I was just trying not to believe that it was really happening. The life that I had known for years could not end so quickly, could it? It was mid-September and I had nowhere to go.
A meteor had come crashing down upon the life I had known, obliterating everything.
I kept thinking about how everything had been so right and normal yesterday – not literally yesterday but that’s how it felt.
Then everything changed and I had not seen it coming. I would have done something surely if I had seen danger ahead or if I had known that life would become so extremely challenging.
It wasn't long after Lynn first stated that she might not come back to me. How could this be? I NEVER imagined a life without her. I also had not foreseen the problems I was having in my career. Who would believe that some fraudster - John Freifeld - would be able to do anything to hurt me or my career and reputation with my clients?
No one who had not come in contact with Freifeld was complaining about my competency or performance as a psychotherapist. I did have problems and had noticed over the past month and a half I had not been myself or at my best. It didn't seem that anyone actually noticed that I could not still provide psychotherapy for them.
People were still calling me for appointments, but I had to close down my private practice.
The fact that there were grievances at all made me think that I better put all therapy sessions on hold for a while. I didn't know where to turn for help though. It had been a few months since I had an appointment with any of my previous therapists.
I then heard from Diane, Lynn's mother, that she was planning to sell the house she had bought for Lynn and me to rent.
I had to move out of our home.
It seemed like just a few weeks ago everything was perfect in my life and in the lives of Lynn and me. But it also seemed like it was during another lifetime. How can things fall apart so fast?
My mind went to that song by Don Henley called "New York Minute." It was just the first week of September of 2000. The lyrics went through my mind.
"He had a home The love of a girl But men get lost sometimes As years unfurl One day he crossed some line And he was too much in this world But I guess it doesn't matter anymore"
And then Don Henley sings
"If you find somebody to love in this world You better hang on tooth and nail."
I had tried so hard to hold onto Lynn!
Then Don Henley says
"And in these days When darkness falls early And people rush home To the ones they love You better take a fool's advice And take care of your own 'Cause one day they're here; Next day they're gone"
Darkness was all I knew now.
And finally, the most poignant lines from the song read
"I pulled my coat around my shoulders And took a walk down through the park The leaves were falling around me The groaning city in the gathering dark On some solitary rock A desperate lover left his mark, He said "Baby, I've changed. Please come back."
What the head makes cloudy The heart makes very clear"
I was that desperate lover crying out to Lynn "Please come back!" My head might have been cloudy, but my heart was so desperately clear in what I wanted and needed with every fiber of my being.
I used to think about this many years earlier after Celta died in a fire. I had just spoken to her the previous day. Now, with those words from Lynn that she might not come back, I was lost in darkness without a compass or guide.
Not long after that, Diane, Lynn's mother, announced her plans to sell that house. I had moved out already.
A meteor had come crashing down upon my life. The home we had known was being obliterated. My home!
On September 7, 2000, I was summoned by Diane to retrieve what I might want from the home. I wanted Lynn. I didn't want to see these boxes. Lynn wasn't even there. I wondered how she was doing.
The kitchen table was still there. The living room couch still sat where we had it along with the chairs. This is where we would entertain guests - our friends - and family.
I felt like I was dead - literally. I know that might sound hard to imagine.
When we experience stressors in life, our minds and bodies react in different ways. We might become anxious and the fight or flight response kicks in. It's like being on the plains of Africa and seeing a hungry lion. Our bodies need to prepare us to run. Something like that happens in response to any type of stress that humans face - we respond based on our thoughts as if we were in physical danger.
There are other responses like the freeze response which animals use as well. One might imagine an animal playing dead as a survival mechanism. We might also think of this as a turtle withdrawing into its shell and hoping not to be noticed by a predator.
Something like that happened to me on that day when I showed up to gather what I might want. I wanted Lynn.
I was so overwhelmed, and my body felt like it was shutting down. I went into the room where we had the computer and the bookcase. It was around the corner and not visible from the living room. I put my back up against the wall on the left next to the closet with the mirrors on it.
I slid down the wall and raised my legs up at the knees and stared blankly ahead. I was vaguely aware that Diane was frustrated and angry at me.
I was supposed to be doing something. She needed to sell the place. I was expected to act. But instead, I just stared ahead blankly. Like I was dead. I wasn’t trying to be difficult or putting on an act of defiance. I felt dead!
I could vaguely register that she had called my mother when I didn’t respond at all.
Diane was either mad at me for acting this way or frustrated.
Everything I had known was here... This was our home. It felt comfortable for me and now it was being packed up and put into boxes.
Life as I had known it was disappearing like ashes from a fire. The love of my life, Lynn, fading away. It couldn't be. My home being deconstructed and taken down as if it had no meaning.
I wasn’t being told that Lynn didn’t want me to keep visiting her at her mother’s place.
It was too easy to deconstruct the life we had. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Lynn had lost her ring.
There had been no wedding and no official marriage certificate.
We weren’t talking about what this meant. There were no goodbyes.
It was a reverse of the first few years but all in the space of two months.
Lynn and I never had to talk about “are you seeing someone else?” She brought up the issue of whether we were more than just friends, one year after we started seeing each other. But it was just a formality. Everyone and anyone who saw us knew we were more than just friends back then.
The engagement happened without actual planning. I mean it was just a part of us saying to each other, “I’m in love with you.” I remembered how I had given her the ring and she was in tears – tears of joy – as I opened the box. I had been shocked because I had thought she knew I was bringing her ring over that day.
We had NEEDED to live together after that. As much as Lynn needed as much oxygen as she could get so had we needed to be together.
So, when Lynn said she might not be coming back, I didn’t have to ask what that meant. I wouldn’t ask or speak it!
No, no, no, no!
This is NOT happening! This is NOT happening!
What happened next, I don't remember. The next few days were dream-like. I was seeing the world as if I were looking through smoke, ashes, and fog. And all I could do is watch.
[Disclaimer: I have used aliases for clients to protect their identity and confidentiality.]
While all these things were happening, while I was trying to stay to hold onto my sanity amongst the grief over what had changed in my life with Lynn and the feelings that I had been drugged, I learned that grievances had been filed against me with the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board (NCSWCLB). Everything was happening all at once.
This was during August of 2000. For the most part, this entire section of the book covers just one month in my life when everything changed. I was in a fog. Things didn't seem real. I was trying to process that the love of my life, Lynn, might die.
Everything had been fine just yesterday – I mean it felt like just yesterday. It felt like one day things were great and the next day I was living in a nightmare. There had been some gradual worsening of Lynn’s health, as I tried to indicate previously; but I had not noticed what was happening.
I had been on top of the world, successful in my career, living a happy life with my wife. We had a "normal life." … until it wasn’t normal!
How could I mount a defense against the complaints or grievances? For me, I never imagined anyone would complain about my services. I felt shame!
Looking back, I had not been reflecting on the reality of all the people who had been totally and completely happy with me over the past decade! Easily hundreds of people!
It wasn't comforting enough to know that these individuals had been brainwashed by John Freifeld. Why was he so obsessed with me? I learned that he had composed one single grievance letter or statement and the same exact letter or statement was signed by all five clients.
Let me give a summary of what was said. Again, this was the same exact grievance statement. That in itself is strange since each client had different issues. They all had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and two of them had been referred to me by John Freifeld.
They didn’t feel that I could treat DID. They claimed that I insisted that I speak to their alters – ironically, that was what Tracy said she hated John for doing. She had not been involved in this grievance since she had returned and left the area a couple of months ago.
They speculated that I was working with them because they were female, and they speculated that when I left the room to use the restroom it was to masturbate! Gee, I wonder where they got such a bizarre idea? Maybe from the guy who brought Tracy down to Wilmington to help her and then made unwelcome sexual advances on her, forcing her to escape the area?
They claimed that I spent too much time in sessions with them. They also claimed that I planted false memories of satanic ritual abuse.
What do I mean, brainwashed by him? Well, Sadie had left my services over two months previous to this. She had NEVER once mentioned the topic of satanic ritual abuse or anything that bizarre. She had NEVER expressed any dissatisfaction with anything I had done. Neither had her mother, other friends, and family, nor her wife.
The only two of them that even spoke about these conspiracy theories or anything related to that were Vanessa and Jessica. What they had shared was very vague and it had a religious tone to it. It was only enough to send me looking online to find out more about what might be going on with them. That’s when I had gone down the proverbial rabbit hole. That had only just happened.
I remembered how Michelle had been triggered by something she and Vanessa saw in the movie “Conspiracy Theory”, but I never found out what it was that triggered her or what it might mean to her.
They had retained lawyers and filed malpractice civil suits against me as well. My malpractice insurance company assigned me a lawyer who helped with the NCSWCLB complaints/grievances as well.
Lynn was in the hospital during this time, and I was going to have to tell her about this. I dreaded bringing more stressful information to her. I knew how much she loved me and wanted me to be happy and successful.
This book is my autobiography but it is as much about me as about Lynn. Lynn and I lived as husband and wife for many years. None of what I accomplished in life would have been possible without the love and support of Lynn.
Dedication
In Loving Memory of Lynn Denise Krupey
1967-2015
The photo above was taken shortly before her death. Lynn and I lived as husband and wife for a number of years. Losing Lynn was the same as losing a part of my identity - my "self." I felt lost, disoriented, in a trance, wandering as if in a fugue state ... forever looking for my home.
I love to hear from readers and get an idea as to how you were touched or moved by the story. I always love to hear about what you like most about what was presented in the book.
The content of this book will illustrate the many and various needs that I have for funds. Some of those needs for funding are related to marketing and promoting the book. Additionally, I want to get print copies of the book in the hands of others.
Injustice
I am leading the reader toward an account of injustice as well. I want you to get to know me first so that you will care about me and what happened to me.
I have dedicated my life to living according to the highest morals, doing no harm but instead helping others who are suffering or struggling...
What do you feel when you think of a very good person being harmed in a violent and vicious way? What do you want to do?
The triumph of good is possible through the actions of good people. This book is my effort to connect with you, dear reader, and build a relationship with you.
When I discuss the injustice that occurred and the impact it had on my psychological well-being you will get a feel for why I am trying to get copies of the book in the hands of those who can address certain problems that have existed for some time... societal problems.
Injustice has utterly destroyed my life over the past two decades. When you add up the lost wages alone it is between $1 Million and $2 Million. I am looking for potential avenues to gain restorative justice through the court systems.
I am pursuing a Motion for Appropriate Relief which would re-open the case and create a just outcome for the victimization that I experienced at the hands of Ana. I will let you discover that as it transpired, dear reader.
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 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 have some videos of me reading some poetry at that location.
This next one here is a video of Jean Introducing me.
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?
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 earlier as I mentioned in the previous chapter.
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 to Thomas.
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.
Here's a video of Jeff Wyatt reading poetry at the Word Salad Poetry Event. Lynn wasn't at the lounge that particular evening.
I suppose that my last words to Lynn were "Fugue State." My life had been like a bad dream... I had existed without an identity for a while... lost... without direction... without a sense of where to go or where my home was or where it might be someday.
I had not thought that was a very good poem until recently. As I read this recently within the past year or so, I thought "wow, that was good... that is poignant in the way that I convey such feelings and experiences that are so hard to convey."
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!
And with that, I will end this book.
Please look for more of my memoirs. This is part of a series of memoirs or autobiographical stories.
I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend Thomas Childs, who continues to live in me and in my memories of a very important part of my life. There is a Thomas-sized hole in me that I will never fill in; it's my way of keeping him alive.
I took the photograph of Thomas above in 2008 down by the Cape Fear River near the Battleship.
Sadly, Thomas passed away in 2010, or he would be writing a recommendation for this book. He would recommend this like he recommended my poetry collection, which you can find on Wattpad also - it's called "What Really Matters."
Just like he did for that book, he would say that he is "honored to be asked by me to recommend that you read this." Trust me. I know my friend.
Some of my most meaningful and lasting relationships of mine were formed beginning in the early 1990s. Second, only to Lynn and Celta, was my friend Thomas Childs and my second wife who hasn't been introduced yet. Obviously, my connection to Lynn had a romantic component that was lacking in all other types of friendships such as my friendship with Thomas. However, that doesn't exclude him from being considered a part of my family.
As I write this, I am thinking of the song Empty Garden by Elton John. The lines that stand out are "a gardener like that one, no one can replace... and I've been knocking... most of the day...and I've been calling."
This was a time when I felt really connected to a group of people - a social circle. That being said, some of us really clicked. Thomas was one such person in particular with whom I felt really comfortable. We felt a sense of belonging to each other. This was my family. I felt at home in this life that I had.
It's amazing when you can sit down together and not worry about stilted conversations. Not worry about what you should say. Not worry about if you are okay or not. Not worry about whether you made the grade or are good enough.
I could talk to Thomas on the phone for hours when we connected sometime after I had been through my own dark time, or dark night of the soul as it were. I wish I had reached out to Thomas during those dark years. We could have supported each other.
Lynn had wished I kept in touch with our friends when she became ill in 2000. I felt like I had abandoned my friends. For those dark years that began in 2000 and lasted until sometime in 2006, I tried to make it on my own.
That was the biggest mistake I ever made in life!
Then in late 2006 or early 2007, I came down to Wilmington from Chapel Hill. I met Jean - a mutual friend - at the bus station and I asked about Thomas.
We picked up as if no time had passed. I would speak for hours on the phone with my dear friend. We had the same interests of course and so we could find things to share. TV shows or movies that we should watch.
Current events. Our writing. Things to laugh about together. Commentary on things. Philosophical ideas. Reminiscing.
"Oh, dear Thomas, I could have used your help, my friend. It was so hard when Lynn got ill in 2000. She said she wished I had kept in touch. I could have just picked up the phone.
"I was so scared. This wasn't supposed to happen to Lynn at just 34. We had a life planned; it was perfect."
"The biggest mistake was not calling and telling you what was happening, my dear friend."
Instead, I wallowed in the misery of what was happening.
Had I called Thomas, I would have discussed the challenges I was facing in my practice and in my career, as well.
I used to share some of the things I was learning with my friends.
Let me tell you more about this, dear reader. About this part of my story. It's about the importance of friendship.
It's so important in times of stress. Emotional support is key.
We had a social network of friends, as I was saying. This was from the poetry scene. I was part of this group. This was my social life. We felt we were doing something important, together.
Indeed, we were. Thinking. Writing. Sharing ideas. Creative ideas.
Our group included in the beginning, Thomas Childs (my friend), Lynn Krupey (girlfriend, fiancée, wife), Dusty (didn't catch her last name), Jean Jones, David Capps, Jeff Wyatt, (David) DJ Ray. I could live within the sanctuary of these people and the scene, as it were.
There was something comfortable, safe, and meaningful about this reality.
This was our time to become something. I was going to be defined by all of this and the relationships that I was building. I was growing up and forming a family... a family of choice.
Arriving on the Scene and Necessary Balance in Life
I could have been afraid and failed to attend that poetry reading at the Coastline Convention Center in April of 1992, and thought to myself, "I can't read my own poetry in front of others."
What good would it be to show up and be a ghost? What good would it be to sit there and watch others all the while thinking about how I don't fit in?
I can't imagine how my life would have been if I had not come out for this poetry reading that first week. I might not have met Lynn and shared a life with her. I might not have had the confidence to pursue my dreams.
That confidence grew out of the events that happened when I did decide to attend that poetry reading. It demonstrated to me that I could speak in front of a group and be the center of attention. I learned that I had something special to offer to others.
Through my relationships and connections with others back then, my life was transformed. I had not been in a good place before that time when I first arrived in Wilmington. Friendships like I had with Thomas and the relationship I had with Lynn were so valuable and they nurtured something special in me. I was able to give that to others as well.
This book might not have existed and you dear reader, might not have known me at all. I came with ideas about what might or would likely bring me happiness and meaning in life. And that is what I found.
That's what shyness can do. It can paralyze you and prevent you from making the connections.
Yet, I felt a need to share. To give my gifts as Dusty would say. Dusty was the emcee who worked at the Coastline Convention Center.
Dusty said that we were "sharing our gifts." I thought I was sharing something personal. Lynn wrote for herself; I would grow to learn. But Dusty said these were "our gifts." Wow!
Indeed, sharing something of yourself with another is a gift.
Some might say that we were a bunch of idealistic artists, but I had come there with a degree in engineering, which would be the springboard for graduate education in Social Work and toward becoming a Clinical Social Worker.
It might be more accurate to say that I have had values, passions, and interests than to say I was just idealistic.
The creative side of me might have been somewhat aligned with the values that drive a person to pursue a career in social work.
To us who work in the field of mental health, we need the support of others. The work can be rather frustrating. The work can also take a toll on you as you support those who have been hurt by life or harmed by others.
Spending hours with people who are overwhelmed by major depression and anxiety disorders can and does take a toll on you. You need balance and support in life. Emotional support.
In order to be a social worker, I learned social skills and how to deal with what I called shyness. Those same skills allowed me to share myself with others in my personal and social life outside school, training, the job, and everything else.
I wrapped myself in the warmth of the friendships I had formed. Back in the 90s, the welcoming nature of Dusty was always a source of comfort. I could show up for drinks at the Coastline Convention Center if I was feeling overwhelmed and alone, and Dusty would make me feel welcome and expected.
She would seem to have this genuine interest in me and was so glad that I showed up. Later, she would ask about Lynn, of course. I would feel less and less alone but occasionally overwhelmed by things in life.
I remember the warmth of Lynn would envelop me as we sat on the beach at Wrightsville Beach during cold winter nights. That memory would sustain me as well.
Then it was the comfort of a friendship like I had with Thomas. Again, our conversations were so comfortable, and the time together felt comfortable. Not stilted or desperately searching for something to keep the conversation going.
In a larger sense, this was a time and place that I knew was something amazing. Everything seemed so right and comfortable. I knew I was on the right path and that everything was going right.
I had a sense of belonging.
I knew who I was and what I wanted. We as friends would talk about the struggles, challenges, and doubts which existed from time to time in our lives.
Changes in the Late 90s and Into the Next Century
At some point, I regrettably got over-invested in the job beginning in mid-1999. I only allowed time with Lynn and those times when her family came with their kids which I mentioned earlier in this book.
So, unfortunately, I allowed myself to stop spending time with my friends, and my social life of writing and attending poetry readings was not happening. It was a crucial missing piece.
Fast forward to the summer of 2007, and I started visiting the area again. Life in Durham had not been rewarding in any way.
Anyway, on one of those visits back, Jean was having a poetry reading in celebration of a new chapbook of his poetry being released.
This was one of those visits back to the place I had called home. I was happy to see my new friend, Ryan. I was thrilled to see my new friend, Ana – obviously not the Ana that attacked me. I was thrilled to see Thomas and Jean. I was happy to see David Capps (he had been part of the scene back in 1992, though he was inscrutable to me).
Here is a video of Ana Ribeiro reading poetry at the Word Salad Poetry Magazine Event in Wilmington in October of 2009. In the video, we are at the lounge where I saw Lynn again as described in the next chapter. This is not the same location where Jean was releasing his new chapbook, so it's a different evening than what I am describing.
Here is a video of David Capps reading poetry. He was there this evening that I am describing but the video is from a different evening.
I knew Lynn would be there and so it was a bit surreal. There was no longer a "we" which was what made this surreal. It's hard for me to explain. I felt queasy and I had a knot in my stomach.
This was a reality that I had never envisioned. She had gotten new lungs and so she was still living, but there was no "we."
The autobiography of my life would need to include this reality. Thomas was that glue in that he had been our mutual friend - a dear friend who had been part of "our" shared life together.
He had navigated the roads of time maintaining a relationship with us both. Jeff Wyatt had been a mutual friend as well, but I seemed to sense that he was a bit colder than he had been in the past. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Thomas, Lynn, and I had been mutual friends but now there was no "we" that was Lynn and me. This wasn't supposed to happen, and it just felt so uncomfortable for me.
There had been no breakup and things had been so vague and confusing all these years.
Knowing Lynn was going to be there made me tremble, my heart was racing with anxiety. A good bit of alcohol made this only slightly more bearable.
I could sense Lynn nearby while I spoke to David Capps. My face was flush not just from the alcohol. My heart was racing, pounding.
I wanted to find something to say to Lynn with every fiber of my being. But I couldn't do it. I just felt uncomfortable. Lynn and I talked about everything – we even fought and got over it. Thomas and I had not argued nor had Celta and me before that. It seemed to me that being able to get into an argument and get over it, move past was a sign of how much more comfortable I had been with Lynn than anyone else.
This was frustrating so I stepped outside through the side door as people were milling about. I had noticed Thomas step outside. Ana was there too, talking to Thomas. Ana had not been part of the scene in the 90s.
I tried to bring up the topic of my discomfort with Thomas. This wasn't the first time I brought up the topic with him. What could he do? What could he say? I couldn't make sense of this new reality.
I did remember how in the early 2000s, I had enlisted people I met on Facebook to contact Lynn prior to this evening. They heard the story and were moved to call Lynn. She was polite but we never got anywhere.
I was still carrying the weight of profoundly low self-worth. I had no sense of worth as a person and whether we call it shyness or something else, we have to take action, or nothing will happen.
Sadly, Lynn might not have known that I still loved her or was in love with her...but she probably did.
I mean whoever these people were who called her they were moved with such a profound feeling of inspiration to want to connect Lynn and me again.
Life Changes
Later, Thomas had been happy to find out that I met someone else that I was going to marry.
Her name is Elnaz Rezaei Ghalechi (Elee). We got married in Ankara, Turkey. She had been submitting poetry to Word Salad, which was being published by Jean and me. Word Salad Poetry Magazine was started by Lynn and me in 1995. Later, Jean became the co-editor and co-publisher.
Thomas was a brilliant poet as well. I am sure we published some of his poetry.
Elee and I married in November of 2010 and when I got back, I found the news on a voicemail and on Facebook.
My dearest friend Thomas had died. He had died of a heart attack.
When I first heard the news, it didn't register. I had just seen him. I had spoken to him and he was happy for me. We had so much more to discuss!
No!
Elee responded appropriately. She was on the other side of the world and yet she understood better than my own sister. Elee consoled me as anyone would respond to news of this nature.
I started drinking when I heard the news about Thomas. My mind became a smooth flowing river. I thought this was a way to cope but it wasn't. It just made me sick.
Whatever was inside me wanted out and I clutched a table to stay alive. I fell to my knees due to a combination of grief and what the alcohol had done to me.
I had not made it to the funeral. I felt such shame for that. Would I have found the strength to speak to the crowds at his funeral? I think I might have done so. I wasn't the same person I once was but I could and would have had words to say. Or maybe I would have cried and cried.
Both.
It's hard to describe the hole that is left by a dear friend. It's hard to describe friendship and the love that we felt.
For someone like me to be at a loss for words is something in itself! I'm usually rather verbose... but what words can convey the specific things that connect two people and create that comfort among one another?
Had I made it down there, I would have found the words. I would come to feel great shame for years... To not even make it to the funeral of your dearest friend!
Anything I would have said about his brilliance should have been known by anyone there, but I would gladly repeat and confirm it. I can say that he is not gone! He lives in me and can't be taken away as long as I live and can write.
That's what I would tell his family!
That's the point of all these chapters that move between the past and the present... in this single chapter, I've covered events that have spanned eighteen years in this chapter, and each year, month, or day flow around one another in one stream of consciousness full of sound and fury, signifying everything!
What I most wanted to say was something only Thomas would understand. What we had was ours! It was for us and it was epic!
Dear reader, did you expect something less hyperbolic to come from me? You should know me better by now!
Writers like me are loath to employ trite statements that just sound like what you are supposed to say when you speak of someone who has passed. No, when I write, I mean it quite literally and explicitly.
There are so many times in which I have thought, "this reminds me of Thomas," "I would love to talk to Thomas about this" or "I should talk to Thomas about this, he would appreciate it."
The past is there in me. We are all together in that home that Lynn and I shared on Brucemont Dr. in Wilmington... or at a bookstore... maybe a coffee shop down by the Cape Fear River. I am haunted by the ghosts of the past, but that's a good thing!
I'm not going to try to summarize a friendship that began in 1992 and lasted nearly two decades until his death. The formality of a funeral has passed. On such occasions we find the necessary strength and words to speak.
Later, we realize how much was left unsaid and how much cannot be known by anyone besides the one we lost, in this final paragraph of this chapter, that person is Thomas Childs.
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.
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. And you thought 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!
I wish I could have helped with the obituary or contributed toward telling the world how special Lynn was.
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 on various occasions - the poem that was dedicated to her, about my love for her, when it was her turn to share at some poetry reading - and when 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 during those years we were together!
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 did call 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 mainly just in August. I have tried with the guidance and counseling of others to find those answers.
It might have seemed like I had a long-lasting problem but I think that Lynn would have noticed such a problem.
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 not been a more joyful moment in my life - I was overjoyed 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 was 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" nor did she previously state that she knew I wasn't strong enough to bear the weight of what would happen when her health would get worse. I would not have hesitated to get the help I needed so I could be here for Lynn.
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 had feared losing her, forever. It doesn't mean I loved her less than you did. My experience was that of being completed by Lynn and unable to exist without her. So, when she got sick and might die, I felt like I was dying.
Again, I had survivor's guilt and felt it was wrong to make excuses for myself.
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. I was drawing inward and away from the higher brain functions that are typical of social animals.
Something inside of me died during that time period.
It is my hope that trusting Lynn's judgment is a valuable way to think about the life we had. She would not have stayed with me if she doubted my life, saw me as an unhealthy person for her - unhealthy psychologically.
The psychologists who were hired by the social work licensure board spent all of one afternoon assessing me. They found things that Lynn had never seen. They found things that none of my counselors, psychologists, or therapists noticed.
They found and arrived at conclusions that I didn't challenge because I was not well at the time. I had survivor's guilt, a lack of self-compassion and self-love, and other problems. I am merely pointing out that what it might have seemed like was that there was something wrong with me that was best kept from Lynn. That's what I felt and why I didn't return to pursuing Lynn like I once had.
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 someone who wanted to be your son-in-law.
Lynn wanted someone who came and apologized right away when I said something hurtful. She wanted 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 at the time that she would leave me. This is me saying that Lynn was so special that I felt lucky to be chosen by her and I was so desperate not to do anything at all that would cause me to lose her.
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.
There was no formal discussion between Lynn and me about going our separate ways. I had been visiting her at your home. 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. I knew what it meant when she said she might not be coming back but neither of us wanted to say what it meant. 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 overwhelmed her. It's not a real comfort but it's a reflection of the fact that she did understand better than I did what was wrong with me at the time.
Instead, I became aimless and without a sense of what to do to get Lynn back.
Should I have tried harder to get her back? Should I have contacted her directly instead of letting others reach out to her? Those questions will haunt a part of me forever.
When asked recently if I was over her, it was obvious to the person asking, I think, that the answer was no.
In the years later, I lost all the photographs of the life we had. The way the house was packed up and the life we had was deconstructed made everything so hard without closure. I am trying to honor her and create a memorial for her.
I could use some photographs of her and I hope you can find it in your heart to let me honor her memory.
It had seemed that cystic fibrosis was about to destroy my entire life, as well as threaten the life of the woman I loved. I feel selfish to say that it was destroying my life. I cannot say that I was dying, not literally. I felt survivor's guilt because of this fact. I felt I didn't have a right to speak about how I was experiencing all of this. That might be part of the reason why I didn't reach out to friends and say, "I need your help" or "I need your support." or "I need to talk."
Lynn had known the devastating pain this would cause me. I just had a hard time thinking about "me." It's ironic that by not focusing on how this was affecting me, I didn't appreciate that this was an emotional, psychological and existential crisis for me.
To be honest, it happened too fast for me to get in to see a psychotherapist or a doctor for help to deal with this. If I had a physical sickness, I would have called my doctor and gotten an appointment in a day or so, maybe a week. With a psychological crisis or sickness that comes on so quickly, we don't think in terms of emergencies that must be addressed immediately.
I was like a walking zombie without Lynn.
She was now staying at her mother's place in Wilmington, the place on Wrightsville Beach.
I was beating up on myself for not keeping the place clean enough for Lynn to feel comfortable living in our home... but in reality, there was more to the story of why Lynn was living with her mother.
I was reflecting on the entire month that and what had happened.
We had two cats and they used the litter box in the garage. Sometimes I would forget to clean that also or before she went into the hospital the second time, I didn't want to do it myself. I had been in denial and struggling to admit to the fact that she could not do the things she used to be able to do.
Every little failure or thing I forgot to do made me feel ashamed. I hadn't been stubbornly refusing to do these things. I hadn't been angry at Lynn for not helping with any of these chores that would have been shared in the past. No, I just was in denial of what was happening and what her inability to do certain things meant.
It might have seemed like an easy calculation, that cleaning the home and doing other things to make it more likely that Lynn could come home is the most obvious thing for me to do but that just wasn't registering as something that was so obvious. Plus, I was terrified that Lynn might die. I kept pushing that thought away. In so doing, I was pushing a part of my reality out of my mind.
My normal capacity for planning and problem solving wasn't working at peak levels, to put it mildly. All the resources within me that had served me and guided me throughout the years were non-functional at this time. It seemed like those faculties had shut down.
We all need help at times in our lives - a supportive person like a therapist, friend, family member.
Dear reader, you might wonder why I could not offer myself the same support and guidance that I might offer a client. You might wonder why I couldn't draw upon my own skills. Up until this point in my life, I would have been able to step back, plan, figure out what I need to do, and then do it.
I would have done something.
I cannot overstate this fact, but I would have done anything imaginable to hold onto the life I had with Lynn – to hold onto any life with Lynn!
We were still in the month of August of 2000.
Clients depended upon me also.
Despite the grievances of those five clients, I had dozens of other clients whose therapy was going along well and things were fairly "normal" in that regard. I felt a responsibility to try to help them.
I couldn't just wallow in the grief and pain of losing Lynn forever. I also didn't know what to expect regarding Lynn's health. I felt powerless to help her so I didn't know what to do.
I had developed a coping mechanism to deal with the issues of being in love with someone who had a terminal disease called cystic fibrosis. I (or maybe we) had lived life as they say "in-the-moment." What else can you do? I mean, whether you are talking about Lynn who had lived with this her whole life all those years before she met me or if you are talking about me knowing in some way that I might not have Lynn forever, we both had to focus on what we had.
That strategy might make the best sense in a way, but it can also lead to denial. I know that this is what I was experiencing in August of 2000. In essence, it was like telling myself "This isn't happening. Everything is fine." But things were not fine. Lynn needed me and I wasn't giving her any sense that I could be there for her.
I wanted and needed to believe that the situation with Lynn living with her mother was temporary. Lynn's mother, Diane had separated from her husband, Bob, and was living down in Wilmington all the time. She had gotten a job as a psychologist in one of the schools.
On about the fourth of September of 2000, I heard Lynn tell me that she might not come back to me. I couldn't even begin to have a "logical" conversation about this because I broke down and started crying.
I was moving through life on autopilot.
I was in denial when I heard those words from Lynn that she might not come back. I thought, "this is not happening."
This is not happening. I could not wrap my mind around the reality of what I was hearing.
I reflected upon the weeks and months before the nightmare had started.
Just a few weeks earlier life had seemed so "normal." We were so in love. I had felt her body next to mine and knew that the love, passion, and romance had not faded at all in all the years we were together. If anything, it had only grown.
We had been so close just weeks earlier. Falling asleep with my arms around her. My heart and breathing synchronized with hers. I had felt such a sense of serenity as she drifted off to sleep. I tried desperately to hold onto that memory and that peace, but I couldn't.
My mind kept trying to conjure imagines and memories of this serenity of falling asleep, our bodies touching... the image of both of us facing the front window in the bedroom.
Her heartbeat and breathing slowed little by little as she transitioned into sleep. That was just a few weeks ago but it felt like the day before.
It might have been the day before but for her disease - cystic fibrosis.
There were other things that were happening in my life, but I was so consumed by the changes in Lynn's health that I could not function as I once had. I had tried to go on coping and working but things were different now.
[Disclaimer: I have used aliases to protect the confidentiality and identity of clients or patients. No other names have been changed.]
I knew that something was happening to me. This was different than what I had ever experienced previously in my life. So far, I described the impact of what was happening to Lynn and what that did to me.
I tried to act like things were going to be okay with Lynn. For a while, we might have thought things could return to normal.
I drove back home on Monday knowing that Lynn was going to be in the hospital for a while.
I tried to return to work thinking I could still do my job. I had an appointment to see a woman and her two children. Both parents were asking me to work with their children because they were going through a difficult divorce. I had been working with both clients, the mother, and father for some time.
Play therapy seemed to be just the thing I needed. I had met with each parent as well.
I had a few other clients that didn't seem to present too many challenges. One was an older woman, named Anne, who was dealing with major depression and some addictions - not to alcohol or drugs but to sex. She wasn't really old at fifty-eight.
Something happened on three separate days in August. I was falling asleep on those days.
This is going to sound strange because I have no factual proof of what was happening, what caused the problems I was having, or why.
Alice just happened to come in during the morning on those three days. Alice had come down from Pennsylvania or Virginia with a guy named John Freifeld. He was practicing therapy without a license, without any credentials. He had not even gone to college other than maybe a community college and he had not studied psychotherapy.
He and I had a falling out earlier around issues related to what he was doing. He was diagnosing people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and it was really messing with people's minds. I had some of them as clients and they thought they might have DID but I was wondering if that was actually the case.
To this day, I have no recollection of what Alice discussed in any of her sessions or what she looked like. I just know that she came down to Wilmington North Carolina with John Freifeld.
I have told this story many times to different therapists so while I do not recall what Alice looked like or what she discussed, I do know the dates and times when she came to meet with me during the year 2000 when this was happening.
She like a few other clients of mine were getting support or treatment from John.
Now, in the 2000s, it's possible for people to be peer support specialists based on their lived experience. John was not my client but I knew from my clients that he didn't have that training or those credentials, either. Maybe he was jealous of me or he just was obsessed with hurting me.
As an aside, I would later learn that he knew that people like me had between $1 Million and $3 Million in liability insurance. This will be an important fact to know later because while he wasn't my client he was very persuasive and so I wondered if he somehow intended to benefit from a civil suit that my clients might bring against me.
Bear with me while we deal with some events that are and were confusing to me as well as disorienting.
So, as I was saying, I remember having an appointment with Alice on this day, two days after I returned from Chapel Hill having seen Lynn. This is important to know because the "sleepiness" I am about to describe would have been more likely on Monday after driving all night.
It was Tuesday, the 8th of August of 2000 when Alice came in during the morning, at 10 AM. I let her go to the office while I used the restroom. I had a big Coca-Cola that I picked up at the convenience store near my office on Chestnut Street in downtown Wilmington. This was the first time that I noticed something unusual happening to me. I had a 32-ounce cup. I remember this because I needed the caffeine that day.
I was unusually tired from driving back from Chapel Hill where Lynn was in the hospital. But that was late Sunday and now this was Tuesday.
I found myself struggling to stay awake! That's all I remember about what happened after Alice came to the office.
Over time I have found that my mind wanted to fill in details about these sessions with Alice but honestly, there is just a blank spot in my memory around everything related to her other than the sense that I became extremely sleepy after she came to see me.
I have memories of going to the men's room and splashing water on my face during this hour with Alice. I thought pacing or cold water would wake me up, but the feeling lingered for hours.
Rebecca came in at 1 PM and laid down on the couch facing the wall perpendicular to me as she always did. She was tall and attractive. She had been coming to me because she had relationship issues - she had been unfaithful with her husband and she thought she needed help with her sexual addiction.
Today, again, I had to get up again and use the restroom to try to wake myself up.
"How could I help anyone if I could not stay awake?" I couldn't think clearly enough to figure out what I should do at this moment.
Vanessa came in the next day. She was one of my clients with DID who had been coming from the Myrtle Beach area. She had just been released from the hospital for treatment related to her condition – DID. Her psychiatrist had made those arrangements.
She had been suicidal, though, for a person with DID, it manifested as a plan by one personality to harm "the others." Yeah, to her or them, they were a system with different people, and the fact that they all shared the same body could be forgotten by one personality or another.
Vanessa, after being released from the hospital, now was frightened that something nefarious had happened to her while she was at the hospital.
She was talking about how some cousins had raped her repeatedly at some point in the past. Sodomized her. Held her down. Again, this was that same day August 8, 2000. It was 3 PM.
One of her personalities, inside, was a teenage boy who went by the name Victor. He liked to cut the body and now he was threatening to kill the body with a gun. I wondered why she had been released if she was still in this state. I was feeling like I was responsible for finding a solution to prevent her from acting on her plans to end her life.
She showed me cuts that Victor had made on her arms and legs. She seemed amused as she described this.
Again, Vanessa spoke about her husband sodomizing her. Ironically, this was what seemed to startle me enough to feel awake finally. The way she described it made it sound like it was a brutal and sadistic form of torture.
"Sodomized," she had said. It echoed in my mind like a sharp, cutting blow to her motionless body.
She said she could not move as her husband did this. She froze. But again, her husband did this despite the fact that she had said it triggered reminders of her trauma.
Yesterday's session with Patricia came rushing back. Patricia had started therapy at the same time as another client with DID had started seeing me. They both had reported that they had known for some time that they had different personalities. Those clients found me in a newspaper advertisement.
That seemed like a lifetime ago – about 18 months had passed.
I would think during this time that it was a good thing that Patricia had never met a few of the other clients that I had with this particular disorder of DID or who reported that this was their disorder. This distinction is important because John who wasn't a mental health professional was diagnosing people with this disorder.
Patricia had no contact with any of my other clients and I knew that John Freifeld didn't know about her.
I had set up a support/therapy group for people with DID but Patricia never attended that group. So, she didn't have the same problems. I would learn that those who attended the group had exchanged phone numbers and were spending time together.
Anyway, Patricia, on Monday, had described how her father had done something disgusting for reasons that were hard to understand it was so offensive. She described an abusive scenario in which he had defecated into the toilet and then pushed her face into the toilet bowl.
This event which she was describing had occurred years ago.
This might be a lot to consider and my reactions at this time were confusing.
We have one character, John Freifeld, doing therapy and diagnosing people with DID. Some of them were clients of mine. And Alice was one of those clients that were sent to me by John.
At the risk of sounding crazy, I wondered if there was a connection between my unusual experiences and John Freifeld seeking to hurt me or, as I will explain later, he would encourage my clients to file a medical malpractice claim against me and to file grievances with my licensure board.
On Monday, August 14th, after spending the weekend with Lynn in the hospital, I was back in the office and Alice came in at 11 AM and Rebecca came in at 1 PM.
I began to wonder if I was somehow experiencing the symptoms of my clients. Was I trying to escape in my mind from the reality of what was happening to Lynn? I mean at the time I was wondering if there was a purpose to what I was experiencing. It was one of those existential questions about suffering.
During the rest of this past week, I was so stressed about what was happening to Lynn. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning. My heart was racing. My stomach was upset almost all the time.
I knew about dissociative disorders. If I was going to zone out in response to something there would have to be a trigger of some sort.
Nothing stood out about last Tuesday and now today, Monday.
This was just nothing like I had ever experienced. There was nothing to which I could compare this experience.
Anyway, the day dragged on and I couldn't shake the feeling.
My thinking and my perceptions were foggy, like looking at the world through a fog.
What is strange is that this was different than the metaphorical fog I felt described the experience of dealing with what was happening to Lynn. My reaction to the experiences of what was happening to Lynn was that I was agitated, anxious, my heart was racing, and I would have trouble sleeping.
Now, today, Monday, I was struggling to stay awake all day.
I had not discussed this with Lynn because I felt she had enough to deal with.
For months and years after this, I would have a powerful sensation - a memory or flashback - where I would see myself walking down a hallway and I would be thinking that the observing me wanted to shout at the vision of myself during this time, "wake up, wake up."
"What are you doing?"
Returning to this Monday in August, after returning from spending time with Lynn in the hospital...
I found myself in the men's room several times trying to wake up and squeezing my hands against my forehead and my face trying to figure out what is happening and to stay awake. I couldn't even focus on a plan as to what I should do about these experiences.
I just walked about like some zombie or a robot. How was it that no one was noticing anything?
Yeah, looking back, I would think I should have stayed home or called someone to get myself "grounded" ... just as I had helped others. My mind wasn't clear enough to do even that when it was happening.
Then the next day would come and I would be so confused about events the prior day. I wasn't sure I had dreamed what happened or if it really happened.
On Thursday, August 17, beginning late in the day it started to happen again. The fog hung over me into Friday. I wanted to say that I couldn't sleep that night, but I actually got home at 6 PM and fell onto the bed asleep.
I had vivid dreams that night. I remembered that snakes were appearing in the dreams... Sinister-looking - a diamondback rattlesnake with an expression that seemed to embody evil itself. That's just what was going through my mind. It was like I was in the presence of something evil because while the face of the snake was not distorted in any way, it had a human expression. I remembered thinking this is what evil would look like.
This was the third incident when my mind was not acting like it normally does.
As I write this, I have a degree of clarity, but it is still foggy. There are some things that I cannot recall.
As an aside, I did write a collection of poems called "Puncture Wounds" with another poet friend of mine in the late 2000s. It was inspired by my experiences with Freifeld and a few others.
My poet friend Jean had said, "maybe you did find yourself in the presence of evil." He was Episcopalian like Celta had been – it's very much like the Catholic faith. He invited me to receive some blessing at Church one day years ago.
I remember Jean had said, "if you believe in one you have to believe in the other." He meant belief in God, who is good implies a belief in Satan and evil itself. Yeah, Freifeld seemed soulless. Like a vampire. The collection "Puncture Wounds" is partially based on the themes and symbolism that go along with the vampire legend.
Reflections
These events, whatever they were, and my behavior during this time have never been explained. I have to live with that knowledge. I wanted to know like everyone else who is in an emotional crisis wants to know what happened and why. These experiences seemed to happen after I had met with Alice but I cannot be certain.
I have NEVER had experiences like this previously or since then. More than two decades have passed and I have no answers.
It wasn't a dissociative disorder because in those cases the experiences must last longer than one month. I had never heard of someone saying that they had a dissociative disorder just one time in their life.
It wasn't a psychotic break because I have never heard of anyone saying that it happened once during a brief period of their life and never again. Usually, a psychotic break is the first of a series of episodes and medication is required.
I've never been on medications for either of these conditions nor have I been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder or a dissociative disorder.
We always have to rule out the influence of mind-altering substances. I am going to qualify my statements in this regard by saying that I have never knowingly used mind-altering illicit drugs or street drugs. I also have no evidence to support the belief that I had been drugged. I cannot say why it would have been done.
At times I have declared this idea that I was drugged, and some people have accepted it as if it were a fact. I merely stated that Alice had the opportunity to put something into my open soda cup.
The limited nature of these episodes also would have been something I would ask clients about to rule out the influence of a mind-altering drug.
There were other ways in which I was acting irrational and confused... making bad decisions. Some of this happened later. But things were never so overwhelmingly strange and bizarre as on three occasions in August of 2000.
This is all I can offer in terms of what I remember and what is lacking from my memory. The lack of any memory of Alice, what she looked like, or what she discussed is also strange and inconsistent with the rest of my experiences.
There are things of such darkness and horror—just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty—that they will not fit through the puny human doors of perception.
- Stephen King, from Skeleton Crew
Days before, things were normal. We were happy. We weren't focused on the fact that Lynn had a terminal illness that she had been born with. I am not saying we were unaware of this fact, but life just seemed normal... until it wasn't.
This might seem hard to understand to an observer. I guess we needed to believe that something could be done about the problem... that they would find a cure and we would live happily ever after.
Cystic fibrosis reminded us that it was a part of our lives. It seemed like a petulant child who had to be noticed. It was part of Lynn. She had that gene defect such that when a person has two copies of this recessive gene, they always have the disease.
We had lived a life that we wanted to be "normal." Lynn's health had been good for someone with this disease. So, we were lucky.
Most of the events in this chapter occurred in August of 2000. However, things started to change in late July 2000.
We noticed in late July two things that were very troubling. One was that Lynn was losing weight, and the other was that she was having trouble breathing. That can happen from time to time with Cystic Fibrosis, so the full weight of this didn't hit right away.
I had not noticed, but Lynn told me she was having trouble keeping weight on her. To me, she still looked perfect - beautiful as ever. This is one of the signs of deteriorating health for someone with Cystic Fibrosis. She had to take pills with every meal the entire time that I knew her. It was routine. However, it is a reminder that the disease impacts her digestion.
We knew that something was wrong because she was struggling to breathe. She would become weak just doing routine things around the home. She also couldn't go to work.
It's hard to talk about this without crying. I know it's hard to understand what it is like unless you are living with this.
We went to the clinic on July 21, 2000, in Chapel Hill, which was about two hours away. They admitted her to the hospital for IV antibiotics. They had found on an x-ray that there was a heavy mucus build-up throughout her lungs and there were large black marks that indicated scarring. Her oxygen saturation was lower, which meant that she wasn't getting enough oxygen in her body.
This lasted until July 28.
When she got back, she was having the same problems with breathing.
When Lynn started getting sick in August of 2000, she set up a place to eat and watch TV in the spare room that we had. She was short of breath and needed me to bring her food in there. She would fall asleep in there because she was too tired to walk back into the bedroom. We also couldn't make love or enjoy any kind of passionate togetherness.
Every night before going to sleep, she would also use a machine that delivered inhaled antibiotics, steroids, and other medications to open her airways. I brought this setup into the other room also.
Lynn and I had never slept apart in all the years we were living in this home, together, other than one month but it had to be with my work. That could not work out well for me, so the job only lasted a month. There were a few times when I was on call for a job or away at graduate school when we slept apart, but that was it.
Wasn't everything just perfect the other day? Wasn't she telling me how close she wanted to be to me? She said "I feel like I cannot get close enough to you" as she wrapped herself around me and kissed me so passionately. It felt like just the other day even though that was in April. But in May, June, and July, things seemed great and normal. If she had been getting worse, it wasn't noticeable to me until this time in late July.
What I mean is that it was almost like one day everything seemed so perfect and right and then Lynn was sick. Very sick!
These changes in her health hit me like a loud, hard slap in the face. Each time I saw her struggling to get enough air to walk across a room, I was so frustrated, angry, and I felt powerless.
I thought "this is not right! She is only 34!"
She had been talking about getting a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina.
She should be thinking about those things! She should be thinking about normal life and a career just like I had built a career. I was so bitter. This wasn't right! It was not fair!
She needed me to bring her meals to the spare room where she was having to spend most of her time.
She was gasping for air at times. I could see that she was short of breath. It was so maddening for me because I couldn't fix the root problem. I could bring her food and things she needed but that wouldn't fix the problems.
Sometimes I didn't want to wait on her because it meant admitting how bad her health was, and that meant she might be closer to losing her fight with this disease. I was terrified. I also felt guilty for not wanting to be there for her whenever she asked!
I felt shame for my actions! I do know that Lynn understood the feelings of powerlessness that I felt. She knew this was taking a toll on me. I wasn't being mean and irritable at her for asking for my help. But, I was in denial.
"Of course, I will carry you into the bathroom and help you shower," I would answer later to make up for my bad previous behavior.
Later, Lynn said she wished I had kept in touch with our friends on a regular basis. She was struggling and didn't think she could be the source of support that I needed. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to think that I should reach out to a friend for support.
Inpatient Hospitalization
Lynn was admitted to the hospital again in August of 2000.
I was blaming myself for every way I had failed to help her enough. I felt guilty that maybe I had not done enough to clear the mucus from her lungs. I mentioned earlier that I would do something that involved tapping on her back, her left and right sides, and on her chest. This was to break up or loosen the mucus that built up in her body. This excess mucus was a breeding ground for infections.
These infections and excess mucus were causing problems with her breathing.
I felt guilty that I had not kept the house cleaner. Lynn was worried that dust and other particulates could get into her lungs.
So, we went to the University of North Carolina Medical Center Hospital in Chapel Hill, because they had specialist doctors who worked with cystic fibrosis and other lung diseases - they call them pulmonary specialists.
The IV antibiotics are adapted to the person's body. They also have different ways of delivering antibiotics. Once she was admitted to her room, they set about inserting an IV in her arm. This time, they had to run the IV all the way up her arm to get it closer to her heart which will pump the antibiotics throughout her body and I guess it is close to her lungs, where the infection was.
This was unusual, more complicated, and a longer process.
It was painful to watch them piercing her body with a needle. I would NEVER have let anyone do anything to break or bruise her skin under normal circumstances. It was killing me to see this happening as I held her hand.
No, this wasn't the first time she had IV antibiotics, but this was so difficult for her and by extension, it was difficult for me. I was trying to be strong for Lynn. We were both crying.
As they finished getting the IV into her, I had to get up and walk a bit to keep from passing out. I paced around that floor of the hospital and returned to her side. I felt ashamed for leaving her. It was just a few minutes and I had made it through the procedure, but I was beating myself up for every failure on my part.
This reaction on my part had not happened previously when she had to go into the hospital. There was something more symbolic and disturbing about this time. This time the reality of her survival was the thing that overwhelmed me.
I stayed with her and tried to do anything she wanted or needed. Anything to make the time more passable for her.
They let me sleep in the bed with her. I don't think they had the heart when looking at either of us to ask me to leave. I think there are dorm rooms or other places where family members can stay when someone is in the hospital.
I must have looked like hell. I felt so overwhelmed.
The days were something of a blur. It felt like a bad dream.
I would tell myself, "This isn't happening."
You cannot unsee the woman you love gasping for air or short of breath doing just the smallest of things... routine things.
My entire reality was now like being in a fog, or I felt like I was in a dark and misty place. I felt like I had wandered out into the mist and sanity itself was somewhere in the distance like dim lights along the coast as seen from a boat on the ocean.
Things were changing for me and I felt powerless over it all.
I felt such despair and hopelessness.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were going to find a cure someday. A cure for cystic fibrosis. I had hoped and prayed so long and desperately. This was happening too fast for me. One day you are on top of the world, the next day the love of my life is fighting for her life and might die.
I tried reaching out to my family. Lynn had said she wished I had kept in touch with our friends, but for some reason, I thought to reach out to my parents and maybe my siblings.
I was about to find out that to my surprise they didn't have the capacity at this moment in time to demonstrate any compassion or concern during all this.
What kind of mother, father, sister, or brother doesn't know that this is extremely painful and a time when I would need help and support? That's a rhetorical question. I am sure that my readers understand the pain I am describing.
In their defense, I suppose I shouldn't assume anything. I can only imagine but I cannot know what was going through another person's mind
In a previous chapter, I hinted that I was losing my faith. That isn't entirely true. I did pray desperately that what was happening now would change, that Lynn would get better, stronger, healthier. I also prayed that the pain I was feeling would be bearable also, so I could be there for her.
I had those feelings of a fog hanging over me as I tried to navigate life overall. I had an important role to play in the lives of others. I was a psychotherapist.
The nightmare of everything happening with Lynn was about to get more complicated and confusing.
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.
Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as I was leaving. 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 had not turned away or signaled in any way that she didn't want me to proceed. So, why was I uncertain? I didn't have to be shy with Celta. But I didn't want to use her for my own personal "experience."
I would play this back in my mind as I drove away. Yes, I wanted to kiss her. Having decided now for sure what I wanted, next time I would kiss her.
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.
As I replayed the 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 got the worst news of my life. A phone call. I was in my room on the second floor of the house owned by my parents. "Celta died last night," I was told.
"How?" I asked as if this wasn't possible or real. I was stunned. I wanted my willpower to make it not real!
"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation." It started from an exposed electrical cord on a TV.
My mind registered information about the funeral, its location, and time but I could not find the words to begin to convey any sense of what I was feeling. I had spoken a few times to the man previously. He was a friend of the family. Tears were flooding my eyes. I just said, "Okay, I'll be there but I can't talk..." my voice breaking. I needed the family to expect me.
I dropped the phone and began to cry so bitterly.
I hurt so much!
I cried so much as I drove the way to the funeral. Just before the funeral, I looked at the closed casket and was overcome. Someone was standing by it and for a brief second, some part of me wanted to open the casket and find out that it wasn't Celta that was inside.
At the funeral, I cried more than everyone else combined. I didn't care how I looked.
It was at the Episcopalian church where I went with Celta and where I would sit down next to Celta's mother and Celta. I was still Christian, meaning I went to church on a regular basis.
Standing outside after the funeral people were talking. I was looking at the closed casket unable to believe this was real. I was still crying. Celta's mother instructed me not to come to the burial. She could tell that I was not going to make it through that event. My state of mind was such that I needed to be told what I should do now.
At the burial the one person who loved Celta most, who felt a visceral sense of grief above and beyond that felt by the others... that one person would be missing. I would not be there. I had followed the directions of Celta's mother and left Athens (Athens Georgia).
I certainly felt betrayed and abandoned by God. However, I did go to grief counseling at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia. A nun was leading a grief counseling group – spiritual counseling. She was using guided imagery, relaxation techniques, prayer, and biblical references. I met with her a few times and asked for tape recordings of the sessions.
In the group sessions, she spoke about the stages of grief. We were encouraged to bring in things that were mementos of our experience with our loved ones. I listened intently as others spoke. I was by far the youngest. I had studied the grief process in a psychology class at Georgia Tech. I read some more about this from a "clinical" standpoint. I was keeping reality at a distance.
I was in denial at times and at other times I would be overwhelmed with the idea of not being able to see Celta ever again and I would cry and cry.
So much is strange about this time period. The struggles with my parents were never intentionally instigated by me out of anger for anything. They just seemed uninterested in me and my life, other than to tell me what I ought to do.
I suppose I wanted to share the fact that someone had loved me to explain what had changed. It was surreal that there was such denial that anything had happened or changed. I might be in denial as a symptom of grief but I wanted to celebrate the relationship that I had. Where would I begin?
To cope with the tragic loss, I started drinking. A lot.
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.
Somehow, I did get a job finally that could have made my parents satisfied. Everything was always about them. They never asked about anything that was happening to me. So, they never inquired about why I was going for grief counseling because they had no knowledge of this.
Anyway, I got a job at the National Science Foundation as a contractor. I was developing a network for the museum and that involved network programming in the C programming language. I was a software engineer. I did accomplish a great deal in that job capacity and my supervisor was very impressed with my talents.
Again, this was not at all interesting to me. Yet, I was making sure that I successfully met all deadlines and deliverables.
I vaguely remember a summer trip to Las Vegas. The company paid for this to cover some training related to my work. It was amazing. I had this incredible per-diem rate where I was paid my salary plus extra money for expenses that exceeded the cost of the hotel room.
Vegas was probably the worst place for me to go with so much free cash and free drinks in the casinos. Somehow, I made all the presentations for the training that I was sent there to attend. In the evenings and free time, I hit the casinos and made some decent money. Nothing to write home about. Gin or vodka was an escape but somehow, I didn't drink so much so as to get sick at night or even the next day.
As I try to write this now, I have only momentary snapshots with no full-running narrative memory. Just random disconnected sensations. My hands were unable to touch the leather inside a car. The sun shimmers on the pavement. Casinos. Drinks. Sitting at a poker table. Pulling a lever on a slot machine.
I must have done what was expected of me. I don't remember any complaints from my boss.
Yeah, I moved through time like a robot.
The job was going well, as I said. I was proud of how well I was doing.
I was drinking more and more during this time period after the trip to Las Vegas. Everything except beer. Vodka with tonic or orange juice. Gin and tonic. Whiskey with ice, water, or coke. Not so much wine.
I was passing out and once or twice I would puke. I really hated throwing up, always.
I did meet this girl from the home office of the company that was paying me. She lived in Alabama and I was in Augusta, Georgia and we decided to meet in Atlanta, Georgia where I had graduated not long before that.
My supervisor was joking that I had "jungle fever" because I was a white guy who was going to date a black woman. He was black, as well. I didn't let that bother me. Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" had been out, and it was an important film. I have always been fine with having a conversation about race if that was something that was desired.
My mother actually asked about my date. I suppose her name sounded ethnic and my mother asked about that guessing that she might be Italian. I said, "no, she's black."
I remember that this was the first time I kissed anyone other than a brief kiss that Celta and I shared back in December of the last year. I mentioned that above.
This was extremely passionate. She brought her kid and left him in the car and parked near the Student Center - the same building where I worked on the bottom floor in the post office.
We were looking for someplace to sit or be as private as possible outside after dark. I remember making out at a few locations here and there. I could feel her large breasts against me, and I was aroused.
My first passionate kiss. Before Lynn. We'll get to that later.
Did I feel guilty about dating so soon after Celta? Maybe. But I wasn't actually feeling nor was I "aware" during this time period. I was so numb that I needed to feel something. To wake up! I was trying so hard to wake up. The tricyclic antidepressant made me feel good for a few moments. That didn't make it a meaningful experience.
Then later there was the fact that she said in December that she loved me but wasn't in love with me. I had only known her for one year, from January through December 31 or 1990. I do know that countless times she had that look like someone in love when she looked in my eyes. I was fairly certain she was trying to protect me from being hurt. But I never got a chance to ask her.
And that kiss? I had stopped, not her. It was my first time kissing anyone and I should have been aware that her lips were so small that if I didn't feel anything at first I should wait or stay there. I was always comfortable with Celta. She had never rejected any of my touches.
My mother had made me feel so not okay and so had my father somewhat. This "date" was a way to get out of the home and to appear normal to my mother. If I was going out with someone from the company that employed my services, it made me appear less worthy of the criticism I had been getting from my parents. That's how I figured it. It was an escape.
Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder or trauma disorders will cut their own skin with razors or something sharp just to feel something. The date was something like that.
There wasn't a second date. I had expressed my concerns about pre-marital sex. We weren't even in a committed relationship. I drove to Atlanta to meet her for a second date, but she never showed. I was frustrated out of embarrassment. Then I just forgot the entire matter by the next day and never thought about the matter further.
The various medications and the alcohol impeded grieving and dare I say reality testing. People who are grieving are in such a state of denial that it is almost like a temporary psychosis. From what I was reading and hearing in the stories of grief that I studied, "normal," healthy people did for a while embrace denial to such an extent that it bordered on delusional thinking.
The loss of Celta could not be washed away with alcohol, grief counseling, or an intimate date.
Poetry as an outlet...
I can thank my mother for introducing me to Martin Kirby, who went to our church and he was a professor of English Literature and related subjects at a college in Augusta, Georgia. He would become my writing/poetry mentor.
I would show up on a regular basis for poetry readings where I shared my poetry and got feedback, advice, and guidance on writing good poetry. He also heard me write about my experiences with Celta and listened to my experiences. This was very helpful because I had no other outlet for this or place to talk about Celta and my relationship with her.
He said he thought it would take about 10 years for me to be able to write good poetry about Celta because the feelings were too raw.
I was living in a difficult environment with my parents. I was dealing with a major tragedy and yet the name Celta wasn't even being mentioned.
Between drinking, the different medications I was put on, and the panic attacks, I had to go to the Emergency Room (ER) on two occasions.
The psychiatrist tried me on a major tranquilizer, and I had these horrifying muscle spasms that twisted my body up into contortions that made me think my bones were going to be broken in my neck and elsewhere. The doctor said that in higher doses the drug is used for psychotic disorders but somehow it would help with my depression, I guess. That was the reason I was taken to the ER once. My father took me.
Another time I had a panic attack and again my father took me to the ER. It's strange that they weren't asking why all this was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. NEVER!
The only ones listening to my stories about Celta were Martin Kirby and his wife as well as the attendees at the grief support group. Again, my parents were not interested to learn anything about this matter. They never seemed to have any awareness that I was even going to grief counseling.
This is so utterly astonishing! I had not deliberately been trying to keep everything a secret about what was going on with me. On the contrary, I looked for an opening to discuss the matter. I wanted to repair and improve the relationship. I wanted to share the fact that I had found someone who loved me.
With all this going on, all the problems I was having, I began to doubt that I could achieve my goals in life, my career goals. I wondered how I could help others when I had so many problems myself.
It should be noted that while I was put on a major tranquilizer, my psychiatrist NEVER said he thought I was psychotic. We knew I had problems coping with overwhelming stressors.
After the job with the National Science Foundation ended, another opportunity presented itself in March of 1992. I was offered a job in Wilmington, North Carolina, to work with Corning as a Technical Writer. They wanted someone with a technical background.
This would change everything. I was about to be on my own again. Finally!
My perception that I had long-term "problems" would disappear as if by magic, literally - it was unbelievable. My problem had been living in a toxic environment and that was complicated by the grief and the effort I had made to ignore, suppress, or deny the natural process.
My own doubts about my ability to achieve my career goals in life were contributing to the problems I was having.
It's hard to believe that I had only known Celta for one year – the year 1990 and when that year ended, so had Celta's life.
The tragic loss of Celta did not erase the positive impact she had on my life. There were other positive experiences during this time. I had become more confident.
I had been writing poetry about the experiences I had with Celta and I wanted to share that with others. I had been sharing that with Martin Kirby my poetry mentor but now I wanted to share this with others. It was so important and meaningful!
