victim

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

This was life-altering.   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as I was leaving. It was impulsive. Her lips were so thin that I didn’t feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She had not turned away or signaled in any way that she didn’t want me to proceed. So, why was I uncertain? I didn’t have to be shy with Celta. But I didn’t want to use her for my own personal “experience.”

I would play this back in my mind as I drove away. Yes, I wanted to kiss her. Having decided now for sure what I wanted, next time I would kiss her. 

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

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

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

It was as if it had happened already, almost. 

It would never happen. 

On New Year's Day of 1991, I got the worst news of my life. A phone call. I was in my room on the second floor of the house owned by my parents. "Celta died last night," I was told.  

"How?"  I asked as if this wasn't possible or real. I was stunned. I wanted my willpower to make it not real!

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation."  It started from an exposed electrical cord on a TV. 

My mind registered information about the funeral, its location, and time but I could not find the words to begin to convey any sense of what I was feeling. I had spoken a few times to the man previously. He was friends of the family. Tears were flooding my eyes. I just said, “Okay, I’ll be there but I can’t talk…” my voice breaking. I needed the family to expect me.

I dropped the phone and began to cry so bitterly.

I hurt so much! 

I cried so much as I drove the way to the funeral. Just before the funeral, I looked at the closed casket and was overcome. Someone was standing by it and for a brief second, some part of me wanted to open the casket and find out that it wasn't Celta that was inside.

At the funeral, I cried more than everyone else combined. I didn't care how I looked.

It was at the Episcopalian church where I went with Celta and where I would sit down next to Celta's mother and Celta. I was still Christian, meaning I went to church on a regular basis.  

Standing outside after the funeral people were talking. I was looking at the closed casket unable to believe this was real. I was still crying. Celta's mother instructed me not to come to the burial. She could tell that I was not going to make it through that event. My state of mind was such that I needed to be told what I should do now.  

At the burial the one person who loved Celta most, who felt a visceral sense of grief above and beyond that felt by the others... that one person would be missing. I would not be there. I had followed the directions of Celta's mother and left Athens (Athens Georgia).

I certainly felt betrayed and abandoned by God. However, I did go to grief counseling at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia. A nun was leading a grief counseling group – spiritual counseling. She was using guided imagery, relaxation techniques, prayer, and biblical references. I met with her a few times and asked for tape recordings of the sessions. 

In the group sessions, she spoke about the stages of grief. We were encouraged to bring in things that were mementos of our experience with our loved ones. I listened intently as the others spoke. I was by far the youngest. I had studied the grief process in a psychology class at Georgia Tech. I read some more about this from a “clinical” standpoint. I was keeping reality at a distance.

I was in denial at times and at other times I would be overwhelmed with the idea of not being able to see Celta ever again and I would cry and cry. 

So much is strange about this time period. The struggles with my parents were never intentionally instigated by me out of anger for anything. They just seemed uninterested in me and my life, other than to tell me what I ought to do. 

I suppose I wanted to share the fact that someone had loved me to explain what had changed. It was surreal that there was such denial that anything had happened or changed. I might be in denial as a symptom of grief but I wanted to celebrate the relationship that I had. Where would I begin?    

Child Abuse by My Brother John Whealton...

I expected them to be discreet and assumed they would not reveal who called. I wasn’t trying to hurt him and wondered if anything would come of the matter. 

My brother found out and never spoke to me again. 

 I was asked by the agency that looked into the matter to write a piece about the cycle of abuse.

That was in 2002. 

It’s bizarre how things happen. He was the only one in the family who got aggressive in response to our parents' physical abuse or threats of violence, but they chose to invite him and his wife to visit on holidays and disinvite me ever since. Our family is so dysfunctional! I have an adult niece who doesn’t know anything about me.

Anyway, getting back to 1991, to cope with the tragic loss, I started drinking. A lot.

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

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

It was all a blur. My entire existence. 

Somehow, I did get a job finally that could have made my parents satisfied. Everything was always about them. They never asked about anything that was happening to me. So, they never inquired about why I was going for grief counseling because they had no knowledge of this.  

Anyway, I got a job at the National Science Foundation as a contractor. I was developing a network for the museum and that involved network programming in the C programming language. I was a software engineer. I did accomplish a great deal in that job capacity and my supervisor was very impressed with my talents.  

Again, this was not at all interesting to me. Yet, I was making sure that I successfully met all deadlines and deliverables. 

I vaguely remember a summer trip to Las Vegas. The company paid for this to cover some training related to my work. It was amazing. I had this incredible per-diem rate where I was paid my salary plus extra money for expenses that exceeded the cost of the hotel room.  

Vegas was probably the worst place for me to go with so much free cash and free drinks in the casinos. Somehow, I made all the presentations for the training that I was sent there to attend. In the evenings and free time, I hit the casinos and made some decent money. Nothing to write home about. Gin or vodka was an escape but somehow, I didn’t drink so much so as to get sick at night or even the next day.

As I try to write this now, I have only momentary snapshots with no full running narrative memory. Just random disconnected sensations. My hands were unable to touch the leather inside a car. The sun shimmering on the pavement. Casinos. Drinks. Sitting at a poker table. Pulling a lever on a slot machine.

I must have done what was expected of me. I don’t remember any complaints from my boss.

Yeah, I moved through time like a robot.

The job was going well, as I said. I was proud of how well I was doing.

I was drinking more and more during this time period after the trip to Las Vegas. Everything except beer. Vodka with tonic or orange juice. Gin and tonic. Whiskey with ice, water, or coke. Not so much wine.

I was passing out and once or twice I would puke. I really hated throwing up, always.

I did meet this girl from the home office of the company that was paying me. She lived in Alabama and I was in Augusta, Georgia and we decided to meet in Atlanta, Georgia where I had graduated not long before that.         

My supervisor was joking that I had "jungle fever" because I was a white guy who was going to date a black woman. He was black, as well. I didn't let that bother me. Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" had been out, and it was an important film. I have always been fine with having a conversation about race if that was something that was desired.  

My mother actually asked about my date. I suppose her name sounded ethnic and my mother asked about that guessing that she might be Italian. I said, "no, she's black.”   

I remember that this was the first time I kissed anyone other than a brief kiss that Celta and I shared back in December of the last year. I mentioned that above. 

This was extremely passionate. She brought her kid and left him in the car and parked near the Student Center - the same building where I worked on the bottom floor in the post office.  

We were looking for someplace to sit or be as private as possible outside after dark. I remember making out at a few locations here and there. I could feel her large breasts against me, and I was aroused.  

My first passionate kiss. Before Lynn. We'll get to that later.

Did I feel guilty about dating so soon after Celta? Maybe. But I wasn’t actually feeling nor was I “aware” during this time period. I was so numb that I needed to feel something. To wake up! I was trying so hard to wake up. The tricyclic antidepressant made me feel good for a few moments. That didn’t make it a meaningful experience. 

Then later there was the fact that she said in December that she loved me but wasn’t in love with me. I had only known her for one year, from January through December 31 or 1990. I do know that countless times she had that look like someone in love when she looked in my eyes. I was fairly certain she was trying to protect me from being hurt. But I never got a chance to ask her.

And that kiss? I had stopped, not her. It was my first time kissing anyone and I should have been aware that her lips were so small that if I didn’t feel anything at first I should wait or stay there. I was always comfortable with Celta. She had never rejected any of my touches. 

My mother had made me feel so not okay and so had my father somewhat. This “date” was a way to get out of the home and to appear normal to my mother. If I was going out with someone from the company that employed my services, it made me appear less worthy of the criticism I had been getting from my parents. That’s how I figured it. It was an escape.

Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder or trauma disorders will cut their own skin with razors or something sharp just to feel something. The date was something like that. 

There wasn't a second date. I had expressed my concerns about pre-marital sex. We weren't even in a committed relationship. I drove to Atlanta to meet her for a second date, but she never showed. I was frustrated out of embarrassment. Then I just forgot the entire matter by the next day and never thought about the matter further.  

The various medications and the alcohol impeded grieving and dare I say reality testing. People who are grieving are in such a state of denial that it is almost like a temporary psychosis. From what I was reading and hearing in the stories of grief that I studied, “normal,” healthy people did for a while embrace denial to such an extent that it bordered on delusional thinking.

The loss of Celta could not be washed away with alcohol, grief counseling, or an intimate date. 

Poetry as an outlet…

I can thank my mother for introducing me to Martin Kirby, who went to our church and he was a professor of English Literature and related subjects at a college in Augusta, Georgia. He would become my writing/poetry mentor.  

I would show up on a regular basis for poetry readings where I shared my poetry and got feedback, advice, and guidance on writing good poetry. He also heard me write about my experiences with Celta and listened to my experiences. This was very helpful because I had no other outlet for this or place to talk about Celta and my relationship with her.

He said he thought it would take about 10 years for me to be able to write good poetry about Celta because the feelings were too raw.

I was living in a difficult environment with my parents.  I was dealing with a major tragedy and yet the name Celta wasn't even being mentioned.  

Between drinking, the different medications I was put on, and the panic attacks, I had to go to the Emergency Room (ER) on two occasions.  

The psychiatrist tried me on a major tranquilizer, and I had these horrifying muscle spasms that twisted my body up into contortions that made me think my bones were going to be broken in my neck and elsewhere. The doctor said that in higher doses the drug is used for psychotic disorders but somehow it would help with my depression, I guess. That was the reason I was taken to the ER once. My father took me.  

Another time I had a panic attack and again my father took me to the ER. It's strange that they weren't asking why all this was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. NEVER!

The only ones listening to my stories about Celta were Martin Kirby and his wife as well as the attendees at the grief support group. Again, my parents were not interested to learn anything about this matter. They never seemed to have any awareness that I was even going to grief counseling.  

This is so utterly astonishing! I had not deliberately been trying to keep everything a secret about what was going on with me. On the contrary, I looked for an opening to discuss the matter. I wanted to repair and improve the relationship. I wanted to share the fact that I had found someone who loved me.  

With all this going on, all the problems I was having, I began to doubt that I could achieve my goals in life, my career goals. I wondered how I could help others when I had so many problems myself.  

It should be noted that while I was put on a major tranquilizer, my psychiatrist NEVER said he thought I was psychotic. We knew I had problems coping with overwhelming stressors.  

There is a positive aspect of this time period of 1990 to 1992 that I did not mention. My parents had friends that had adopted a young girl who was about 12. I have always been great with kids. I love kids and enjoy the chance to be like a big brother.  

I was so impressed that she wasn't shy at all when I first met her. I went to visit with my parents, and they invited us to come swim. It was either 1990 or 1991 when I met her. I was like a big brother and I had a great time doing so many things with her.  

After the job with the National Science Foundation ended, another opportunity presented itself in March of 1992.  I was offered a job in Wilmington, North Carolina, to work with Corning as a Technical Writer. They wanted someone with a technical background. 

This would change everything. I was about to be on my own again. Finally!  

My perception that I had long-term "problems” would disappear as if by magic, literally - it was unbelievable. My problem had been living in a toxic environment and that was complicated by the grief and the effort I had made to ignore, suppress, or deny the natural process.

My own doubts about my ability to achieve my career goals in life were contributing to the problems I was having.

It’s hard to believe that I had only known Celta for one year – the year 1990 and when that year ended, so had Celta’s life.

The tragic loss of Celta did not erase the positive impact she had on my life. There were other positive experiences during this time. I had become more confident.

I had been writing poetry about the experiences I had with Celta and I wanted to share that with others. I had been sharing that with Martin Kirby my poetry mentor but now I wanted to share this with others. It was so important and meaningful!

During and just before my senior year in college, as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech (as opposed to my later graduate studies), I was assaulted with some shocking news. 

Let me fill in a few tidbits that will be important to consider later. Just before I started my senior year in college, I got a call from my sister. She reported that she had been assaulted by both of our parents. She was extremely emotional and distraught. She was about 19 and had started going to a community college in Florida after graduating from high school.  

Let’s back up a bit. After I started at Georgia Tech, my father got laid off and then got a job in Florida. Carrie, my brother John, and my parents related to Hobe Sound Florida from Connecticut. This was a long-distance move of 1300 miles. Carrie was still in high school when this happened.

I got the call as I was starting my senior year at Georgia Tech. I was glad to be someone with whom she felt she could share this news. She described what she and her friend had discussed. I knew which friend she meant as she described the matter. To be honest, I didn’t know this girl that was friends with Carrie, but I can remember it was the friend that was incredibly sexy. I’m just saying this to fill in the most minimal of cues.

Obviously, by now, dear reader, you understand that I am not shallow, but I do notice things. I had some conversation via email with Carrie last year in 2020 about this and at first, it sounded like she was going to tell me she forgot it. So, I blurted out, “you had talked to your friend who was that sexy girl.” 

Anyway, back to 1988. Carrie was attacked but she said they didn't call the police. She and her friend had decided when they are talking after she was attacked by both our parents that "next time they would have to call the police."  Instead, she moved.  

We used to fight growing up but then we got closer to each other. The fact that she told me something so emotional never left my memory over all these decades. 

They had said "Next time."  Yes, there would be a "next time."  We had been abused growing up.    

I remember not knowing how to act around our parents when I came there for Christmas and before the next quarter at Georgia Tech. If I was too friendly with Mom and Dad, would Carrie think that I condoned what was done to her?  She definitely knew that I knew this was so wrong!

My brother had an easier time because he was 5 foot eleven and could stand up to our father.  

There are other things that I remember about that time period that might have indirectly created problems between my parents and me.  

I started feeling good about myself because of the support I was getting at school/college from both my counselor and some very good friends, Thomas and Jo Lee. I don’t have clear memories of what I shared but just that I discussed the various forms of abuse with both of them.  

Anyway, when my parents came to my graduation, Thomas and Jo-Lee were there as well. I had not told my parents that I had needed to reach out to friends for support. The way in which I grew in self-esteem made me feel so much better about myself. I had self-compassion. As such, I felt the confidence and comfort to share my experiences with my good friends.  

At my graduation, Jo Lee made the most effort to be cordial with my parents. She had her "feelings" though about the things that happened to me which they caused and about me having been hurt. For my friend Thomas, it was much harder to act friendly and cordial because of what he knew. He was a much quieter person than Jo Lee. So, what was interesting was that after graduation, my mother said that she got along fine with Thomas, but she didn't feel comfortable talking with Jo- Lee.  

If she only knew how much more intensely Thomas felt toward them, she would have been even more shocked. Obviously, she picked up on the tension, and put two and two together. However, her way of dealing with it was to deny, deny, deny among those who had been present like my siblings and me. I am NOT saying that the topic of abuse was ever broached at all by any of us. Thomas, Jo-Lee, my parents, and I had tried to find things to talk about, but you could sense the tension. 

In terms of her denial as a coping mechanism, I began to realize she even fooled herself into forgetting things.

It was against this backdrop that I moved in with my parents after graduation without realizing or considering the tension that would characterize our very strained relationship during the next two years, and a few months before I moved on to live on my own when I got a job in a new city - Wilmington, North Carolina.  

In the next chapter, I will begin to discuss this next chapter of my life.  The next chapter would be a life full of far greater joy, love, and success than I had already known.  

It had been months since I had any contact with John F. As mentioned previously, he moved in with Mrs. D who spoke to me following that initial conversation that I had with John when he said he thought she might have dissociative identity disorder (DID). It had seemed from the reports I heard from clients who went to that residence that he was setting up a treatment room and was providing therapy. I had a therapy group for people with DID at one meeting Mrs. D brought him.

Somehow he had connected with those clients of mine who had come to that therapy group.

I had last spoken to him when I called on behalf of Tracy who had come down to Wilmington from New Jersey, where she was hoping to find safety from an abusive spouse. John had made her life miserable, and she felt unsafe after rejecting his sexual advances. The way it transpired demonstrated to me that those things that I was hearing about him and reading about him online were true.

With the complaints to the licensure board, the malpractice claims, and everything else that had happened with Lynn, I was forced to suddenly and unexpectedly close down my practice. Lynn’s mother had been selling the house after Lynn had said, “I am not coming back.” There was never any closure. I just knew what was meant by what she said. Neither of us talked about breaking up, or the relationship being over. It was just surreal.

It began with John Freifeld, a wannabee therapist doing bad therapy. He was a psychopath.

After harming vulnerable people, for some reason he became obsessed with me, an actual therapist.

He had written a complaint statement and had five of my clients sign it… alleging things like how I had planted memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse. And how my clients with a serious condition – dissociative identity disorder – were not getting better. Of course, not, with his treatment, they were getting worse.

Much worse!

They forced me to get a psychological evaluation.

Decades later, a psychologist would tell me I should have sued the psychologists who conducted the evaluation for malpractice. But at the time, I just wanted to survive.

I was overwhelmed. The shame was crushing. I was being sued for medical malpractice too.

Being so overwhelmed with everything that was happening, with Lynn staring down death at 34, I even let the claim that I lacked empathy stand when I signed a Consent Decree.

Then as if that was not enough, I was given a citation by the police for court as John F. had accused me and making harassing phone calls - a totally fabricated lie. He just made it up! How crazy is that?

I was ordered to get a psychological evaluation. Decades later, I was told by a psychologist that I should have sued the psychologists for destroying my life and malpractice. They went into the assessment with confirmation biases about the claims that were made. They also NEVER inquired about whether anything at all had happened in my life. I knew enough to ask a question like that long before I started graduate school and only had an engineering degree.

I was overwhelmed with everything happening in my life. I was assigned a lawyer by the company that provided malpractice insurance. My malpractice lawyer encouraged me to sign a Consent Decree where I would surrender my license while explaining that I could present evidence in the future to defend myself against the claims and concerns.

I can’t believe I let the document include the words that I might lack empathy for others. That is not something that I ever doubted – my capacity for empathy. I knew I had seen evidence that I had a tremendous amount of empathy. If anything, I might have had too much empathy because I was too overwhelmed to use the skills I had learned.

Then as if that was not enough, I was given a citation by the police for court as John F. had accused me and making harassing phone calls - a totally fabricated lie. He just made it up! How crazy is that?

I hadn’t even been worried because I knew there was no evidence—no phone records, no recordings. I assumed the case would be dismissed outright. I went along with a public defender who was ready to go to trial right away.

But then, without a shred of evidence, the judge found me guilty.

I was livid when speaking to my court-appointed lawyer. Listening to him speak about getting the phone records…

He hadn’t thought of that? He should have been the one to know that without a shred of evidence, someone could just make stuff up and the victim of a false accusation like this could be found guilty!

When my public defender, unprepared and careless, asked if I wanted him to appeal, I said “Yes,” emphatically. There was no mention of a penalty for being found guilty but it was the principle of the matter.

Why do we even have lawyers when simple things like getting the phone records occur as an afterthought?

He also claimed that I had engaged in something called cyberstalking. The definition of cyberstalking would be something I had to look up. It was broadly defined. The things others had posted about John might possibly have met a broad definition but I wasn’t posting things about him. This accusation had been dismissed.

I was given a public defender for the “trial” in front of a judge. John seemed to represent his story on his own. My lawyer was eager to go to trial right away – he was overly eager and unprepared.

Leaving the Area

I had met some people online - a couple. One of them was one of the victims of John F. They invited me to move up to Durham, NC from Wilmington. This was my home and I didn’t want to leave.

When I lost another job as a result of John calling my employer and mentioning the issues with my clinical license (which was not required for that job), the company had to dismiss me. So, reluctantly, I decided to pack everything I had and drive up to Durham to stay with my new friends.

Feeling so overwhelmed by everything, I moved to Durham with my new friends.

I had previously tried dating, using online sites, but I was still in love with Lynn, and I was in such shock, still traumatized, and not able to connect with others in any real way.

When I moved in with those friends up in Durham, I kept doing the same thing – using dating apps to try to find dates.

I applied to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) soon after moving to Durham. They encouraged me to pursue a different career direction. It seemed like my mind was in a fog, and I was not in touch with thoughts about who I knew myself to be and what type of career would be a good match for me. If that were not the case, I would have remembered that Web Design and Development was not a good match for me. If it was all about creativity alone, it might be a match.

In the meantime, I started working at Eckerd’s in the photo lab. One day, I was asked to work at the main register. Based on everything that I had experienced, I was dealing with extreme anxiety. I had been traumatized.

On one occasion, I could not focus my eyes very well and thought that the license shown to me indicated that a customer was old enough to buy alcohol. I was wrong and I was given a citation and asked to come to court. The charge makes one think that I was corrupting a minor by buying this person alcohol when I just read the customer’s driver’s license wrong.

It was easy for mail to get lost, and my mind was not focused so I missed court. A warrant was issued for my arrest. I was terified and desperate to avoid going to jail.

There was nothing that could be done.

I was put in jail. I cannot overstate how traumatic that was for me. As a shy person, I carried a great deal of shame, which I will describe in more detail in the next book, which will be part two of this story.

I had reached out to my family for help. They had to understand that I could not cope with this. I had forgotten again just how uncaring they were... how little empathy and compassion they were capable of feeling. My pleas to my parents for help to get me out of jail were met with icy-cold responses.

They had not been there emotionally or psychologically to offer anything resembling support. I didn’t understand why I was the scapegoat of the family. It had felt like if my own family doesn’t care about me, who would care.

I had needed compassion and support like anyone else.

It seemed like my parents had a rudimentary sense of understanding how a person might feel if one loses someone that one loves. I won’t go into details in this book, but it just seemed to me in my mind that they would understand that after all I had experienced, being in jail would be too much for me to cope with.

Beginning with the times when Lynn got sick, they started acting like what seemed like the application of tough love as opposed to understanding how a person in love would naturally feel when an illness threatens the life of the one that you love.

I had been put in jail for failure to appear and the bond was not very high.

I had learned that the appeal that I had asked my lawyer down in Wilmington to file had appeared before the court.

A reasonable person might understand that with all the changes, problems getting in touch with me, I deserved a bit of understanding. It would seem like my lawyer could have found a way to explain how he had not been able to inform me about the case – the appeal – coming before the court and made sure that I was not arrested.

Instead, I was extradited to Wilmington... which had been my home. Now, I was put in chains and put into the back of a vehicle with a metal frame. I was crying the whole way down there. I felt such shame growing and growing in me.

Once I had been the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers, with name recognition, a successful career with many clients. My colleagues knew me. Now, I was being brought down to Wilmington in chains.

I didn’t have to stay in jail long, but when I was released I had nowhere to go. The days and the skies looked like winter had come far too early this year. I looked up my friend Jean Jones, a mutual friend of Lynn’s whom we both met at poetry readings so long ago.

He guided me toward finding a place to sleep at night in downtown Wilmington. I still reached out to my family for help, hoping that, at some point, they would care. However, nothing that happened to me could arouse parental instincts to protect me from things that were outside my control.

Jean also invited me to join him and his family for dinner on Thanksgiving 2002. I was carrying all my belongings in a bag. I was ashamed of this look. So, I hid the bag and my belongings in the bushes as I joined them. Snow had been falling so very early this year.

I finally decided some days later to get help at the Mental Health Center who referred me to the Department of Social Services to get a ticket back to Durham. I didn’t have a home there, but I had a relationship with VR.

Maybe I should have just stayed down in Wilmington. I think I was just running away from reminders of the joy that I had once known. A few days ago, a police officer, trying to help me, gave me a street sheet. It was the one I had developed during my first graduate internship with the homeless program at the Mental Health Center.

The weight of sorrow, shame, loss, grief, emotional pain, abandonment, isolation, loneliness, trauma, had literally weighed down on me and brought me to my knees.

It was awkward at the Mental Health Center. The worker had recognized me from when I was the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers. She did acknowledge that fact. There was a sense of me wanting to explain how I could have arrived at this place, this situation. We just exchanged a few words about how I had arranged some workshops for continuing education credit for clinical social workers.

I was then on my way to Durham.

Beginning in late 2002, I moved from one friend’s apartment or house to another, staying temporarily. These were people I met in the therapy group that I was attending through the local mental health center.

I wanted to heal and be able to return to a career that was so rewarding... helping others who had mental illness or emotional problems.

I did date a few women who I met on dating sites. Eventually, I started seeing Shonda, a black lady, on and off. I was not able to connect with anyone in any real sense. I just didn’t feel a connection. We were intimate, and I helped her children with math.

Shonda continued to see me when I was living at 721 Holloway Street in Durham. The place was described as a boarding house. I moved in there because the rent was only week to week, as opposed to monthly rent, where one must come up with the first month’s rent, and potentially a deposit on top of that to move in.

It was early 2004 or late 2003 when I moved in there. Rent was paid to Scott, who lived around the back of the place.

We rented rooms in that building. The front door was not locked much of the time. Only guys lived there. Prostitutes were seen in the building. I had to reject them as they were assertive about selling their bodies. I had never purchased street drugs, but I got the impression that crack cocaine could be purchased for $10, as that was what the prostitutes were requesting.

I had been mugged more than once while walking from the bus stop to the building at night. I saw needles on the side of the street that must have been discarded. More than once, I had to run as fast as I could to get away from someone threatening me.

The landlord was James Vecchione, Jimmy. He had me working on an adult dating website in exchange for not charging me the weekly $100 for rent. It was not earning money fast enough. I had been working at various jobs doing the best I could. I had applied for Social Security Disability Insurance which would be backdated to cover this period. I wasn’t just being lazy.

VR had paid for me to get a certificate in Web Design, and they were paying for computer equipment for me to start my own business because that seemed like it would work better than a traditional job.

Jimmy decided that the adult dating site was not coming together fast enough so he dropped the entire idea. He took me to court when I couldn’t pay the rent. I appealed the decision. I was hoping to get financial assistance from various sources that existed including VR.

I mentioned that Shonda was black because we were getting close to the time when I would be victimized by a woman. The woman who would attack me was clearly white.

I had been homeless on and off in every sense of the word from 2001 up until now. I had even slept outside or spent many a night awake outside.

My paternal grandparents were not living in their home. I am sure they would have wanted me to have a place to stay as they had paid off the mortgage. That was in Burlington, which was very close. I would have never imagined that I would find myself living so close to where they lived, having grown up in Connecticut.

Any kind of support to ease my suffering would have helped prevent so many things from happening. It would have taken away the stress of living as a homeless person with no stability.

Anyway, about the rent and the eviction... Jimmy would have gotten paid. There are resources to get a person caught up. VR was offering to help me out. I point this out because I would come to learn that his wife was the one who would attack me on October 1st, 2004. I am getting ahead of the story.

As someone who was homeless and dealing with very low financial resources, I got to know other people who came to the Urban Ministries to stay overnight, for financial assistance, or for meals. I made friends with several people that I met there.

Sadly, twenty years later, I don’t remember their names.

I was expecting one of my friends to meet me the next day, October 1, 2004. I couldn’t imagine things could get any worse for me but I was about to find out that things could get more terrifying and nightmarish.

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.