prose book

There comes a point when you stop trying to explain.

Not because the pain is gone.

Not because the injustice no longer matters.

But because you know who you are.

I am not what they said I was.

I don’t have to win back trust—because I never broke it.

I’ve lived my life by the highest morals:
With gentleness.
With integrity.
With compassion for those who suffer.
With respect for others’ boundaries, bodies, and beliefs.

Even when I was invisible, I lived with purpose.
Even when I was silenced, I held onto truth.

Even when I was shattered, I chose not to shatter others.

A therapist once wrote that I was a gentle person.
She didn’t say it to defend me.
She didn’t say it to counter a narrative.
She said it because it was the truth.

It still is.

I’ve spent years trying to survive.

But survival isn’t the end of the story.

Now, I want to live.

Not to prove anything—
 

But because I still have something to give.

There’s a voice in me, buried under layers of pain and shame, that’s slowly growing louder.

It says:

You are not your trauma.
You are not what they assumed.
You are not the roles others cast you in.

You are a good person with passion and love to give.

You are still here.
Still standing.
Still healing.

And that is more than enough.

It was supposed to be a new chapter.

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

Then, I was let go.

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

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

Was I back where I started?

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

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

But of course, there was the background check.

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

It should have been enough.

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

That was the first gut-punch.

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

Eventually, RHD offered a compromise.

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

But it didn’t feel like one.

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

For a month, I was placed on administrative leave.

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

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

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

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

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

But it was too late.

They terminated me on March 14, 2025.

No more appeals. No more explanations.

Just another door slammed shut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barriers That Don’t Die Easily

Even with my CPSS certification in hand and nearly two decades separating me from the injustice that wrecked my life, I couldn’t escape its shadow.

I wanted to work. Really work. Not just to survive, but to reclaim who I used to be—before the system stole my career, my name, and a part of my sense of self.

I knew applying for jobs in the mental health field meant facing questions, silence, and rejection. But I also had something new: a letter from the Orange County Rape Crisis Center.

Years earlier, during my marriage, something had started to shift. Memories I had buried—or couldn’t make sense of—surfaced through nightmares and intimacy triggers. I reached out to OCRCC, unsure if I even qualified for help. But they didn’t ask me to prove anything. They listened. They believed me. And most importantly, they put into words what no legal system ever had:

Sometimes, the person labeled “perpetrator” is the one who was harmed.

The letters they wrote—one for the Social Work Licensure Board, another for potential employers—became my lifelines. They couldn’t undo the conviction. But they gave me something the courts never did: recognition of truth.

First Steps, First Falls

By early 2022, I had my certification. It was time to return to the field.

I was hired part-time by Cottage Health Care Services in February—my first mental health job in years. It was rewarding, if modest. I worked closely with a few clients and saw the change I could make. Still, I needed more. Full-time work. Stability. Validation.

So when RHA offered me a full-time position as a CPSS in April—on my birthday, no less—I jumped.

Before quitting Cottage, I was cautious. My IPS worker and Vocational Rehab counselor reminded me: “Don’t give notice until you’re absolutely sure RHA knows about the background.”

I disclosed everything. The man who hired me believed in me. He said he’d fight for me. And when he gave me the green light, I believed I could finally move on.

I started at RHA in May.

After Memorial Day weekend, they told me not to meet with anyone. I was called into a private meeting.

“We don’t think this role is the right fit.”

No explanation. Just: turn in your badge.

Later, a coworker told me what I feared—someone had flagged my background. Eighteen years later, the lie was still closing doors.

Breaking Through the Wall

Then, in July, Freedom House Recovery Center hired me. I disclosed everything again. This time, the HR rep glanced at the OCRCC letter and said something I’ll never forget:

“Unless you’re a serial killer, you’re fine.”

She was joking—but not really. It was the first time someone in HR responded with humanity.

I started work in August 2022, assigned to the Mobile Crisis Unit. I would be meeting clients across several counties, often at their homes. Children, families, adults—anyone in crisis.

For the first time, I wasn’t haunted by the past.

No one at Freedom House treated me with suspicion based on the past criminal conviction. I didn’t have to explain or justify my existence. Clients didn’t know, and they were not going to know. I knew it was not relevant what lies Ana told long ago. My supervisor didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the work.

I was good at it.

Really good.

I saw it in how people opened up to me. I saw it in how I could read body language again. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I didn’t feel like an imposter. I wasn’t walking into rooms as a man carrying shame—I was a professional offering help.

A New Kind of Recognition

Sherisse, my supervisor, saw my potential. She knew I had a background in social work. When I asked her for a reference for my application to regain my social work licensure (as an LCSWA), she hesitated—not because she doubted my goodness, but because she hadn’t worked closely enough with me to confidently recommend me for clinical practice.

Still, she encouraged me. I had been working for over a year with her when an important conversation occured.

At one point, she even brought up RHA as a place I might apply again. I paused.

“I had worked there but do you know why they let me go?” I asked her.

She didn’t.

So I told her.

“I was assaulted in 2004 and yet I was the one arrested. I had been convicted of a violent felony.”

She looked stunned.

“You?” she said. “You couldn’t hurt anyone. I’d fight someone before you would.”

That moment—that validation—was something I had been chasing for almost two decades.

I said emphatically, “Thank you.” She was noticing what should have been obvious to everyone including the police back in 2004.

The Weight of Love and Lies

During this time, I tried dating again. I met someone—Codi Renee. She knew about my conviction and still chose to see me. That alone felt rare. I stayed longer than I should have, not because I was happy, but because I didn’t want to lose the one person who didn’t reject me outright.

But even that came with emotional complexity. I wasn’t comfortable. I wasn’t fully myself. And eventually, the relationship ended.

Codi Renee had lumped me in with others who had hurt her. It didn’t matter that I was different. It still hurt.

And yet, there was a moment during all of this—a moment I’ll never forget—when I realized that the people who truly knew me didn’t just believe me. They knew I was incapable of violence.

Sherisse saw it. My clients felt it. I knew it. If it were not for criminal record databases we would have to rely on our instincts just like my cat had.

Moving On

For a little while, I thought I had made it. I thought the past had loosened its grip. I was helping people. I was thriving. I had finally returned to the field that gave my life meaning.

But then came the cuts. Budget changes. Freedom House began dissolving the Mobile Crisis team.

They offered me another job—on the Detox Unit. I thought it was a generic Crisis Unit. If I had known what that job really was, I might have said no. It wasn’t just unfamiliar. It wasn’t therapeutic. It felt like a jail, not a place of healing.

But that’s a story for another chapter.

Becoming a Certified Peer Support Specialist

I first heard the title “Certified Peer Support Specialist” during a WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) group at the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. The facilitator—open, warm, and unapologetically honest—wasn't just someone with credentials. He was someone who had lived it. His mental health history wasn’t a liability; it was the reason he was there.

And suddenly, something occured to me. I could do this as well.

For years I’d been both the therapist and the patient. The person others leaned on, and the person left drowning. To be a Peer Support Specialist turning my pain into a purpose in life. I was still on SSDI but I saw that this was a false version of myself that I had embraced.

Still, the toxic shame lingered. One day in the hospital, I’d asked a nurse for some feedback—something positive to hold on to. Her response: “We’re not supposed to give compliments.” That moment stayed with me. In the world of clinical detachment, affirmation was rationed.

But Peer Support Specialists weren’t clinical. They were human. That mattered.

I arranged to meet with the WRAP group facilitator outside the group. We talked about what the role involved, how it helped people, and—most importantly—how I could become certified. It was a quiet, steady spark. Something I could hold onto.

The Truth About Me

Around the same time, something else began to stir inside me—something less expected, but no less real.

At CEF, I met someone who used they/them pronouns. Their presence challenged what I thought I knew about gender, about identity, about the invisible rules we all internalize.

I didn’t feel like a woman. But I had never felt like the kind of person the world expected either. Growing up, I had rejected aggression. I avoided confrontation. I didn’t play tackle football because it was so not me. I rejected the boxing matches with one of my friends bercause I was afraid of hurting him.

That softness had always felt… different than the way guys are socialized.

Now there was a name for it: gender non-conforming. Non-binary. Something in between. Something valid.

I began to share some of these thoughts with Becky, the student therapist I was seeing through HomeLink. She received it with warmth and curiosity—not analysis, not judgment. For the first time, I felt like I was allowed to question what gender meant for me, without fear that it would be used to make me a target of bullies.

I was also watching Law & Order: SVU as I mentioned earlier. The excuses that guys were using along with their lawyers were so disturbing. I don’t want to get explicit but the argument that maybe she wanted it or just seeing how hard it was to prove cases was shocking to me. Aspects of being a guy that were offensive to me were normalized. The pressure put on women to obey husbands and meet the needs of their husbands. It was all offensive to me. Yet, there was something more about myself that I was recognizing and I could find it everywhere.

The psychology writing of Carol Gilligan about how girls feel about winning versus how guys thought about that were different and I could remember having those thoughts that are more characteristic of girls. There are too many factors to list them all.

The irony wasn't lost on me—Ana had accused me of a violent crime that clashed with everything I knew about myself. Had I been female, would the system have seen me differently? Would I still carry the label of “violent felon” if I’d been allowed to show up as myself?

These questions weren’t just theoretical. They were survival. Yet, some part of me worried that someone might think that I was embracing my feminine nature, my feminine gender identity, as a ploy to win the sympathy of others.

Probably most profound is when Sarah spoke about how her father was nurturing and had certain characteristics that are more characteristic of women and she added “but I wouldn’t call him feminine.” I responded, “but that is not me. It would affirm something about me to think of me like one thought of women.

Remembering Christine

Around this time, I had conversations with Sarah about another public moment that still lingered—Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Brett Kavanaugh.

We both believed her.

I told Sarah that my sister, Carrie, had once asked why I didn’t relate to Brett’s experience of being falsely accused. The implication shook me. Did she believe that being falsely accused meant you should automatically assume all other accusations are false too? I had treated many survivors like Dr. Christine. To me, it was not political at all. The kind of Supreme Court judge that we were going to get from a Republican presidency was known.

Sarah was stunned by the comparison that my sister made to Brett.

The contrast between Brett and me was vast. He was belligerent, defensive, entitled—given every opportunity to prove his innocence and never once taking it. I had been silenced, cast aside, humiliated. And yet I would have done anything for the chance to prove my innocence. I would have leapt for joy at the opportunity to have an actual investigation into what happened to me. The FBI could question anyone who ever knew me.

Brett was angry that he might not get a promotion. I was trying to survive. That difference mattered. The way Brett had acted would never be allowed by any lawyer. His anger at anyone asking the question would have made him appear violent to a jury. In an actual investigation if it turned up anything, the last thing a defense lawyer would want would be a client to get so beligerent and angry at anyone who was asking questions.

Letting Go of My Family

As I was building a new identity, I realized I had to break from the old ones.

I recalled how Andrea—my longtime trauma therapist—had tried to bridge a conversation between me and my sister Carrie. I had asked her to explain my financial limitations, and to ask if Carrie would help with the copay that I owed for therapy sessions.

Carrie’s response?

“Why can’t he just get a job?”

There it was. The same invalidation I had been living with for years. No recognition of my trauma. No understanding of what I’d endured. Just blame. Just shame.

Becky once told me that repressing pain was like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. Sooner or later, it bursts through the surface.

For me, the metaphor was perfect. I could see myself walking along a beach with beach balls bursting over the waves and into the air. There were so many things that I had pushed down over the years. Now I was starting to love myself and I couldn’t do that and keep in touch with my mother or Carrie.

I wrote Carrie an email, one last olive branch. She responded with a cold lecture about all the bad choices I’d made. How I’d failed to honor my parents’ sacrifices by not working as an engineer. There was no mention of my survival. No mention of my pain. Most painful of all was that her response overlooked an entire decade of success in my life.

So, I drew the final line. No more contact. No more looking to a dry well and hoping for water. I deserved more. After all I had endured, I couldn’t bring myself to both love myself and think of my mother and sister as part of my family. Elee had wanted me to pretend to be nice and keep in contact so that I would get an inheritence. I couldn’t do that.

I was done chasing crumbs of compassion from people who had none to give. I had told her explicitly and without ambiguity not to contact me at all, in any form.

The only exception was when I learned that my mother died. They had spent so much time acting like I was part of the family. I had carried the same name as Kathy’s husband, my father. So, that was the least I deserved - about $11,000 but enough to get a car. This would be required to work as a Certified Peer Support Specialist. I could also drive myself to places I had wanted to visit for so long. Now, after two decades, I had a car again.

Becoming Certified

I reconnected fiercely with the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, driven by a new goal that gave me hope - to become a Certified Peer Support Specialist.

Their hesitation was palpable, their uncertainty about my criminal record casting a shadow over the process. But as we delved deeper, a revelation emerged: I wasn’t isolated in this struggle. Many CPSS professionals bore the weight of criminal pasts. Those with genuine, raw life experience were often the most adept at offering help.

They agreed, albeit cautiously, to fund my training and continued to back me with employment support through my unwavering IPS (Individual Placement Services) counselor.

During the grueling certification journey, I encountered others whose narratives both electrified and unsettled my spirit. One man had spent half his existence behind bars for murder. Others had battled the demons of addiction. This as common for those who become CPSS professionals.

One guy shared a chilling tale of surviving Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, poisoned by a caretaker’s twisted pursuit of sympathy. It made my skin crawl, but I understood deeply. My own family had poisoned me too—not with chemicals, but with the corrosive toxins of silence, shame, and neglect. They hammered into me the belief that I was sick, a problem, unworthy, mentally unstable, a failure. They wielded "tough love" like a weapon, used cruelly in the aftermath of losing my greatest love, my career, being preyed upon by a psychopath named John F., and then being harmed by Ana, another predator. These were not mere bad decisions or circumstances I could control.

I turned to the man who had endured Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and asked if drawing parallels to my own poisoning—verbal, emotional, psychological—would offend him. He welcomed the comparison.

For me, the abuse was an emotional and psychological onslaught. And still, it had nearly annihilated me.

But I remained.

Still clawing my way back.

Still transforming.

Where do you go after the edge?

I left the hospital in December 2019 no longer suicidal, but still fractured. I wasn’t healed. But something had shifted. The spiral of silence was broken. And for the first time in years, I didn’t want to disappear.

I wanted to live. But I didn’t yet know how.

Finding My First Steps

I was referred to HomeLink and the STEP Clinic, both part of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. Their programs picked up where the hospital left off: outpatient support, therapy groups, a case manager, even an occupational therapist. For six months—from January through June of 2020—I had structure, connection, and continuity I hadn’t known in years.

I was paired with Becky, a UNC counseling graduate student. She reminded me of the kind of therapist I had once aspired to be—empathetic, grounded, willing to sit in the heaviness without trying to fix it. At the same time, I was finishing trauma therapy with Andrea, who had guided me through EMDR. She was retiring. Another door closing. Another goodbye.

The groups helped. Brushes with Life, an art therapy group, met at the clinic. Emotional Resilience met out at the Farm at Penny Lane. In those quiet rural spaces, I found the courage to speak again—to draw, to name things, to listen.

Then came COVID.

In-person groups dissolved into Zoom squares. The warmth of community flickered into static. I was alone in my house, staring at a screen. The world shrank again. But not entirely.

Because that’s when I finally walked through the doors of the Community Empowerment Fund—CEF.

Facing the Story

The office was bright but humble. Student volunteers sat at folding tables with open laptops. Flyers lined the walls. “Empowerment,” they called it. I didn’t know what to expect.

But in that first orientation, I met someone who had once been a client, just like me. They had found their footing. That stirred something in me. Maybe I could too. Most importantly, I could relate to the mindset and attitudes of those who formed CEF. They had the same passions that drove me to become a social worker.

When I sat down with two UNC advocates, they asked: “How can we help?”

How do you condense 15 years of loss into a single conversation?

“I used to be a therapist,” I said. “Then I lost everything.”

I told them about John F., how he manipulated clients into filing false grievances, how he accused me of harassment with no evidence. How I lost my license, my career, my life.

Then I paused.

“There’s more,” I said. My voice faltered.

“In 2004, I was the victim of a violent assault. But when I called for help… I was arrested. The perpetrator was believed. I was branded. And now I have a felony. A violent one. For something I didn’t do.”

Silence.

Then one of them said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

It wasn’t pity. It was conviction. Like they meant it.

We talked about options: Peer Support Specialist training, resume updates, a legal clinic through UNC. They offered encouragement, not platitudes. And then one advocate said:

“You should write your story. It matters.”

They told me about Wattpad, a platform for writers. I didn’t know if I was ready. But I did it anyway. I wrote a few chapters and posted links a description of each chapter on Facebook. I was going to break the silence. Words flowed as I filled a first book with what would ammount to 530 pages of my first book: Memoirs of a Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton.”

Back at CEF

When I returned to CEF the next week, I told my advocates I wanted to work in mental health again—somehow. That I wanted to help others, even if I couldn’t get my license back.

They suggested a Certified Peer Support Specialist credential. They could refer me to Caramore. And they did. I would eventually complete the training and become certified in August 2021—a new beginning.

I kept going back to CEF. Repeating my story too often. Hoping for consistency. But even in the repetition, healing began.

One advocate, a young woman, looked at me and said:

“I believe in karma. I hope Ana gets what she deserves.”

It was the first time someone had spoken of justice—not in legal terms, but in human ones. No procedural language, no bureaucratic tone. Just raw, moral clarity.

And I felt it too.

What Ana did was despicable and evil.

The assault was horrific. But that wasn’t the most wicked thing she did.

The character assassination was worse. She stole something far more permanent than blood or bruises—she tried to take my identity and replace it with her lie.

I had been posting to Wattpad because I needed someone to hear me.

And someone did.

Sarah

During that same time, another voice entered my life.

It started with a Facebook message.

“Hi… I think we went to high school together?”

Her name was Sarah. She’d graduated one year before me. We might have passed each other in band class, or in the hallways of Southington High. But neither of us remembered clearly.

What mattered is what happened next.

She had seen one of the Wattpad links I’d posted—something raw, personal, painful—and reached out. What began as curiosity turned into something I hadn’t experienced in years: a conversation that lasted more than twelve hours. Not interrogation. Not judgment. Just questions. Real ones. The kind that come from someone who cares enough to understand.

I told her about John F. and the loss of my career. I told her about Lynn and Celta—the only two people who had loved me fully and unconditionally. I talked about the grief that followed, and the injustice that shattered the rest of my life.

She had so many questions… about the good people in my life and the bad people who harmed me. She wanted to understand every detail. When I spoke about how bad I was bleeding during and after the attack by Ana, she wondered if Ana had been wearing something on her hands. Brass knucks? That would have caused bruises not cuts. For the first time, I was talking about the criminal history in a manner that was so matter of fact. I had introduced the topic of what happened in 2004, the focus of this book, the false conviction, without the normal fear that I normally had when I spoke about this matter. Somehow she made this seem like a routine topic to discuss.

She asked questions no one else had thought to ask.

We would double back and revisit the same topics more than once. I told her about John. About Lynn and the love we had. About losing everything. I told her about Ana. The night of the assault. The lies. The conviction.

Sarah believed I could fight. That I still could prove my innocence. Even now she believes this.

The Bigger Truth

I had never been lazy. Never lacked ambition. I had put myself through graduate school, worked multiple jobs, built a life around helping others.

I had come from a toxic family, a broken justice system, a world that doesn’t understand trauma unless it fits a script. And still—I had tried.

Now, CEF was giving me a new way forward. So was Sarah. So was every single person who said, “I believe you.”

And as I sat with those voices, something shifted again.

Not just healing. Not just hope.

Maybe I wasn’t just meant to survive.

Maybe I was meant to fight.

My voice that was mute again in the classrooms growing up had been mute and silent when I found myself standing in front of a judge. Similarly, I hardly said anything to anyone after the devastating events in 2006.

For years, I had carried my shame in silence, believing that no one would ever truly understand. I had wasted time searching for validation from people (my so-called family) who had already shown me who they were—narcissistic, indifferent, incapable of caring. I kept thinking that if I just explained myself the right way, if I just found the perfect words, they would finally see me. They never did.

All that silence had done was bury me deeper in shame. Shame that wasn’t mine to carry. It had never been mine to carry.

Injustice does not resolve itself. It lingers. It poisons. And it does not go away just because the world moves on. I had tried to heal in private, but healing cannot exist in isolation. I could not build a future while hiding from my past. And so, for the first time, I understood—

I had to tell my story.

December 2019.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They just echo in your head until they become unbearable.

And in December of 2019, it became unbearable.

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

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

“There’s nothing you can do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then came the knock on the door.

Police.

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

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

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

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

They agreed..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was no convincing her otherwise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Past Trauma and Marriage

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

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

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

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

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

Marriage came when I was still clawing my way through the wreckage.

I wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t ready for it.

But when it came—when she came—I didn’t turn away.

After years of shame, after a justice system that had labeled me something I never was, I had almost no sense of worth left. I was no longer sure I even deserved love. And yet, when Elnaz—Elee—entered my life, something stirred.

She didn’t just see me. She believed me.

And that changed everything.

A Hypothetical That Became Real

We first connected through poetry.

Elee had been submitting to Word Salad, the poetry magazine I ran with Jean Arthur Jones. Her writing caught my attention—vivid, honest, intelligent. I admired her from afar, never expecting anything real to come from it.

One night, I asked her, “Would you ever marry someone like me?”

It wasn’t a proposal. It wasn’t serious. It was hypothetical.

She was in Iran. I was in the U.S. There were oceans, borders, and eight time zones between us. But in her culture, dating didn’t exist the way it does here. A question like that carried weight. A woman didn’t leave Iran unless it was for marriage.

And she took my question literally.

And I didn’t stop her.

Because deep down, I needed to believe that someone could want me—even knowing the truth about my past.

I told her about the false conviction. The injustice. The years of being treated like something less than human.

She believed me.

She didn’t ask me to prove anything.

She just said yes.

Across Oceans for Love

We built a relationship through late-night video calls and early morning chats. I let myself believe we had “match points,” moments of harmony that could hold a marriage together. We had never met in person, never stood side by side. But still, we talked of marriage.

The only place we could both legally enter was Turkey. So we flew to Ankara and got married.

Looking back, I don’t know if I believed in love or if I just needed to believe in something again. But it felt like a second chance. I should not have needed a second choice because I never did anything wrong. I felt hope and believed it was love. Yet we were going to get marrried when we met each other for the first time.

And then I came home to a message that shattered everything.

Grief That Undid Me

Just days after the wedding, I logged onto Facebook and saw the message: Thomas was gone.

A sudden heart attack. Forty-six years old. My best friend for decades.

I had just seen him before I left. He had smiled and told me, “You’re a lucky man.” I wanted Elee to meet him properly, to know the one person who had remained steady in my life.

We had reconnected like no time had passed—no awkward silences, no judgment, just friendship that endured.

Now he was gone. And I didn’t know how to bear it.

I drank that night—not to celebrate, but to escape the excuciating pain of discovering that my dear friend was actually dead. I drank too much. So much that I couldn’t get on the bus to his funeral. My body rebelled with nausea and shame.

I missed his funeral. I missed saying goodbye.

And I’ve never stopped regretting that. It wasn’t the kind of shame that rose out of my fragile abilty to cope with this loss.

This time, the shame was mine. Self-inflicted. Earned. But it still hurt just as much.

This was a turning point for me. The shelter of Wilmington was fading. Jean Arthur Jones would fade out of my life leaving me with no connections. Just memories of connections to that place. Elee would later think I wanted to go there to remember Lynn. In reality, it was much more complicated. As I stated earlier. Wilmington itself had taken on a sense of being an anchor to a better life before loss and injustice. A safe haven without judgment. Yet, I needed people down there who still knew me.

That was basically gone with the passing of Thomas.

Marriage Meets Reality

When Elee finally got her visa, we were hopeful. But reality doesn’t bend to hope.

She had just graduated medical school in Iran and dreamed of becoming a doctor in the U.S. But the path was steep. She would have to pass the USMLE—in English—and she had never lived in an English-speaking country. People who come from other countries where they studied medicine have to take these exams.

I was on Social Security Disability, scraping by on unstable contract work at Measurement, Inc. It was enough to sponsor her visa, but not enough to build a life on. It wasn’t stable employment.

I warned her: “I don’t have much. I’m on disability. I don’t have much.”

She said it didn’t matter. But it did.

Unspoken Resentments

She studied constantly but never took the exam. I encouraged her gently, but encouragement began to sound like pressure. Years passed. She withdrew. I felt invisible.

We lived in the same apartment, but it never felt like we shared a life. Disagreements weren’t resolved; they were buried. And silence became a third presence in our home.

She had expected a provider. I had a therapist and we talked about how she should have known that I had almost nothing and was living on disability. I had expected understanding.

We both found something else.

In 2018, she left.

I didn’t fight her.

There was nothing left to fight for.

Breadcrumbs and Gaslight

After she left, I turned to the only people I had left—my parents. To be honest, I had been reaching out to them for some time. They had reinforced in so many little ways the fact that they saw me as a failure in life. Someone who would be dependent on others to survive.

I had never asked them for help as an adult. But that had changed when tragedy struck a decade before our marriage in 2010. Sometimes I was genuinely worried about how I would pay the rent and not get evicted or pay the electric bill. They gave just enough to keep me from falling, but never enough to help me rise. A part of me had felt that they owed me support because if they had not watched with indifference as my suffering was beyond words could convey… if they had done anything when I was in jail, needing a lawyer and a real chance to live, then I wouldn’t be in this situation.

“You need us,” they said. “You can’t survive without us.”

And then at other times: “You should be ashamed of needing help.”

It might not have occured in one single conversation but over the decades that was what I was hearing.

It was a double-bind—emotional gaslighting dressed as charity.

I had already been labeled disabled. Already endured injustice. Already lost my career, my home, my freedom. And now, even asking for help became another source of shame.

Not guilt. Not regret.

But toxic shame—the kind that whispers you are the problem and that you’ll never be enough. If so much evil was allowed to triumph over me then there must be something cursed about my being. Like I was never meant to rise from the past in the first place.

Trips to Wilmington used to be a sanctuary for me to connect and find acceptance, but now, they no longer comfort me. I've moved to Carrboro, where I feel like a pariah, excluded from society, grappling with the notion that I might deserve it.

In Carrboro, I tried to build a normal life, seeking meaning, but doubt lingered. I immersed myself in church activities, clinging to my Roman Catholic faith as my last refuge. I yearned for belonging, attended Bible study, and reached out to make friends, yet fear of revealing my past kept me isolated.

Even now, in 2025, I'm shocked that I have a criminal record while the true villain remains free. Shame prevents me from letting anyone associate me with a violent crime, fearing what they might think. So, I bear the burden alone, torn between confessing and fearing rejection.

Marked by Shadows

I knew I was different, and others likely sensed it too. My work status was a topic avoided—I was on disability, not yet brave enough to share why. My passion was social work, helping vulnerable people heal, but this left a noticeable gap in what others knew about me. No one questioned my lack of a car or my reliance on a bike or rides. I struggled to craft a perfect elevator speech, unable to succinctly explain how I was a victim deceived by gender-biased police detectives.

I could verify these beliefs but they were my beliefs.

Another Door Slammed Shut

As I struggled to rebuild my shattered life, I clung to the hope of teaching religion to children at the church. I had always enjoyed children and being something like a big brother. I believed that sharing this light would make me feel alive. Then I heard about the dreaded background check. I was crushed.

The church, haunted by a history of scandals and abuse, built an impenetrable wall of caution. Afraid they would deny me the role, I planned to share the truth with someone connected to the church, hoping someone might see past the false stain of accusation and believe in who I really was.

Instead, I avoided even pursuing this opportunity. This was just another tragedy of a false accusation.

At a raw, vulnerable poetry open mic in Carrboro, I bared my soul to a trusted new friend, recounting the false accusation, the injustice, and the stigma. I yearned for empathy, for someone to say, “I believe you.” Instead, he bluntly remarked, “You can’t expect people to take your word for it.” His words struck like a slap, reopening old wounds and reinforcing a world that had already condemned me, despite my lifetime of non-violence and my nature as a gentle person who healed others.

Now, I must insist: in the twenty years since, not a single accusation has been made against me—a silent testament to my true nature. I had devoted my life to healing others as a therapist, guiding souls through trauma, yet fate turned me into an object of fear. The unbearable weight of rejection eventually forced me to stop trying to prove myself to the church.

It felt like another part of me had been stolen—another casualty of a false accusation and the relentless force of Ana.

My future. My work. My reputation. Now, my ability to be with children hung in the balance.

What made it more difficult was the certainty I had always felt - that I was always great with kids and should have been a parent. I adored the joyful, carefree nature of kids. I had always been patient, kind, someone children could easily connect with.

I longed to mentor, to teach, to contribute something positive to the world. But the world seemed to have decided that I had nothing to offer. And so, I felt that I had lost a part of myself.

The Breaking Point Was Still Ahead

I had been drowning for years, but I was unaware that I was on a collision course with a final, harsh moment of truth.

My entire being would have to be shattered completely before I could piece myself back together.

It would require standing at the brink of my own existence, contemplating the ultimate decision, before I could muster the strength to fight back.

Before I could discover self-love.

Before I could find self-compassion.

Before I could trust in myself.

I didn’t choose to deny myself these things, yet I wondered if I was truly worthy of them.

For years, I had believed I didn’t deserve them.

That belief was partly fueled by my persistent attempts to get my family of origin to understand me and my struggles. To care. To show compassion and empathy. If my own family didn’t care, then who would?

I spent years grappling with why my life had unraveled the way it did. The PTSD diagnosis offered a framework for what I had been enduring. My mind and body were still trappped in many traumatic moments, reliving the past through inescapable flashbacks.

But the PTSD wasn’t new.

The assault by Ana and false allegations had merely been the tipping point—the moment when all the pain from a childhood of emotional neglect, of isolation, of striving to be seen, and then losing the love of my life, my home, my career, and everything else, finally crushed me.

The Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder were just passengers on a journey that had begun perhaps four years before Ana’s assault.

I had lived with pain for so long that I questioned if I even knew how to exist without it.