trauma

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

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 making 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. John 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. In case I was unclear, when sometime after John referred a few clients to me, with Jessica being the first one, he moved in with Jessica, her husband, and son. 

This arrangement grew. Clients who came to my support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder exchanged phone numbers and then started spending time over at the home of Jessica where John provided "support" as he called it but it was really more accurate to call what he was doing therapy. 

When I described the actions of John to my fellow clinical social workers they agreed that what he was providing therapy and that I should tell them that I cannot continue to provide therapy to them while they were seeing him. A much fuller explanation of what he was doing is available elsewhere. 

It is likely that these clients got worse due to the interventions of John and they needed someone to blame. So, when John told them they could and should file a grievance against me and sue me that must have made perfect sense.

I mentioned that I had turned to my family for support when Lynn became ill. I am not sure how hard I tried to get support from my family.

I couldn't ask Lynn's mother to reconsider selling the house and allowing this incredibly special relationship to end. I had no idea what Lynn was thinking at this point which is so painful to admit. 

My shame at not being there for Lynn made it hard to discuss what was happening to me and the problems that we had in a way that would have been easier in the past. 

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. When I say on the run, I mean that I had no stable living arrangement for a long time. I had no home.

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!

I entirely expect readers to have many more questions. When you fully appreciate my state of mind, you will understand why I do not have answers or did not know then... anything.

This might be a good time to make a transition to another section of my book. Where I went and what I did as I bounced around from place to place was as a ball dropped down some steps.

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.

Through the next few years, I was someone without a plan and without hope.  I have a short chapter that is a letter to someone else who loved Lynn.

It had seemed that cystic fibrosis was about to destroy my entire life, as well as threaten the life of the woman I loved. I feel selfish to say that it was destroying my life. I cannot say that I was dying, not literally. I felt survivor's guilt because of this fact. I felt I didn't have a right to speak about how I was experiencing all of this. That might be part of the reason why I didn't reach out to friends and say, "I need your help" or "I need your support." or "I need to talk."

Lynn had known the devastating pain this would cause me. I just had a hard time thinking about "me." It's ironic that by not focusing on how this was affecting me, I didn't appreciate that this was an emotional, psychological and existential crisis for me.

To be honest, it happened too fast for me to get in to see a psychotherapist or a doctor for help to deal with this. If I had a physical sickness, I would have called my doctor and gotten an appointment in a day or so, maybe a week. With a psychological crisis or sickness that comes on so quickly, we don't think in terms of emergencies that must be addressed immediately.

I was like a walking zombie without Lynn.

She was now staying at her mother's place in Wilmington, the place on Wrightsville Beach.

I was beating up on myself for not keeping the place clean enough for Lynn to feel comfortable living in our home... but in reality, there was more to the story of why Lynn was living with her mother.

I was reflecting on the entire month that and what had happened.

We had two cats and they used the litter box in the garage. Sometimes I would forget to clean that also or before she went into the hospital the second time, I didn't want to do it myself. I had been in denial and struggling to admit to the fact that she could not do the things she used to be able to do.

Every little failure or thing I forgot to do made me feel ashamed. I hadn't been stubbornly refusing to do these things. I hadn't been angry at Lynn for not helping with any of these chores that would have been shared in the past. No, I just was in denial of what was happening and what her inability to do certain things meant.

It might have seemed like an easy calculation, that cleaning the home and doing other things to make it more likely that Lynn could come home is the most obvious thing for me to do but that just wasn't registering as something that was so obvious. Plus, I was terrified that Lynn might die. I kept pushing that thought away. In so doing, I was pushing a part of my reality out of my mind.

My normal capacity for planning and problem solving wasn't working at peak levels, to put it mildly. All the resources within me that had served me and guided me throughout the years were non-functional at this time. It seemed like those faculties had shut down.

We all need help at times in our lives - a supportive person like a therapist, friend, family member.

Dear reader, you might wonder why I could not offer myself the same support and guidance that I might offer a client. You might wonder why I couldn't draw upon my own skills. Up until this point in my life, I would have been able to step back, plan, figure out what I need to do, and then do it.

I would have done something.

I cannot overstate this fact, but I would have done anything imaginable to hold onto the life I had with Lynn – to hold onto any life with Lynn!

We were still in the month of August of 2000.

Clients depended upon me also.

Despite the grievances of those five clients, I had dozens of other clients whose therapy was going along well and things were fairly "normal" in that regard. I felt a responsibility to try to help them.

I couldn't just wallow in the grief and pain of losing Lynn forever. I also didn't know what to expect regarding Lynn's health. I felt powerless to help her so I didn't know what to do.

I had developed a coping mechanism to deal with the issues of being in love with someone who had a terminal disease called cystic fibrosis. I (or maybe we) had lived life as they say "in-the-moment." What else can you do? I mean, whether you are talking about Lynn who had lived with this her whole life all those years before she met me or if you are talking about me knowing in some way that I might not have Lynn forever, we both had to focus on what we had.

That strategy might make the best sense in a way, but it can also lead to denial. I know that this is what I was experiencing in August of 2000. In essence, it was like telling myself "This isn't happening. Everything is fine." But things were not fine. Lynn needed me and I wasn't giving her any sense that I could be there for her.

I wanted and needed to believe that the situation with Lynn living with her mother was temporary. Lynn's mother, Diane had separated from her husband, Bob, and was living down in Wilmington all the time. She had gotten a job as a psychologist in one of the schools.

On about the fourth of September of 2000, I heard Lynn tell me that she might not come back to me. I couldn't even begin to have a "logical" conversation about this because I broke down and started crying.

I was moving through life on autopilot.

I was in denial when I heard those words from Lynn that she might not come back. I thought, "this is not happening."

This is not happening. I could not wrap my mind around the reality of what I was hearing.

I reflected upon the weeks and months before the nightmare had started.

Just a few weeks earlier life had seemed so "normal." We were so in love. I had felt her body next to mine and knew that the love, passion, and romance had not faded at all in all the years we were together. If anything, it had only grown.

We had been so close just weeks earlier. Falling asleep with my arms around her. My heart and breathing synchronized with hers. I had felt such a sense of serenity as she drifted off to sleep. I tried desperately to hold onto that memory and that peace, but I couldn't.

My mind kept trying to conjure imagines and memories of this serenity of falling asleep, our bodies touching... the image of both of us facing the front window in the bedroom.

Her heartbeat and breathing slowed little by little as she transitioned into sleep. That was just a few weeks ago but it felt like the day before.

It might have been the day before but for her disease - cystic fibrosis.

There were other things that were happening in my life, but I was so consumed by the changes in Lynn's health that I could not function as I once had. I had tried to go on coping and working but things were different now.

[Disclaimer: I have used aliases 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.

She had been diagnosed by her psychiatrist and she had been to a treatment center for people with DID.

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. The transition from Cinnamon to Victor was faster than with other clients who are newly discovering or revealing their different personalities.

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 clients over the years that were attractive, 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. Maybe I had shut them out somehow.

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 it seemed that I was being treated by my family. I haven't been able to talk to my sister about this to get insights into what was happening. She thinks I am deliberately trying to make her feel like a worthless sister.

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 truly wish I had a way to discuss these things with my sister and for us to make sense of things. Unfortunately, she gets very upset when I try to do this. It's so very hard to figure out how to deal with something like this when you can't talk about it.

I was also shocked that they had not been there to visit Lynn because it just didn't make sense even for them. I don't know, maybe our family wasn't 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. I assumed this was just temporary but I still felt shame.

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 five clients. I knew that these five clients were receiving treatment or interventions from Freifeld.

Let me give a summary of what was said. Again, this was the same exact grievance statement signed by five clients. 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.

Technically, some of them may not have had DID. Not all were referred to me by Friefeld but they were all associated with Friefeld or receiving services or support from him.

They didn't feel that I could treat DID. They claimed that I insisted that I speak to their alters – ironically, that was what another client of mine named Tracy said she hated that John had done. Tracy had said that she felt like she had to respond as if she was speaking as one of these other personalities whose existence was supposed to be a part of her existence.

 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? 

Tracy had to leave the area because she rejected the sexual advances made by John months earlier and things got out of hand as a result of that. 

So, one can imagine where someone might get such a bizarre idea that their therapist, when leaving the office is doing so to go masturbate! Maybe I had an overactive bladder but that's a fact I would have loved to leave out of this story.

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 John Freifeld? 

Well, Sadie was one of the clients who 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. Yes, Sadie was a lesbian and she had a wife. 

She definitely never had any thoughts that I was helping her only because she was an attractive female. 

Only two of my clients even spoke about these ideas that existed in the conspiracy theories that had been circulating on the web. You might recall, dear reader, that I had done a web search to find out about the bizarre nature of what some clients had started sharing with me just a few months ago and for the first time. 

Most of them had all been working with me for well over a year and had not discussed any of these bizarre "memories."

Going down that rabbit hole had only happened as a result of what they were revealing to me. This had only just happened, it was just with two clients, and was not a part of our therapy sessions until just recently.

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. 

I had come so far and overcome so much to achieve a place in life that exceeded my wildest dreams. I had developed confidence, self-love, a sense of connection, support, love, success and a belief that things could work out. However, things were about to change and the impact of how I lost everything would destroy the qualities I would need to face increasingly challenging situations.

There was a villain in the story. Someone named John F. He was like a guru who had not gained any relevant college education, training, supervision, or experience to act as a therapist. He had called himself a therapist but people caught onto him and so he said he was just a support person.

He had started diagnosing people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - a condition where people have different personalities or alters. This is a very rare condition. The way he told it, he happened to notice at a 12-step alcohol and drug online community that some people might have this condition.

He found me because as president of the local chapter of Clinical Social Workers, I organized a workshop for clinicians to learn about this condition and how to treat others. I contacted the local newspaper to announce the training but the newspaper wanted to do a full story on this.

Although, I was new in the field compared to other therapists, I got the attention of two local people who wanted a therapist. In addition, John F. referred someone that he thought might have this condition - a Mrs. D. Actually, he had been communicating with these various alter personalities that Mrs. D. had. She had not been diagnosed by any professional when she first came to my office after I told John that I would meet with her.

Before long, John would move down to Wilmington from Pennsylvania or Virginia, bringing a few other women who he diagnosed with DID and who he was “supporting.”

He had decided to move in with the first person that he referred to me – Mrs. D. I started to learn that he was providing treatment to the same clients that he referred to me. Most importantly, they were getting so much worse. 

I had eventually heard that people had made allegations against him for falsely claiming to be a therapist and there were other allegations. From confidential therapy sessions with clients, I learned more about what he was doing. I was shocked and alarmed.

We had a falling out in early 2000 when I realized that the worst claims about him were likely true. I had tried to help a client named Tracy who had come down to Wilmington, NC from New Jersey with John and she started to meet with me for therapy.

She had been afraid after she turned down sexual advances that John made. I thought I could straighten things out and help Tracy. He had admitted on the phone his lack of conscience or remorse. Tracy had left an abusive husband thinking she would be able to get help and now she was being hurt by John.

Tracy did end up escaping and returning back north to enter a shelter for women who are victims of domestic violence.

I had not studied psychopaths or others like John who harm people because they don’t generally come for therapy.

I soon learned that John had composed a grievance letter to my licensure board and had five of my clients sign the identity complaint letter or statement. While Tracy and one other client of mine with DID did not sign that grievance letter, one of my clients who had successfully completed therapy with me had signed onto the same letter!

I also learned that they had filed a civil suit for malpractice. They had a reason to be frustrated because they were getting worse. I had not known how many people were receiving treatment from John.

Everything that I had worked to create as far as a career going back to Georgia Tech in 1984, some 16 years later, was about to be taken away from me! 

This was so overwhelmingly disturbing for me. My greatest passion was to help others cope with mental illness, and this had been rewarding.

I never saw it coming. I was in shock.

On top of that, at the same time, Lynn became very sick and had to be taken to the hospital for inpatient treatment. 

Lynn Becomes Very Sick

From the moment I met Lynn, I knew her life would be cut short by a cruel genetic illness. Cystic Fibrosis – a chronic and terminal condition that used to claim lives before adulthood. Despite advances in treatment, her lifespan was still limited. But I refused to face this reality, clinging onto hope for a miracle cure that never came.

We built a home together, formed a family. Lynn had dreams of pursuing her education in writing. She had hopes beyond her illness.

And then it happened. She was hospitalized for a few days, but this time it was serious. Our newlywed bliss shattered as we faced the harsh truth of her deteriorating health. Memories of our passionate and joyful moments together flooded my mind as I watched her suffer. Our "normal" life had changed, and I couldn't bear to see her in pain.

Now, things were more dire. She couldn’t keep much weight on her, which was a signal that her health was beginning to take a different direction than ever before. Her oxygen saturation was very low. She went into the hospital initially in late July. It had happened so suddenly, and it seemed to be unexpected. 

And when she was finally released after a week, it was only temporary relief before she would have to return again. 

By now, she couldn't even function without being hooked up to an oxygen tank. The sensation of suffocating consumed her every moment, leaving her helpless and unable to care for herself.

There was nothing I could do to stop the unthinkable idea that she might die. As she lay in the hospital for the second time, receiving IV antibiotics to fight the infections, she made the decision to move in with her mother for a cleaner and safer environment. But as I sat by her bedside, I received news of grievances filed against me and a looming malpractice suit, all claiming that I was not skilled enough and that it was my fault that they were getting worse. My efforts to steer them away from John F., who only worsened their condition, fell on deaf ears.

Every moment spent at home or outside felt like a distorted reality, a nightmare that I had not been prepared to face, despite having known from the beginning that Lynn had a serious illness. I knew deep down that these were symptoms of dissociation, my mind trying to protect itself from the overwhelming terror and perceived threat to the existence I had known. The world around me felt unreal, like an illusion, while I myself felt detached from my own body, floating above it as if observing someone else's life.

Everything I had worked so hard for and achieved was being torn away from me without mercy. Love and all its accompanying emotions were foreign concepts to me, yet now they were being ripped away mercilessly from my grasp. It was a hellish nightmare come to life and there was no escape other than to retreat into my mind further.

The sun had already begun to set when I heard the voice outside my door. I had been expecting someone, a new friend. So, I had my door open a bit.

"Where’s Bruce?"

I stepped out into the dim hallway to find a woman on the stairway leading to the second floor staring up one of the fellow tenants named Danny who lived upstairs.

Without hesitation, I answered, "I’m Bruce."… instantly realizing that this was not the person I was expecting. This was a white woman and my friend that I was expecting was black as was my girlfriend who might not have known which apartment I had been in - I had changed apartment rooms.

Before I could process what was happening, she stormed past me, into my room, slamming the door behind her and locking it.

We were alone.

Then she attacked.

Her fists crashed into my face with terrifying speed and force. My glasses flew off. I stumbled backward onto the couch, blood pouring from my nose and from cuts to my cheeks, filling my mouth with the sharp taste of iron.

For a brief moment we were separated and then she screamed, "Why do you keep calling me?!"

Through the haze of pain and shock, I managed to ask with utter incredulity : "Who are you?"

Outside, I could hear muffled voices—other tenants, witnesses. Yet, the violence continued. I didn’t fight back. I just wanted to survive. Plus, I was programmed not to not hit females… but then again, I had NEVER been physically attacked in my entire life by anyone of any gender.

Adrenaline took over as I dragged her to the door, my hands slick with blood. I had a few brief moments in the chaos to wipe my hand across my face. My hand smeared blood on the door and I left a bloody thumbprint on the doorframe as I tried to steady myself.

I fumbled with the lock, forcing the door open, pulling her out. I was actually worried about hurting her!

But she tried to force her way back in.

I slammed the door shut. Locked it. My heart pounded. What the hell just happened?

With shaking hands, I dialed 911.

"We are sending the police."

I refused paramedics—I needed the police to see my injuries, to understand the brutality of what had just happened… to get photographs of just how brutal this attack was.

Joachim, just another tenant, told me to go look at myself in the mirror.

Looking in the mirror, I had in utter disbelief at the extent to which I had been bleeding. Not only was I bleeding from my nose but I could long cuts across both cheeks and a bloody swollen mouth.

It was October 1, 2004 and a warm day. I had blood on my face, blood covered my dark green shirt, my light colored shorts, my socks and my sneakers.

As I spoke to others, Joachim asked, “So you don’t know her from Adam?”

“No, I have no idea who she  is.” Looking around, no one seemed to have any idea as to her identity.

When the officers arrived, I was still covered in blood. They listened as I described the bizarre incident that had just occurred. They questioned the witnesses.

I insisted they take photos of my injuries before treating me.

Then just as they were about to leave and I was resigned to the idea that they would probably never find out who had done this to me, I heard a phone ringing. It was not my phone. Behind a pile of books, I noticed a phone—her phone. She must have lost it during the assault.

I handed it to the officers.

"Maybe this will tell you who she is."

They left and I was still in shock.

That should have been the end of it.

But then, maybe an hour later and near sunset, more police cars arrived.

A female officer appeared in the doorway, watching me.

Over their radios, I heard the words that would change my life forever.

"A woman was sexually assaulted here."

Prior to this moment in life, I NEVER would have imagined such a scenario… but it was clear that they were talking about me.

The victim was now the accused.

The nightmare had only just begun.

Injustice and the Burden of Toxic Shame

The woman who attacked me was Ana Ensaf Amador-Rizo, the wife of my landlord. This was beyond bizarre! She had turned from perpetrator to victim in the eyes of the police.

I had lived my life with integrity, dedicated my career to helping others recover from trauma, only to become the target of false allegations.

But it wasn’t just the legal system that turned against me.

I had spent years battling toxic shame, social anxiety, and self-doubt—struggling to overcome the fear of how people saw me. All these struggles had occurred prior to being falsely accused of a violent crime.

If life had been difficult before, how much harder would it be now, with the weight of an accusation I could never escape?

This book is not just about what happened that night.

It’s about how injustice follows you. It’s about the prison that exists beyond the walls of a jail cell—a life sentence of stigma and suspicion.

It’s about the fight to rebuild after the world has destroyed you… to find self-esteem and overcome toxic shame without justice.

And it’s about what happens when the truth doesn’t matter.

Having grown up with emotional neglect, I thought I had finally woken up when I saw myself through the eyes of love—with a girl, a young woman named Celta. That moment cracked open a new self. And still, the impulse to explain myself never left me. Maybe someone here knows that feeling too.

There was a time when I thought I had finally arrived—at love, at home, in a life of success, accomplishment, and peaceful contentment. Lynn was that life. Our love gave shape and meaning to everything else. It buffered me from old wounds, from the shadows of emotional neglect, and let me believe that, maybe, I was no longer invisible.

But then a meteor came crashing down upon my life. Lynn’s illness caught up with her. I was a healer—but only for the mind. All I could do was watch. It was like watching a fire consume everything I had built.

In the smoke and ash of that loss, I turned to my family of origin. I held out the ruins, hoping they’d see the devastation I couldn’t hide. But the truth is—I couldn’t even hide from it. The grief was all-consuming, like a fire itself—burning through everything I was, everything I’d built, everything I thought would last.

Instead of comfort, I received a bizarre sense of blame. As if I deserved it. As if I had brought it upon myself.

That was perhaps the cruelest wound—not the fire itself, but the silence that followed. I was no longer just grieving Lynn and the life I had. I was confronting that ancient, familiar ache: I am not worthy. I am not welcome. I spent a lifetime explaining myself to those who never intended to understand.

The moment I knew everything had changed was the day I walked into our home - Lynn’s and mine - and saw it being packed up. Her mother, who once bought us that house, was now preparing it for sale. It was too real. Too final. I stepped into the computer room—just to be out of sight of the boxes—and felt my legs give way. My body needed support; I slipped down the wall to a sitting position. The life force was gone.

This is the place these poems come from:
A world where identity collapses,
where memory stings like smoke in your eyes,
and where love, once lost, becomes a ghost you chase in dreams.

Dreamed I was a ghost 

I dreamed I was a ghost,
seeking you... screaming your name.
But you would not answer.

Then I could not find you.

I was alone,
an invisible spectator...
watching everything around me,
unable to be heard or seen,
haunting the once familiar spaces.
Now haunted - terrified - by the strangeness
of it all.

In the Boat 

This time it felt
just like a premonition.
In the dream,
I felt like a ghost -
I was there with you
transparent to your sight;
you looked right through me
not seeing me.  

My love for you
keeps these dreams alive.

There is something familiar
about the place.

There, by the water 
we stood,
yet you did not see me.
I watched you enter your sailboat.

I tried to call out to you;
I was scared
of losing you.

I watched you drift away,
fading out of sight.

The boat I enter
takes me back in time - 
back to you. 

Not Even Footprints Remain

Sometimes it seems that
I'm writing these words
on the sand,
like in that quaint picture,
"footprints in the sand."*

The wind is in my face...
Is this all there is?
Words that fade as fast as I write them?
My words dry as sand
that blows in my face
blinding me?

If only I could get you to look
before my words are lost.

In my vision, on the sand,
there are no footprints...
As if I'd never come here,
and never written these words.

Or it never mattered
what I said,
you would not see...
you are not here to see.

You are gone,
like our footprints,
like my words.

Gone!

Flashback

It’s strange how a place
can age-regress you—
fold back the years in an instant.
That’s what happened
when I stood there again.

There’s a man-made jetty
that arcs out to a small island
on the beach
south of Wilmington.

The photograph draws your eye inward—
just as standing there
drew me into myself.

Time collapsed.
Suddenly I was not just in a place—
but in a moment.

Our first day together,
our first real outing—
and the life we were about to build
had just begun.

Today,
the wind off the water
and the hush of waves
surprised me.

The place held the memory—
and the memory held me.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I like to believe
I'm just like anyone else—
that we all have limits.

There’s only so much
pain, fear, loss—
trauma—
we can carry
and still remain
ourselves.

Still hold on
to our values,
our sense of self,
the person we hoped to be.

But when the weight exceeds that limit,
something breaks.

We drift.
Not into sleep,
but somewhere else.
A fogged place.
Out of time.
Out of reach.

Sometimes,
if we’re lucky,
we come back.

But not everyone does.

Reflection: This poem echoes the confessional tradition of poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, whose work dared to name the raw edges of psychic pain. Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back still haunts me. I sometimes wonder if she ever could make it all the way back.

I did.
At least, I think I did.

But some nights,
the line between coming back
and simply existing
feels paper-thin.

Introduction to the poem

Fuge State

I come to,
or awake,
finding myself already walking
somewhere unknown.

I’m not sure how I got here,
where here is,
or even where I meant to go.

A misty rain drifts down,
mingling with tears
that blur my eyes,
slide warm down my cold face.

Fog lifts off the street like smoke
as day slips toward night,
unwinding the edges of everything.

Street signs leer at me —
unrecognizable,
taunting with names that mean nothing.

I want to run.
Back.
Back in time.

Somewhere in this haze,
my mind glimpses
what can’t be real,
must be the
dream within
this dream.

Hours slip by.
My hands have gone numb.
Cold seeps through my coat
and down my back.
There is no sidewalk.
The winter streets slick with rain
or ice — I can’t quite tell.

Cars whip around corners,
far too fast —
their headlights slicing through me.
Each time I tell myself
they will miss me,
just like the last did.
Just like the lightning
will wait —
let me reach somewhere.

Not home —
that was long ago.
Home is gone.

Dogs bark in the distance.
I hope they keep to their fences,
hope I’m invisible.

No one knows where I am.
No one is waiting.
No one needs me
to get home safe.

Awareness trickles in,
thin as the lifting fog.
I stumble,
knees hit the cold asphalt —
not in reverence, only weakness —
and I whisper into the wet dark,
“Please help me.”

How pointless.
Even if belief could matter,
what would it change?

Walking again,
I see a convenience store glowing ahead.
A phone inside.
A roommate’s number
I can almost recall.

Being alone,
lost,
is a state of mind
that endures.

I will keep walking
unknown streets
in unknown towns,
alone
with no
identity.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_fugue

Lost

How did I get
so lost?

At first,
I thought I recognized the road.
A curve, a sign—
faint echoes of somewhere I’d been.

But then—
nothing familiar.
The signs made no sense.
The darkness deepened.

So I drove faster.
“Eventually something
will make sense,”
I told myself.

Fear crept in—
not ordinary fear,
but an existential kind.
The kind that whispers
you might not be real,
that no one is coming,
that even you don’t know
where you are.

My palms sweated.
Heart raced.
I was alone, in a dream
wearing the face of a nightmare.

So I turned off the road—
onto another,
even more unfamiliar.
No signs.
No map.
Just an instinct,
like something inside me screaming,
Anywhere but here.

But the fear didn’t fade.
It grew.
A new kind of terror -
not just from being lost,
but from knowing
I had once been found...
and still ended up here.

I’ve had this dream before.
Always the same turn.
Always the same ending.

The moment before waking,
I whisper inside the dream,
No. I can’t face this.

And I wake.
Still unsure
how I got
so far from myself.