know that I deserve better. 

I suppose I could have been upset at Diane for not caring at all that I had nowhere to do, no income now and I was devastated beyond being able to cope with life at all. But my sense of survivor’s guilt kicked in. So, all I felt was shame and worthlessness. 

We couldn’t get married for health and insurance reasons, so it had seemed too easy to deconstruct our life. In retrospect, Diane knew we were living as husband and wife. So, I was like a son-in-law. 

I had always been welcomed for holidays with Lynn. More than that, Diane bought the home for us. Sure, it was an investment but her decision to sell it when Lynn decided that she didn’t think she would be coming back demonstrated that it was for us and that she knew that I was the one that had made Lynn so happy.

She must have remembered that.

I had nowhere to go now. Lynn took the cats. For a while, I asked to take the cats, but I was feeling sufficiently guilty, and I was on the run soon… without anything that I had known for so long.

I would end up leaving my clients stranded as well without an explanation. 

Dear reader, if you have any unanswered questions now, please understand one thing that is key. I was so out of it, so in shock, so unable to process everything, so overwhelmed… I couldn’t figure out anything myself!

This might be a good time to make a transition to another section of my book. Where I want and what I did as a bounced around after this, as a ball dropped down some steps, will be described in the next section.

Here’s a poem that I wrote as I reflected upon the horrors of this period, including the inability to handle the trauma of my clients as I had been able to do in the past.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I’d like to think
I’m just like
anyone else -
that we all have limits…
There’s only so much
we can take…
So much -
Pain… Fear… Loss… Trauma.
There’s only so much
any of us can experience 
and remain sane
and true to
our ideals, our values,
who we are and
the person we have become.
When the pain,
the fear, the terror,
the trauma
exceeds this limit,
We snap
and for a while
we drift away…
away to someplace
in our mind,
someplace utterly unknown,
unexpected,
outside reality…
maybe we come back
and then maybe we don’t…
It depends on what
might call us back.

You will learn about what was happening… not why. You won’t read about someone with a plan or hopes. First, I have a short chapter that is a letter to someone else who loved Lynn.