trauma

My First Experience of Injustice 

After I had lost everything, I was moving from place to place in Wilmington. I was living in Southport when I received a criminal summons. It was absurd. John Freifeld had gone to a magistrate and without any evidence claimed that I placed five harassing phone calls to him on a Friday and a Monday in September of 2000. I had not spoken to him in months since we had a falling out.  

He also claimed that I was cyberstalking him. It's a sufficiently vague law that prohibits one from making any statements online that might embarrass or harass a person. I was not aware of anything that would amount to anything regarding my online activities.  

I was absolutely certain that I had nothing to worry about regarding the harassing phone calls. Why? Well, wouldn't you need some evidence? A recording on the phone, or some phone records? Since it never happened - I had not contacted him, I had nothing to worry about or so I assumed.  

Unfortunately, he is very charismatic, and my lawyer and I underestimated that. He represented himself in the matter. My lawyer demonstrated inept legal counsel by going to trial right away. I wasn't thinking until after the trial that he should have gotten the phone records. 

Since this never happened, obviously Freifeld had no recording to present as evidence. The judge found me not guilty of the cyberstalking - the judge threw that claim out. However, just on the word of Freifeld, he found me guilty of the harassing phone calls.

I was livid as I left the courtroom. My lawyer asked, "do you want me to appeal this? Do you want me to get the phone records?"  

I was thinking, "now you are thinking of that?" I answered, "yes, appeal it. And, yes, get the phone records. This did not happen!" It was a matter of principle. It was wrong!

Moving Away

I had been working as a paraprofessional again as I had before I got my degree or my license. Freifeld cost me that job as well. I have no idea why he was obsessed with me months after I had no contact at all with him. He called my employer and told them about the matters related to my license and the grievances. Despite the fact that nothing had been determined yet (I had not signed the Consent Decree surrendering my license until a few months later) and despite the fact that the work did not require a license, I was not able to work with the agency.

Having no options as to how or where I could live in Wilmington, I left for Durham to live with the people who offered me a place to stay for a little while for free. David and Ruth were their names. Ruth had been hurt by John Freifeld, and they both followed the news about what was happening to me, what John was doing. Freifeld seemed to want to brag online about what he was doing to me. 

I started going to the mental health center in Durham for therapy. It was all that I could afford.  

Like other victims, I felt wretched and ashamed. I felt like I didn't deserve to exist. I had nothing to offer the world, I thought.  

I needed some support from my family because I couldn’t stay with Ruth and David long. So, I asked Ruth to explain the situation to my parents. She tried desperately to explain to my mother the cruelty of John and how he is able to convince people to do bad things. She said, "there was a time when if John said the sky was pink, I would believe it and see the sky pink."

It didn’t matter, my parents didn’t care at all.

I moved into the homeless shelter at some point after leaving David and Ruth's home. They asked me to leave as I had stayed long enough. That sense of isolation and loneliness, of being discarded and worthless was pervasive and traumatic. 

Living on the streets was traumatic.  

It was no wonder that I felt profound feelings of abandonment and feelings like "this isn't happening." I would find myself walking around places and visiting the emergency room feeling like I was unable to cope with the burden of life.  

With everything that I had been going through, my sense of self was unclear. It was late in the year 2001 when this was happening. I felt like I had no real support in my life and that only added to the shame that I felt as a result of the victimization. 

At about this same time, I was working at the Eckerd Store in the photo department when I was asked to work the main register, not the one in the photo lab which was less busy. I was totally overwhelmed by the long lines and I was still dealing with extreme anxiety. 

 I was so anxious and could hardly focus. There was this young woman who came to buy some alcoholic beverage and I asked for her ID. She presented it to me without hesitation. I was under so much stress that my eyes had trouble focusing.  

I wasn't able to perceive that she was under 21. A manager stepped in and later, the police showed up and handed me a citation to appear in court. It was a minor error, but it might seem like something worse if you consider the statute that I was said to have violated - "buy, sell or obtain alcohol for a minor."

The Nightmares Continue

Somehow in the middle of everything happening that was so chaotic in my life and without a stable residence, I missed a court appointment. They issued an arrest order due to failure to appear in court for the misdemeanor regarding the sale of alcohol to a minor at Eckerd's.

I told my friend Johnetta what happened - she was someone I had gotten to know since I moved up to Durham - she owned a non-profit that helps the homeless and others. I was hoping that she could do something to keep me from going to jail. I was terrified of this happening to me.

Nothing could be done and now for the first time in my life, I was arrested and put in jail. People like me are never prepared for something like this. I had lived a sheltered life.

On top of that, I found out that I missed a court appointment in Wilmington. The lawyer who represented me in the case of Freifeld's lies that I made harassing phone calls to him had appealed the judge's verdict and he had a new court date, but he had not been able to reach me.  

I was forced to move from place to place, including living in various shelters. So, I had lost track of time and I was not always in one location. Now I had a failure to appear in Wilmington.    

I also had lost track of time. It was all a blur this past year or so. Everything happening was entirely new in that before a certain point in 2000, nothing like this had ever happened in my life.  

I reached out for support in Durham to get out of jail. I called my parents because I thought they cared about me and I knew they would understand the fear I felt. Whatever minimal compassion that might have had in the past was now gone. They didn't give a damn about what was happening to their son.

I had no idea why I was being treated this way by my own family!

I ended up being brought down to Wilmington in chains, inside a metallic cage or box that looked like it had been put on the back of a pickup truck.  

My nightmare was in full swing now. Day in and day out I was living in hell. 

It was humiliating and shameful to be treated like this. I was pissed at my parents as well. They had lacked compassion and empathy in the past but this was a new low for them.

The message my own family was sending was that it's okay to hurt Bruce because nothing will happen to you. Go ahead, hurt Bruce.  

I did get out of jail but was left down in Wilmington for a while. I didn't know what to do or where to go. My own family for reasons unknown to me did not offer any support at all. I don't know why I still expected them to care.

I felt so ashamed of my wretched condition as I wandered the streets of Wilmington. I had no home and nowhere to turn for help. It was cold and I was wet and limping about.  

I had all my belongings in a couple of bags. It was coming into the winter with snow falling. My friend Jean invited me to dinner with his wife and family - his mother was there. I was so ashamed to be carrying all my belongings and looking like a street person or a homeless bag lady.  

I tossed my belongings behind a bush outside the restaurant where Jean offered to treat me to a meal with his family. We had been friends for years. Jean was the friend that I met my first week in Wilmington back in 1992 - a mutual friend of Lynn and me.  

I was feeling so overwhelmed by my circumstances. I couldn't think straight. Where should I go? What should I do? I was just wandering around, and it felt traumatic for me. It felt like I didn't matter as a human being. No one seemed to give a damn about me.  

I was too ashamed to know how to seek support or friendship. I felt wretched. I wanted to scream out to the world or to God, "Help me!  Please!"   

I did go to the mental health center to get help to get back to Durham. I had been meeting with Vocational Rehabilitation and they said they could help me with employment. I had no other sense of what to do or where to go.  

So, I found myself at the New Hanover County Mental Health Center and at the Department of Social Services to get financial assistance to get a bus trip back to Durham.  

"Well, this is awkward," said the woman who sat down with me at the Southeastern Center for Mental Health Services in Wilmington.

"Yes, I used to be with the Society of Clinical Social Workers. Maybe you know me from that," I said.    

"You were the president. I came to training workshops that you organized."  

I felt myself tearing up. I answered "things changed so suddenly for me. It got so crazy. So much has happened. I lost everything in just one month back in August. It feels like many, many, years have passed and that was another life."

I added, " When you saw me, I had come so far. I had struggled, you know. I used to have doubts, but I found the encouragement that comes with success and the support of others."

She said something about how sad and overwhelming it must have been. Clearly, there was little need for a long conversation at this point.  

I got a bus ticket and went back to Durham. You might be thinking that things can't get any worse than everything that has happened. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.  

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

Dear Diane:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I didn’t know what to do. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something inside of me died during that time period.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was real. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regarding the situation of what happened with Lynn and me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Family Connections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She must have remembered that.

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

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

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

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

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

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

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

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

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.  

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 setting 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. We had lived life "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. Both of us facing the front window in the bedroom. 

Her heartbeat and breathing slowing 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 for clients to protect their identity and confidentiality.]

It was August of 2000, and Lynn was in the hospital.  It would have been easier if I was physically ill because then I would know to stay home and not see any clients. Instead, I made trips back to our home and I tried to work.

On one of those days when I was feeling like I had been drugged, something very unusual happened with Vanessa, one of my clients who had been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). She had just been released from the hospital as I noted earlier.

I didn't think she had any contact with John Freifeld until I learned that she signed that grievance letter to the board – the one that I would find out had been written by John. All this information was still coming in.  

 I was with Vanessa in a therapy session. I started speaking to one of her child alters. I was sitting in my office chair which had wheels on it, and it was rocking. I was dozing off. Before I knew it, she was on top of me in the office. Her lips had met mine.  

I recoiled and rolled back slamming my chair against the desk behind me.  No one had done anything like this to me! "What the hell," I shouted and stood up.  

She was laughing and "Cinnamon" seemed to be out. That was one of her personalities that had been seductive. My hand moved up and I clenched my fist.

This triggered a change and suddenly Victor was out. When people are newly discovering their personalities, they don’t switch very quickly and it looks more dramatic. 

He (she) took a swing at me and hit me in the face. I knew I was still looking at a female. I was completely disoriented by what had happened. But I was awake.  

Clearly, I could not meet with Vanessa any longer as her therapist. Yet, I still felt shame. I was the therapist. I was so trusting.

Michelle had been drawn into this as well. When she was in therapy the next day, she said she had spoken to Vanessa and heard all about it. She had been mad and spoke up for me, she said. She was bragging that she had said that "the only reason she could hit me is that she knew I couldn't hit her back."  

I was there in the hospital explaining this event to Lynn. I never kept any secrets from Lynn. I also would NEVER knowingly allow anyone to get that close to me. It just never happened. From the day I started seeing Lynn on July 4, 1992, until now, I had never had an experience like that. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around how it happened.  

I should have known that Vanessa had this seductive personality, and I should have been more careful. Right? But I had been so out of it. I was dozing off. 

Vanessa had that laugh that said she enjoyed my discomfort. Only the younger personalities didn’t like the way Victor or Cinnamon acted toward me. 

To be unfaithful to Lynn was unthinkable. I had never thought of anyone romantically other than Lynn from the moment I moved to Wilmington in April of 1992. This wasn't a pleasant experience in any sense of the word. In fact, I felt violated. 

My impulse to strike Vanessa was in part a form of anger turned inward against myself. That being said, I was disgusted with what she had done!

I wasn't going to hide this from Lynn, but it still hurt to talk about anyone else getting so close to me. I had attractive clients over the years, but I had processed those issues of countertransference with my psychoanalyst.

This event was not like this at all. I think Lynn knew this, but it was still shameful to bring this news to her while she was in the hospital fighting the infections in her lungs and trying to build her strength. I could tell she was hurt all the same. 

I could barely speak the words of apology which was strange because I had always demonstrated guilt and remorse, whenever I said anything hurtful to her. I would profusely apologize. Now, I wanted to keep the thought, image, and idea so far away from our minds.

 We moved past this, somehow.  

Lynn’s Hospital Struggles

I stayed and watched her try to walk around the unit and she had to do that with an oxygen tank by her side. Any moment she might need help.

I would be told that I needed to stay in the dorms, and couldn't stay all night with Lynn in the hospital but that was not enforced. I would curl up next to Lynn and hold her trying not to hurt her arm where the IV had been inserted. I am sure the nurses could see that I was crying when Lynn had faded off to sleep. I was trying to be strong for her when she was awake.  

I would take her down to the lobby and outside for fresh air. Her mother was visiting as well, but that hardly registered with me. All my thoughts were with Lynn.  

Let me repeat that again. All my thought were with Lynn.  

Occasionally, I registered that my family barely showed any concern at all for what I was experiencing. 

What we were experiencing. 

Some of these insights only recently came to me. At the time, I was too focused on Lynn to reflect upon how messed up my parents and siblings were.

They didn't come to visit Lynn or me. I mean for all practical purposes; Lynn was like a daughter-in-law. We didn't have a wedding and they knew why - it was related to Lynn's health and need for insurance. The failure of my siblings and parents to visit Lynn disgusted me.  

I was also shocked that they had not been there to visit Lynn because it just didn't make sense even for them. They were never the most sentimental or emotional people, but this was just so extreme. Their seeming indifference made no sense to me. I was not spending much of my time thinking about things like that, though.

Problems with My Career

I had to explain to Lynn what was happening with my career. I said that the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board (NCSWCLB) had received five complaints from individuals who I thought were associated with Freifeld. I was still getting information drip by drip.

I had malpractice insurance and I was assigned a lawyer by the insurance company. 

I would later be informed that the grievances were known to have been composed by John Freifeld. I would also learn that the grievance statements to the NCSWCLB were all the same - verbatim. My lawyer would convey this to me over time.  

Lynn didn’t need to hear all the details about the nature of the complaints.

This was stressful enough for her. I knew that she wanted me to be happy and that this was overwhelming her.

Lynn's Future After the Hospital

Lynn's health was stressful enough without these things happening also. She said she couldn't focus on healing and help me deal with everything I was going through in my career and in my life.  

I had the bright idea of renting a room for a couple of days to a guy. I can't even remember how I found someone to rent a room in our home. 

No, he wasn't a client of mine. It's reasonable to wonder about that because, at this time in August of 2000, my life was for the most part split between taking care of Lynn, being at the hospital with Lynn, or worrying about her well-being and trying to make money.  

This guy to whom I rented a room ended up stealing my car. I had left my car keys out and he drove off with my car. I called the police, but they couldn't call it a theft at first because he had lived here. That seemed strange. 

Eventually, the car was located, and I found out that it was totaled. This was another stressor making Lynn's life miserable because she had cosigned for the car and we owed money on the car. This was the last thing I had intended to have happened!  

Lynn’s Concerns About Her Discharge

Lynn was concerned that I also had not kept the home clean enough for her and she was going to have to be on IV antibiotics when she was sent home. This was to keep fighting the infections in her lungs. As I explained elsewhere, the infections were scarring her lungs. 

Lynn was worried that because I had not kept things clean enough, the dust and other particulates in the air would affect her lungs and cause more infections. So, she said she was going to move in with her mother when she was discharged.  

What could I do at this point? She was also overwhelmed by everything I was experiencing in my life and she couldn't face all this. 

Only years later would I put together the fact that she was so overwhelmed because of her love for me and her desire to see me happy and successful. So, just as her illness affected me, so had the failure of my career and my private practice affected her. 

It was all too much for her. I felt survivor's guilt in a way. I wasn't the one with a deadly disease. Lynn was only 34 and it seemed like she might die. So, it wasn't like I could say that I am having a hard time myself. At least that was what was going through my mind. I was constantly beating up on myself for every way in which I was letting down Lynn. I felt worthless. 

I felt powerless.

[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. 

[Disclaimer: I have used aliases for the names of clients to protect their identity and confidentiality.]

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. They both expressed concern that the other parent was not competent to be the primary custodian. Play therapy was sufficiently unstructured to avoid anything that either parent told me from affecting the therapy with the children. 

I was curious though to find out if either parent had been abusive. None of my questions seemed to yield anything that indicated abuse. 

Looking back, I wish someone had asked me this question growing up. Anyway, during this time, I was not at my best. The mother would later ask me if I had found anything to help her in the custody hearings. By that time, I was even further gone from the life I had known.

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 Virginia with that guy John Freifeld. She had declared that she had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I mentioned that she had come with Tracy when John had moved to Wilmington.

To this day, I have no recollection of what Alice discussed or what she looked like. 

I am guessing that I would have used a diagnosis of adjustment disorder because that is generic and used when you have no other sense of what diagnosis to use. After learning that she was being referred to me for treatment of DID, I do not recall anything that she ever shared with me. Nothing. I just remember thinking that I had no idea what diagnosis to use.

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 the 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 Sadie had back in 1999 before Jessica had started seeing me. They both had reported that they had known for some time that they had different personalities. She like Sadie had seen the newspaper article describing the workshop in which Louise Coggins had been the presenter.

That seemed like a lifetime ago – about 18 months had passed.

I would think during this time that it was a good thing that she had not come to that therapy/support group for people with DID. Patricia had no contact with any of my other clients and I knew that John Freifeld didn't know about her. None of those from the DID group knew of her existence, as it should be.

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.

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 I described that sensation earlier but at that time I was agitated, anxious, my heart was racing, and I would not have been able to fall asleep.

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 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?” 

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 mixture 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. Actually, there was one exception when someone speculated that I might have impaired reality testing. I’ll get to that later but what he was really saying is that I should be examined to get more information.

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, 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.

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.

The only other person I cannot form an image of is Tracy. I recall her sessions with me as I described earlier. She had come to Wilmington with John Freifeld. I only met with her on two occasions.

A General Feeling of Success and Happiness

The year was 2000, and life was going great for me. I was successful in all areas of my life. I had been living with the love of my life, Lynn, as husband and wife for several years now. This was evidence of success for me.  

To be loved and to love another person was part of what I had always wanted in life.   

I had the career that was meant for me as well. It was only through hard work that I had achieved this success. I never took for granted all that I had accomplished. Sixteen years ago in 1984, I would not have considered social work because I had been so shy and as a result, I lacked social skills. That was a lifetime ago.  

I had come so far. Everything felt right. Now. At this moment! In the early spring of 2000. I had no idea that things were about to change. 

I had a client base that was large enough to keep me busy forty, fifty, or more hours per week. That was okay, I loved the work.

It might seem surprising that someone like me who has a great deal of empathy would feel "good" when I am spending time with people who are dealing with severe depression, for example. I could resonate with others and their feelings and experiences. I felt with others what they were feeling and experiencing.  

However, it does feel good to know that you are helping another person to cope with psychological problems like major depression.  

So, yes, it feels "good" to spend time with people who are dealing with negative emotions... if you can help them.  

The Importance of My Role

I would reflect upon my role as a mental health professional and the importance of that role in the lives of others.

If someone came for family therapy or couple's counseling, I felt like I had a solemn role in the family or in the relationships between two people. A couple was paying me to help them to live in harmony and to have a healthy relationship with one another.

That responsibility or the importance of the role I played might seem more obvious to a layperson when dealing with serious psychiatric conditions or disorders. However, it never occurred to me that one client's issues were more important than anyone else's.

Concern for Others Mental Health More Important than Money…

The next statement will make sense to consider in light of later events in my life.

I remembered a particular conversation I had with a young woman who had anorexia, named Anne Marie. I had described this previously. I was meeting with her parents and her. I explained that a medical doctor should be the primary person that they contact about her health. I explained that I wanted to be helpful, and I supported Anne Marie, but her physical health is outside my area of expertise. I'm not a doctor and so all medical matters that concerned them must be discussed with their doctor, not with me.  

I had known that my role and my billable hours with her would decrease as a result of this, but Anne Marie's health was so very important.  

I knew that despite her starving herself, she wanted to live a life that was meaningful, and I hoped she would continue to see me from time to time for individual therapy, and she could and was invited to come to the groups I was having for persons with eating disorders, which she found very agreeable.  

A Diverse Group of Clients

I had so many different clients, dozens of them with different problems, issues, or disorders. Each of them had invested in me a solemn responsibility to care for their mental and physical health - their health and psyche as it were. It was a solemn responsibility indeed.  

The past few chapters have focused on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as a trauma disorder and the role I played in providing treatment to persons who presented with symptoms of DID. This represented only a small fraction of the time I spent each week in therapy with people. 

I have put additional focus on this particular disorder because of the unique characteristics of the disorder at least in terms of what the general public thinks about psychiatric disorders.

I have previously described the problems that I had discovered when I learned that psychotherapists were spreading conspiracy theories.

To say that my colleagues across America had some unusual beliefs about what had been done to their clients who had DID is putting it mildly.   

The End of Faith?

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris came out with a book called "The End of Faith" in which he presents many of his beliefs that form the basis for his choice to embrace atheism. 

During the years I spent with Lynn, I noticed that she was the touchstone of morality for me, and yet she was opposed to any of the symbols and terminology that makes up religious doctrine. For example, she didn't like the term "sin."

For me, I was beginning to align my beliefs with Lynn who had doubted that a loving God could have allowed innocent children to be born with a chronic, fatal illness. I noticed that Lynn had an open mind even though she did not embrace any religious faith.  

My faith had been rooted in love, compassion, and empathy. That never changed even when I turned away from religious ideas.  

I was beginning to think that, indeed, science might be the only tool for understanding reality. I could trust what my senses told me. That would be it!

I had at one point told Lynn that God was real and factually known and not a part of our beliefs and faith. That was such a naïve and irrational statement to make!  

Religious ideas also lead people in America to embrace conspiracy theories about satanic cults, despite there being no evidence that could support a belief in these things. It seemed like the nation was being rocked by a mass delusion.  

Religion seemed to inspire people to believe things without sufficient evidence and to see the world in black and white categories.  

I respect the beliefs of others even if I do not share those beliefs. 

A Charismatic Pseudo-Therapist  

I’m not sure what to call a person like John Freifeld. He was charismatic and persuasive. He looked like Charles Manson. Later, a woman named Ruth Parris would describe his charisma by saying that “if he said the sky was pink, she would see it that way,” and it sounded like she was being literal. Ruth was never a client of mine, but she was a friend. So, let’s call him a pseudo-therapist.

As I stated previously, by John’s own admission, he had no specialized training, no credentials, and no college degree. As of June of 2000, I had not had any contact with John in about a month or so. The situation with Tracy had so disgusted me that I could not speak to him at all.

Jessica had long ago admitted that he had deceived people into thinking he was a therapist. I mean, I got the impression that he wasn’t denying that with her. 

Other than Sadie and Jessica, it seemed that those clients who had DID were getting worse. I should clarify that Tracy who left the area did not seem to have DID.

At some point, I discussed the problem with my colleagues. I was the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers. Chris Hauge, my mentor was at this meeting. 

I didn’t really have to go into much detail about what I was observing. I just said that I knew that he was not trained in the field, that I felt he was doing what would be considered “therapy” and that I noticed that people seemed to be getting worse.  

The advice I got was to tell them that if they want to keep seeing me they MUST stop getting therapy from John! 

Based on a review of the book, this is not a sentiment that is obvious to every layperson. It was obvious to John’s sister when I spoke to her in 2020 before this book was reviewed and without me having reviewed nearly as much as I have just recounted to you, dear reader.

A website was created to warn people not to trust people like John - there were others who were practicing without credentials. Patt Stubbs had started a website called HIP - Hazards on the Internet and Protection. I had found on one of John’s websites his attacks on Patt and HIP.

She was now the target of his attacks along with others.  

HIP was a website established to help inform people about people online (therapists) who were making false claims about their expertise, training, education, or credentials. Indeed, according to Patt, there were others who were providing therapy online, who were announcing their services online who were misrepresenting themselves.  

I did find out that there were what seemed like a number of people who had been treated by John.  

On one of John’s websites, he attacks all those he sees as conspiring with Patt Stubbs and HIP. That includes me, Patt Stubbs, Ruth Parris, who I would later meet, Christine Brandon, and Stephanie Bryant.

Patt had shared a story about how Christine and Stephanie had gone to John’s “Treatment Center” in Virginia where he had announced that he had a nurse on staff which was his girlfriend whose credentials were questionable. I never tried to verify who she was or what her credentials were. 

At about this time, I had learned that John was reaching out to other clients of mine. Anne was a client of mine who had problems unrelated to DID. She told me in late July that she had been out to the home where John was living. 

I asked her, “why did you go there?”

“He said he wanted to tell me about you and why I shouldn’t trust you,” she answered.

“So, you didn’t know him?” I asked.

“No, but he seemed like a guy who belonged here, at your office?” she answered.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around what it was about John that had people trusting him at all.

“So, you went to where he was living?” I asked.

“Yes, Jessica was there and a few other women,” she said.

Then she added, “It’s like a damn treatment center.”

“What do you mean, it’s just a home?” I asked.

“Well, they have a room for working through anger issues related to their trauma. They have a plastic bat, a bean bag, an inflatable punching bag.” 

My intuition seemed correct from the bits and pieces of information I was hearing, it seemed like he was trying to set up something like a treatment facility at the home of Jessica. 

It didn’t seem at all farfetched that he had been doing this previously, that he had held himself out as a therapist. When I say he had done this previously, I mean that the claims that he had invited people to a treatment facility in Virginia seemed entirely plausible. 

I talked to Lynn about my concerns, and I said, “I feel like I should do something to help these people or at least to have someone look into these matters. Patt had said that I would be credible to the authorities and others who could look into this – like the licensure boards for clinical social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

My wife, Lynn had said to me, "don't get involved, you could get hurt."  

I thought, "what can he do to me?" 

In fact, there was nothing I could do and nothing that I did do. Everything I knew was confidential information from therapy sessions and I couldn’t share that with anyone. It was frustrating that nothing could be done to stop Freifeld.

[As in other chapters, the names of people are aliases to protect the anonymity or confidentiality of clients.]

Toward the end of the last chapter, I had mentioned that I was speculating on the impact that words and ideas can have on a person's mental health. I was referring to the situation in which Tracy had been confused about her diagnosis or her mental health condition.

I noticed a theme that was developing in the "memories" and flashbacks or “triggers” that were being presented to me. Triggers are things in our environment – something we see, hear, or feel (a tactile sensation) that trigger certain images, thoughts, and feelings.

Sadie had finished her therapy and Patricia, who had started therapy at the same time as Sadie, was not coming very often. But she had believed for a long time that she had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) because she had been aware of different personalities. 

I had two other clients that had DID and they both were coming from the Myrtle Beach area named Vanessa and Michelle. They had not previously known each other. Vanessa had been in therapy before with different therapists and she had a psychiatrist that had agreed that her diagnosis was DID. She had been the only client of mine who had been in the hospital for her condition before she started working with me. 

I felt bad that others had failed her, and I had a release to speak to her psychiatrist as well. Michelle had not started working with me until some time in 2000, whereas Vanessa had started working with me in 1999.

At that same support/therapy group they had all met one another, and I would learn from them that they exchanged telephone numbers. 

Patricia was the only one who had DID or a dissociative disorder who never came to the group sessions. That would turn out to be good for her. She didn’t know any of my other clients and they didn’t know about her.

I mentioned that there was a theme to what they were beginning to report. I don’t have all the facts to prove how this happened or who is to blame. I can only speculate on what was happening at the time. 

What Jessica and Vanessa were describing had a religious nature to it. They were both very religious. Jessica was a member of the Pentecostal religious denomination – a protestant Christian denomination. She described how in church services people would speak in tongues – a language that God would understand.

Jessica also spoke of a baptism of the spirit where one has a spiritual experience that sounded to me like a hypnotic trance. Both she and Vanessa were very religious in their sessions. They both described healing services where the movement of God or “the spirit” through them would heal them of certain problems. They might see people fall to the ground as if in a trance and something miraculous was happening as they believed.

They brought in drawings they made. It seemed like a child had drawn these. I had no idea if they were talking about these matters outside of therapy. But I saw that both were presenting images of upside-down crosses and what they described as “the people in the cult who wore robes.”

Like me, you’re probably wondering “what cult?” and “what does this mean?” 

I started looking online for more information. The words of Louise Coggins came back to me. “Ritual Abuse.” Louise had offered the workshop on DID in January of 1999 for clinical social workers. 

I had some keywords to use in my searches. DID, ritual abuse, cult(s), child abuse, and trauma. It was sometime in mid-2000 when I ventured down the proverbial rabbit hole. With the internet so much a part of our lives in the 21^st century it’s hard to imagine a moment’s delay between hearing something unusual and doing a Google search on it.

Google wasn’t even the major search engine back then. YouTube wasn’t as popular then as it is now because not even half the population in America had internet access that was fast enough to stream video like it is now. Lynn and I were using dialup until 1995, a time after I had started graduate school. 

One of the most intriguing discoveries was an article called “The Greenbaum Speech.” The article was  by D. Cory Hammond, Ph.D. I knew that name because he was the editor of the big book entitled "Handbook of Hypnotic Scripts and Metaphors" which was an American Society of Clinical Hypnosis book. He was a prestigious psychologist in Utah, but I had known of him.

I am jumping ahead in my narrative. The following two chapters describe events that happened earlier, in April of 2000. 

In this speech, called "The Greenbaum Speech", Dr. Hammond details a set of programming that is based on the Greek letters of the alphabet. It was all very vague and strange. According to him, this was widespread.

I noticed that the speech had been given in 1992, more than eight years earlier but I had never heard anything about this.  

The idea that he put forth was that alter personalities were deliberately created that could be accessed or identified by letters of the Greek alphabet. Using hypnosis, you would ask if any alters were known as or who understood about personalities that knew about "Alpha," "Beta," “Gamma,” or “Theta.”

I would learn years later that he was giving this presentation to rooms of 50 or more psychotherapists. He was far more senior as a psychotherapist than I was at the time that I discovered this.

Dr. Hammond didn’t try to explain how this was done. He implied that there was a shared set of practices that existed across America and Canada. The sense that the meaning of “Alpha,” “Beta,” “Gamma” and “Theta” was shared across parts of America and elsewhere and had the same bizarre meaning was sufficiently vague and disturbing.

It was implied from this and other research that I found online that this was part of a shared conspiracy among certain groups of people – a cabal – that had deliberately harmed children to create these personalities. And the process of creating the different personalities was called “programming” – as in programming the human mind.

Flashback Terrors

I started getting more frequent calls from Jessica, Vanessa, and then Michelle. Jessica was the only one of them that I knew had been receiving what I would call “therapy” from John.

I knew that John had helped Jessica, Tracy, and Alice create their “inner worlds.” It was more than a home with different rooms. Most of my knowledge of this came from Jessica because Tracy had left the area after two sessions and Alice had not been very forthcoming at all. 

Alice was the most ardent defender of John and his treatment approach. I also had no clear sense that she was living within the world that John had created for her or that she even had DID. 

I’ll offer just one example of the bizarre “triggers” of flashbacks that I heard about from Vanessa and Michelle. Neither of them had been referred to me by John but since they both came from the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina, about 90 miles from Wilmington, they started staying together on the extended weekends around their therapy sessions with me.

Somehow, they had connected with another client of mine who had been waiting in the lobby around the same time that they had their appointments with me. That other client, Rebecca was seeing me for an entirely different problem. Anyway, they were renting the apartment that Rebecca had because she was trying to get back with her husband after a period of separation.

I got a call from Vanessa in late July of 2000. She and Michelle were watching the movie “Conspiracy Theory” and it had triggered some flashbacks. I had a second phone line that rang at my home with a distinctive ring. Vanessa said that something about the blinking lights in a dark scene had triggered a memory of something that had been happened to them or was done to them.

“But you are safe, now, right?” I asked her.

Vanessa answered “yes” but then she added, “but Michelle needs you, now?”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know, she is just rocking back and forth and acting like she is freaking out,” she said.

“Can you put her on the phone?” I asked.

I heard her say “Bruce wants to talk to you.” And then Michelle said “Okay.”

“Hello,” I said then I asked, “are you okay?”

 “Yes, I’ll be okay, Bruce,” she answered. She seemed okay to me and normal. 

After a pause, I said, “so, I’ll see you Monday, right?” It was Saturday night.

“Yes, Monday at 2 PM,” she answered.

“Okay, bye,” I said and hung up the phone.

With that, we will back up a bit in time and talk about events that happened about two and a half to three months earlier.