Carrie Whealton

After my grandparents died, the house grew colder. Not in temperature, but in spirit. The small sense of safety I’d known vanished, and in its place was silence—mine. By junior high, I was no longer just a shy boy. I had become a ghost in my own story. I sat in classrooms for years without speaking. Not once. I learned to disappear so well that I even convinced myself I had chosen it. But I hadn’t. What I had chosen—without knowing—was survival. Because silence was safer than wanting, and wanting something—friendship, affection, love—meant risking the confirmation that I didn’t matter.

Family and Friends

I had Paul as my best friend in the neighborhood, and that gave me immense confidence. I could stand my ground and know that he would rescue me if anyone dared to try to mess with me. As I mentioned, Paul moved into the neighborhood in 3rd grade, giving me confidence at school for at least one year; perhaps it carried over into 4th grade.

The problem was that it was obvious to my mother that I preferred my cousins and my aunt to them. It should not have been surprising. My mother had such a temper.

Kathy, my mother, would punch, slap, kick, push, and throw things at me when she lost her temper. Her rage was a physical force which somehow didn’t leave obvious bruises that would have gained the attention of our extended family. .

I made a vow in the quiet of I I ddmy childhood bedroom:

• I will never become like them.
• I will never lose my temper.
• I will never let anyone feel unsafe because of me.

I would spend my whole life keeping that promise, even when it meant swallowing my own pain.

I did share the stories about the abuse with my aunt, my cousins - Sharon and Karen - and with Barbara, the daughter of Karen. Barbara was about my age. And it wasn’t like it was normalized. Barbara never suggested that her mother, Karen, ever hit her. Sharon worked at the Department of Social Services and so it seems like she would have been obligated to report suspected abuse.

I spent my time trying to predict whether there was a pattern to when my mother, Kathleen Whealton, would lose control and become violent. Was it PMS?

No. It was strange that as an early teenager I was having to think about things like this!

I had wanted to be removed from this family and placed in foster care. I wanted out. I wanted to escape. I wasn’t as brave as my friend Paul who chose to leave his parents and move into our fort in the woods.

Anyway, getting back to the extended family…

At every family gathering, I was thrust into the role of entertainer for my younger cousins who demanded supervision—if they were to wander off to the park down the street or venture into the woods to climb trees, I had to be there. In those charged moments, every laugh and every small adventure ignited a fierce yearning within me. I was beginning to understand a burning truth: I wanted to be a parent well before adulthood when such things would be possible. With every tiny life I looked after, I felt an almost desperate surge of being needed, of being significant—of finally being seen.

The child in me was also set free. I could see a child wanting that from their parents - a chance to connect in a real way with one’s adult parents.

I did spend time with Dan from time to time, though those encounters came with conflicting emotions. I vividly remember one time when he invited me to join a brutal game of tackle football—a violent, raw display of physical contact that tore open memories of my mother’s explosive anger, mirroring her harshness in every potential collusion with another person. I couldn’t really tackle anyone and I hoped no one noticed that.

But what truly consumed me was the time I spent with Barbara. We would simply be together, wandering the stark, fluorescent halls of the mall or just lingering in the sanctuary of her downstairs bedroom. There, as she prepared herself—dabbing on makeup or trying on outfits—I would sit silently, yearning for the quiet validation that came from merely sharing the same space. In that unspoken communion, every blink of her attention made me feel less like an invisible shadow and more like a living, breathing presence.

Deep down, an undercurrent of anxious shame stirred—a twisted fear that someone might misconstrue my longing for validation as something else, something forbidden. She was very pretty, and though I sometimes wondered if my feelings were misread, the truth was far simpler: she saw me, she acknowledged me, and for a moment, I could believe I mattered.

Then there was the overwhelming salvation of my extended family—a lifeline in a world that had been frozen by the callous indifference of my parents. The stark isolation that left even my sister distant was suddenly broken by the warmth of my cousins and aunt. I craved human contact with an intensity that bordered on desperation, and even the slightest gestures—a hug from Aunt Maureen, Karen, Sharon, Linda, or Barbara—filled that cavernous void within, feeding my hunger for connection in ways I could barely articulate.

Yet the bitter taste of validation was always accompanied by the sting of neglect. When Barbara canceled plans—perhaps to be with someone else, someone not bound by familial ties—the cold, cutting voice of my mother echoed in my mind: "They have their own lives." Those words were like a knife to my heart, reinforcing the painful notion that my existence was barely worth a moment's consideration. It was a brand of rejection that threatened to shatter my fragile sense of self, feeding the seeds of an ambivalent attachment that scarred me deeply.

And then there was that haunting moment when my mother, tangled in jealousy and bitterness, suggested that I was naïve to expect refuge from my cousins—perhaps she meant Sharon, Karen, or Aunt Maureen. "Do you think they are going to let you live with them?" she snapped, her words dripping with disdain. In that moment, a brutal reality cut through me: I was stranded in a barren wilderness with no sanctuary for the wounded parts of my inner and true self.

I wasn't wanted. Yet, a part of me hoped I could still find my way to belonging.

Caught in that unwantedness, I began to see the foundation of who I might become—a person yearning to matter, to be noticed, to be chosen. Yet, I was conflicted, wondering if I would ever truly unlearn the painful lessons of my childhood, find a voice that had been silenced, and emerge visible after years of being unseen.

Breaking Free from My Shell

In the neighborhood and after school, unmistakable signs emerged that I was shattering the confines of my shell. I hurled myself into the whirlwind of sports like kickball, soccer, and hockey, playing in the streets, our yard, or on our driveway. Kickball, our most frequent game, awakened a softer side within me. A revelation struck me like a bolt: when my team clinched victory, the opposing team tasted bitter defeat, a blow that could crush their spirits. This empathetic insight, one that psychologist Carol Gilligan notes as typically more feminine, struck me profoundly even before I had ever read her work and resonated even more deeply later in life.

I also embarked on a relentless paper route, delivering newspapers to over 50 houses every single day. Each morning, I'd venture out, sometimes before the first light of dawn. Later, collecting payments from countless clients with Paul by my side, I unearthed a flair for humor and a daring streak to entertain. On a scorching summer day, when temperatures soared past 100 degrees, we pulled a wild stunt—donning winter coats, hopping on our bikes, and approaching doors to collect payments. The real kicker was when someone didn't even blink at our outrageous attire.

An uproarious tale from my life is about landing my first job at 16. Just prior to that, I drove my brother and his friends to the movies in a nearby town, only to end up hopelessly lost on the way back. Hours slipped by before I finally stumbled home, a comic misadventure in its own right.

Even more ironic was the nature of the job being offered to me by Jack Donlon, the owner of the Medical Mart living right across from us, who wanted to hire me. The job? Delivering supplies to customers in New Britain—a task demanding navigation skills I had yet to master. Yet, it wasn't long before I became adept at wielding maps, pinpointing every house with precision. When the deliveries were cumbersome, there were two of us, giving me a chance to connect, socialize, and indulge in mischief.

Thus, there existed vibrant exceptions in my life that defied the confines of my proverbial shell.

Boy Doesn't Meet Girl

By the time high school rolled around, I had long accepted that I wasn't one of the guys who got noticed. The idea of dating was so far removed from my reality that I didn't even consider it.

But I did watch movies.

One movie in particular haunted me—Carrie.

I watched it repeatedly, but I always halted just before the notorious prom scene, before the blood spilled, before the terror erupted.

Because to me, it wasn't a horror film.

It was a vision.

Carrie was my mirror. She was silent. She was invisible. She was abused, not only by her peers but by her own mother, though, in my case, my peers never abused me - I was just invisible.

My own mother had been venomous in a myriad of ways. This inevitably instilled a deep, corrosive shame that gnawed at the very essence of my being.

And then Tommy saw her.

It didn't matter that he had a girlfriend. That wasn't the point. The point was that he noticed Carrie. He saw something in her that no one else did. And not only that, but he was kind. He asked her to accompany him to the prom, not as a joke, but because he wanted to make things right. And for one night, Carrie was part of something. She was wanted. She was special.

I wanted that.

Not the prom, necessarily, and definitely not the supernatural revenge. But I wanted to be seen. I wanted someone to look at me the way Tommy looked at Carrie—like I mattered. In that dream, there would be a girl who would fill a role like Tommy did for Carrie.

I also wanted to be held close in the warm arms of someone just like Tommy did for Carrie when she was on the dance floor. I would have felt so profoundly uncomfortable on any dance floor because I NEVER had anyone wrap their arms around me and hold me... then look at me and kiss me. This very thought made my heart race with equal parts longing and terror.

I was not bullied in school. No one stuffed me in lockers or tripped me in the hall. I wasn't tormented, I was just ignored.

But even that stung like salt in an invisible wound.

I didn't go to prom. I didn't go to parties. I didn't go out on dates. I watched from the sidelines as other people lived those moments, and I wondered what they have that I didn't?

I knew the answer, of course.

Confidence.

They knew how to talk to people. They knew how to ask a girl out without their voice catching in their throat. They knew how to dance without feeling like every eye in the room was watching, judging.

For me, that wasn't an option. I couldn't even raise my hand in class. How could I approach someone and ask them to spend time with me?

Even the kids who were teased more than I was had girlfriends. Even they had found someone who saw them.

I waited.

Maybe someone like Tommy would come along—a girl who saw something in me that others didn't, a girl who would notice me first.

That didn't happen.

Maybe I had a phobia of rejection. Maybe the preverbal script I followed unconsciously held me back. I would have to wait until college to figure this out.

I know that social skills are important, and I could not have learned any social skills when I was growing up. I didn't know it, but my life and career direction would require social skills—but I am getting way ahead of this story.

And so, high school passed, and I left it the same way I entered—unnoticed.

For some, high school is where they meet their first love.

For me, it was where I realized I was invisible.

I arrived in Chapel Hill still haunted by the weight of what had happened. The trial loomed over me like a surreal nightmare that could always get worse—each day darker than the last.

It felt like I had one foot in the Upside Down, that decaying alternate world from Stranger Things—gray skies, black vines coiling through every structure, flakes of ash suspended in the air like frozen sorrow. A world where sunlight never broke through, and something monstrous always lurked just out of sight.

That was my emotional landscape. A place of trauma, fear, and numb detachment. One version of me walked Chapel Hill’s streets. The other was trapped in that shadow world—haunted, hunted, unseen.

I had started seeing a therapist, one I would continue seeing for years. But in those early days, he could barely reach me. I was too far down. Healing felt impossible when my future was uncertain, and every breath I took carried the suffocating fear of what awaited me in court—because no matter how implausible Ana’s story was, sitting in front of two detectives in bloody clothes had not been enough to convince them of the truth.

At night, I slept on the floor of the homeless shelter. During the day, I found temporary refuge in the libraries on UNC’s campus. I’d sit at a computer, pretending to research or write, anything to keep my mind from spinning. I still didn’t allow my mind to go to the place where the charges existed, didn’t understand the sentence I was facing, and my lawyer hadn’t explained any of it.

I was moving through fog, without a map, without a compass.

The Call That Changed Everything

It was sometime in July 2006 when I called my lawyer from the UNC campus. He picked up, abrupt and urgent.

“Come to court. Now.”

No explanation. No context. Just: Now.

I asked how long I had, but he didn’t care—just that I needed to get there fast.

My pulse spiked. I grabbed my things and rushed to the bus from Chapel Hill to Duke. From there, I walked toward the courthouse in a panic, nearly running.

My heart was racing—not just from the exertion, but from the deep-rooted fear I had lived with since being charged. I had already missed a court date once, and the shame and terror of that mistake still sat in my bones. I could not afford another one.

By the time I reached the courthouse, sweat clung to my skin. I was gasping for air—not just from the walk, but from the dread clawing at my insides. No matter how implausible the charge was, my only fear that morning was being late—getting in trouble, being punished for missing something. I had no idea this was a turning point, a break in the case that would define the rest of my life. I was terrified of being arrested for failure to appear—not of walking into a courtroom where my lawyer would ambush me and unravel my future in minutes.

The Ambush

The moment I stepped into the courthouse, I saw my lawyer—standing in the hallway. Not in a private room. Not even in a quiet corner. Just… there. And beside him, the prosecutor.

My stomach sank. The whole setup was wrong. It felt staged.

I barely had time to catch my breath before he said:

“They’re dropping the sexual offense charge. You’ll plead guilty to second-degree kidnapping. No additional jail time, just time served and probation.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

My lawyer had once told me, “No jury will ever believe you capable of this.”

Nothing had changed. No new evidence, no new testimony. No revelations.

He had known I was innocent. From everything I’d ever told him. From every conversation. He had never doubted I was the victim.

But now, standing in front of me, he was threatening me.

“Take this deal, or you could face 10 years in prison,” he said. “We discussed this.”

We hadn’t. That was a lie.

He had never told me what the potential sentence might be. Why would he? If he truly believed no jury would convict me, there was no reason to warn me of prison time. The implication had always been that we’d win. That truth would matter.

Now, I was being railroaded. Ambushed. He was cornering me—and doing it with the prosecutor present.

I was frozen with fear. And in that surreal moment, something happened that still stuns me to this day:
I looked at the prosecutor for comfort.

She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t reassuring. But she wasn’t threatening me either.

My own lawyer was the one making threats.

That moment—me looking toward the prosecutor because my lawyer frightened me—sums up everything.

Walking Into a Lie

I must have nodded. Or maybe I said nothing at all. But the next thing I knew, we were walking into the courtroom.

My mind was shutting down. I wasn’t in control anymore. I had entered freeze mode—a full trauma response.

The courtroom blurred. I was barely registering anything. I was aware that something terrible was happening, but I couldn’t stop it. It was happening to me.

Everything moved too fast.

I stood before the judge. The room felt like it was tilting.

When asked if I was satisfied with my counsel, I said, “I don’t know.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to say, No, this man is betraying me! He’s lying!

I wanted to tell the judge that I had been ambushed, that I hadn’t been given time to process, to think, to weigh my options.

When asked if I was on medication or had any mental condition that might prevent me from understanding the plea deal, I wanted to say, Yes!

I had PTSD. I had depression. I was terrified. I was not thinking clearly. I was on medication.

But I was too detached and in a state of traumatic shock to speak or to summon air that is needed to form words that one might hear.

A Last, Desperate Attempt

As I stood before the judge, I knew I had to slow this down.

I had to fight—even if I could barely form words.

When asked if I was satisfied with my counsel, the only thing I could manage was:

"I don’t know."

What a fool! My mind screamed at me. Tell the judge the truth! Tell him this lawyer has failed you!

I searched for a way out, a moment to speak up. When asked if I was on medication or had any mental condition that would prevent me from entering a plea deal, I hesitated.

Every part of me wanted to say yes.

"Yes, I have a trauma disorder. I have Major Depression. I have an anxiety disorder. I am not thinking clearly. I am on medication."

But I didn’t say it.

I couldn’t say it because I lacked the capacity to draw in air and force it across vocal chords that would utter words of truth.

Forced to Speak a Lie

Then came the final question.

“Are you in fact guilty?”

Everything in me screamed No.

Instead, I pointed at my lawyer and said, “That’s what he told me to say for the purpose of this plea deal.” That was it.

That was my plea.

Not a “Yes, Your Honor.” Not a confession. Just a statement that I was parroting what I’d been coached to say. My lawyer had spoken for me almost the entire time.

He entered the plea. He confirmed everything. He led me—like a lamb to slaughter.

I shook his hand afterward. Why? I don’t know. Trauma does strange things. I should’ve pulled away, but I didn’t have the strength.

Suborning Perjury?

Here’s what I’ve always wondered.

If a lawyer knows their client is guilty—because the client confessed—and still allows them to lie on the stand, it’s called suborning perjury. That’s how we define “knowing.”

But what if it goes the other way?

What if a lawyer knows their client is innocent—and still coaches them to say they’re guilty?

Isn’t that just as wrong?

Even if the law doesn’t see it that way, common sense does.

To any layperson, this feels like the same thing. It is the same thing. Morally. Rationally. In every meaningful way.

My lawyer knew I was innocent. Not suspected. Not assumed. He knew. And yet, he stood beside me in a courtroom and helped me plead guilty to a crime that never happened.

A Crime That Never Happened

As I was led away, a court officer pulled me aside to draw blood for DNA records.

I tried to protest. “This plea deal makes it sound like I committed a crime.” He didn’t care. No one did.

No one ever talked about what actually happened that day in 2004. No evidence was reviewed. No facts were examined. No truth was spoken.

Just a quick hearing. A rushed judgment. A courtroom full of people too ready to move on.

And a handshake with the villain who had silenced me.

That’s all it took to permanently alter the course of my life.

All because the system wanted a win. All because my lawyer, who knew I was the victim, coached me into silence.

All because no one—no one—listened.

Why the Rush?

Why the urgency? Why couldn’t he have warned me on the phone? Why couldn’t I have had a night to think, to speak to someone I trusted, to feel the weight of the decision I was being coerced into making?

Because letting me think was the last thing anyone wanted.

My silence was convenient. My trauma, my fear, my confusion—they all served the system better than my voice ever could. If I had been given time—even the hour-long trip to Durham—I would have been ready to say no. No, no, no! I would have realized that an actual prison would be no worse than the virtual prison created by this plea deal.

But this—this was by design.

As I was awaiting trial, I could barely process the horrifying thought of what could happen if the trial did not go my way. In a brief encounter with my lawyer that I mentioned previously, after I got out of jail, the only thing he discussed was his sense that no jury would be able to imagine that I was capable of harming anyone. 

I was overwhelmed and traumatized by everything that had happened. I had been homeless or on the verge of homelessness before the assault by Ana that landed me in jail for 7 months. I had been homeless in Durham after my lawyer got me out of jail to “prepare for trial.”

At no point during the one meeting with my lawyer had I discussed the potential prison sentence that I could receive if found guilty of these charges - 2nd degree kidnapping and 2nd degree sexual offense. 

I was existing in a state of trauma. I could have diagnosed myself, if I was thinking clearly, with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I could have recognized that I was using a form of dissociation, that is called derealization, as a coping mechanism. This is the brain's creative way to cope with overwhelming stress or trauma. 

My mind was experiencing life as if I was living in a dream-state. This was a living nightmare! 

Ever since the assault and during the months of captivity or while living homeless in Durham and then Chapel Hill, the topic of spending years in prison never entered my consciousness! It was too overwhelming to imagine.

After spending that month in jail while awaiting trial, I would find and secure a bed at the homeless shelter in Chapel Hill. For a brief moment in time, I experienced a miraculous event where I had a chance to connect with a lady.

It was a rare reprieve, a brief glimpse of something tender before I was thrust back into the cold, both literally and figuratively.

Homeless in Chapel Hill, Holding Onto Hope

At the Interfaith Council (IFC) shelter, I started at the bottom—sleeping on the floor, waiting for a bed to open upstairs. Eventually, I got one, which meant a reserved place to sleep. It also meant I had a small storage space downstairs for my belongings, but the space was barely enough for what little I owned.

During the day, we were forced to leave after breakfast. There was no place to simply be.

I tried to find work. Vocational Rehabilitation had funded Web Design training for me, but what chance did I have of landing a job while living in a shelter, marked by a pending trial that would decide the rest of my life?

And yet, I tried.

I still held onto a shred of self-worth, fragile as it was. I still believed, somehow, that I was more than what the system had labeled me.

A Miracle in the Midst of Chaos

Then something unbelievable happened.

I met someone.

It was November, and I had been on a dating website, though my self-confidence had been shattered. What woman would want a man who was homeless? A man who had been cast as the villain when he was, in fact, the victim?

But she did.

She listened. She believed me.

She invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.

I was stunned. A woman I had only recently started talking to wanted to meet me. She even bought my train tickets to visit her in Sanford, NC.

"I am a respectable lady," she told me. "You should not expect anything sexual to happen."

It didn’t matter. Just being wanted, just being seen, was enough.

I packed a few changes of clothes, enough to look semi-presentable, and boarded the train. Thanks to the shelter, I was able to shower, shave, and brush my teeth before leaving. That, in itself, was a luxury.

A Moment of Connection

We had a wonderful evening and weekend.

Dinner was warm and filling. We watched the Superman movie together. That night, we shared a bed, though nothing sexual happened.

But I still felt close to her.

I remember laying in her lap, my arms wrapped around her.

I remember the softness of her lips. I remember her whispering, "Give me your tongue," as we kissed.

She was beautiful—a stunning black woman—and for that brief moment, I felt lucky.

For a single night, I wasn’t a homeless person. I wasn’t an accused criminal. I was just me, holding someone close, feeling warmth against my skin instead of the cold, cruel world pressing in on me.

But then I ruined it.

A Stupid, Simple Mistake

Some of my clothes had gotten wet on the train, so she kindly washed and dried them for me.

But in my absentmindedness, I had left my return ticket in my pocket.

When I realized my mistake, my stomach dropped.

"Oh my god."

My chest tightened with frustration, anger, self-loathing.

"How could I be so stupid?"

I knew I had just created a situation where she would have to buy me another ticket home. The thought filled me with shame.

I clenched my fists and, without thinking, slammed my hand down on the bed—not out of anger at her, not in any way directed toward her, but in sheer frustration at myself.

But it didn’t matter.

The second my hand hit the bed, I felt it—fear.

It was my fear that she might be afraid of me.

The Shadow of False Accusations

I hadn’t even been near her.

What if she thinks I could be dangerous? What if she wonders about Ana’s accusations?

It didn’t matter that I knew I was the same person who had those soft gentle hands - the only hands and arms that could have been there with Lynn or Celta before her. Celta who had anorexia and was all skin and bones.

The fear of what she might think consumed me.

This wasn’t like with Lynn, where I could wake up from a nightmare and simply ask her, "Did I hit you in my sleep, or was that just in my dream?"

With Lynn, there was trust.

But this was different.

I left the next day, hugging her goodbye. But I felt ashamed. Because of the shame that I began to carry, I didn’t think to ask for another moment with her.

That moment was the beginning of a new fear—the fear that someone might imagine that I could be violent. It would take many years, maybe a decade and a half for that fear to evaporate.

I was so frustrated that I had but one short glimpse of hope, connection, and closeness.

Back Out in the Cold

On my way back to Chapel Hill, it started snowing.

The ice and wind cut through my coat, through my skin, through the fragile layer of my dashed hopes that I had carried with me on that train that first brought me to see a lady.

I arrived in downtown Durham, exhausted, stressed, and desperate to get back to the shelter in Chapel Hill. But the buses that would go to Chapel Hill weren’t running.

I had no choice but to take the Durham bus as far as it would get me to Chapel Hill and then walk.

Carrying my two bags, I took bus 10 to the farthest point it would go on Highway 15-501, then walked for miles, uphill, through the wet, heavy snow.

At some point, another guy was walking in the same direction. He seemed safe, and we walked together, sharing the quiet misery of the storm.

But when we reached the border of Chapel Hill, I saw the Red Roof Inn and made a decision.

I would call my parents.

I would beg for a warm bed.

I entered the motel and asked for phone to call my family.

"Dad, please. I’m soaked, I’m exhausted. I just need a place to sleep tonight."

His response was cold, emotionless, detached.

"No."

I was numb.

Not from the cold outside, but from the realization that nothing I said would ever make him care.

I had no choice but to keep walking.

Blisters formed on my wet feet. My hands were numb.

Every step felt heavier than the last.

When I finally arrived at the shelter, I knocked on the door, praying they would let me in.

They did.

For a few precious hours, I had a warm bed.

But as dawn came and breakfast ended, I was back out in the cold.

Alone. Again.

Despair weighed upon me as I wandered the dark Durham night. The shelter was full, so I tried to sleep on the grounds of Duke West Campus. No signs warned against trespassing. I didn’t feel comfortable so I left and taking a shortcut I scaled a 4-foot rock wall, unaware of doing anything wrong.

Then, as if summoned by fate, a police car appeared.

A block down the road, its lights flickered in the night. The car slowed, then stopped. My stomach clenched as the officer stepped out, approaching me with a cold authority.

“License."

The request made no sense. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Why were they stopping me?

And then, those dreaded words. Words that had already shattered my life once before.

"Warrant for your arrest."

Time collapsed. My thoughts spiraled. A warrant? For what?

Then came the explanation—something about using someone’s credit card without permission.

I couldn’t breathe.

A credit card?

Panic surged through me. How? I hadn’t even had the chance to meet anyone with a credit card since my release from jail. How could I have committed a felony without even knowing it?

I barely had time to process the accusation before cold metal closed around my wrists. Handcuffs. Again.

As they led me away, my mind raced to make sense of the impossible.

How the hell did this happen?

A Rabbit Hole of Betrayal

To understand this new nightmare, we have to go back—back to a time before Ana, before jail, before my life unraveled.

I had once been part of therapy groups in Durham, trying to build a community, trying to heal. That’s where I met Kathy.

She knew I had worked with people diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)—once called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)—a condition made infamous by movies like Sybil. It was rare, misunderstood, and yet, here it was, again, threading itself into my story.

Before my time on Holloway Street, before the assault that would alter my life, I had briefly lived in a spare room offered by a friend, Elaine. During that time, Kathy and I became intimate.

Then, one night, everything changed.

In an instant, she transformed—her voice, her body language—childlike.

It was as if I was suddenly in the presence of a child in an adult’s body.

I freaked out. I pulled away and got dressed immediately.

It didn’t matter that she was an adult. It felt like I was with a child.

Kathy soon returned to her boyfriend and Elaine wanted to live alone. I moved into the home of Kathy and her boyfriend —sleeping in the same room as her son, on the bottom bunk. But our relationship had become twisted, toxic.

She demanded my attention, needed me to play the role of therapist. I had already explained how inappropriate that would be after what had happened and I wasn’t licensed and practicing at that point.

Some of her other personalities were angry at me.

Some were obsessed with me.

Some were jealous—especially when I spent time with my girlfriend, Shonda.

The situation was untenable.

And then came Christmas.

The Credit Card That Would Ruin Me

December 2003—less than a year before Ana’s attack.

Kathy wanted to give me a gift.

She offered to pay for my website domain renewal—the same poetry website I had started with Lynn back in 1995.

The life I had shared with Lynn felt so close, and yet, like an entirely different lifetime.

We sat together as she entered her credit card details into my GoDaddy account. It was her choice.

Neither of us thought much about the card being saved on file.

At the time, it meant nothing. But that decision—the smallest, most mundane act—would later become my undoing.

A Dangerous Shift

Tensions escalated.

Kathy became more unpredictable, more hostile.

One night, things turned dangerous.

I felt threatened—physically and sexually.

I ran.

Outside, hands shaking, I called Shonda. She offered me a place to stay, a bed in the back of her family’s store.

Then, I called the police.

The authorities came. They didn’t arrest Kathy, but the report was on record—a crime of a sexual nature, with me as the victim.

I should have seen the warning signs then. But I didn’t.

And now, here I was—being arrested. Because of her.

The Forgotten Charge

Fast-forward to 2005, after Ana, after my release from jail.

I had forgotten about the GoDaddy domain.

My cards on file had no funds, so Kathy’s was automatically charged.

Instead of asking for her card to be removed, instead of seeing this for what it was—a mistake—she pressed charges.

The charge? Felony credit card fraud.

The amount? $15.

Fifteen dollars.

And I was back in a cell.

Trapped in the System Again

This time, I spent a month in jail, mostly in protective custody.

The same lawyer—the one handling my pending trial—was assigned to this nonsense case.

"I’ll enter a plea to misdemeanor larceny," he told me when he got around to contacting me at all, after I had been there almost a month!

"You’ll be released right away. No court appearance necessary."

I should have been furious but I was in such a state of shock during this period of time. I was detached from feelings and living life as if in a bad dream.

Misdemeanor larceny? Over a clerical error?

A System That Doesn't Care

I was too numb and detached to feel the anger that I feel as I write this almost 20 years later.

I was too beaten down, too traumatized to feel the full weight of my indignation.

But looking back?

This shouldn’t have happened.

A competent lawyer—one who actually cared—would have had this dismissed immediately. Instead, my public defender took the path of least resistance, pushing me through a legal system that wasn’t about justice, only efficiency.

I just wanted out.

So, I did not protest when he told me what he was going to do. As soon as I was free, I left Durham—straight for Chapel Hill.

Because even in homelessness, I had learned: some places were safer than others and Chapel Hill was safer.

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.  

In the early months of my captivity, I fiercely rejected any suggestion of being taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. The mere thought of using mental illness as a defense for my actions made me sick. I wasn’t going to allow it to be said that there was validity to what Ana claimed but there was an explanation.

Despite Ana's accusations, I stood firm in declaring my complete innocence and victimhood. I refused to succumb to her manipulative tactics and never wavered in my claims of being mentally sound and guiltless. To even consider entertaining such an idea would be to admit defeat and give Ana exactly what she wanted – power over me.

No, I would not allow her or the detectives who questioned me to strip me of my agency and reduce me to a mere pawn in their twisted game.

I wrote in a letter to my lawyer that I did not have a dissociative disorder. I told him that I had not been trying to play a game with the detectives. With Ana’s lies they were the writers and directors of a sick game.

My landlord, with a sinister smile on his face, had taken away all of my possessions, leaving me with nothing… as if I had never existed, never collected anything that I might want to keep forever.

My precious memories in the form of photographs and letters from those I loved were now lost forever, buried under the weight of my shattered identity. Every cherished reminder of the life of joy and success was gone!

I was left with nothing - no clothes, no mementos, no sense of self. It was as if my very being had been erased.

Alone, Abandoned and Scared

When I was in my cell, I would desperately try to catch the attention of the guards to be taken to see a nurse or doctor. But I was just another inmate in a sea of faces, drowning in my own extreme anxiety. Every moment felt like an overwhelming wave crashing over me, suffocating me with its intensity.

The guards, cold and unfeeling as machines, would pass by our cells without a hint of empathy or compassion. In their eyes, I was nothing but a number, a nameless entity locked away in this hellish prison. They didn't see me as a person, let alone an innocent one who was suffering in distress.

Their robotic footsteps echoed through the halls, sending chills down my spine. It was as if they were inhuman creatures, devoid of any shred of humanity. And trapped in this environment, my body began to react in strange ways. Panic attacks would grip me with such force that I thought I was going to die. My heart raced and my breaths came in short, labored gasps.

I would frantically push the button in my cell, pleading for someone, anyone to come and help me. But my cries fell on deaf ears. The guards saw me as nothing more than a nuisance, an inconvenience to be ignored and dismissed.

My captivity was slowly breaking me down, piece by piece. But no one seemed to care about my suffering. To them, I was just another prisoner in a cell, forgotten and discarded by society.

Moving to Protective Custody

After two or three months, I was transferred to a different part of the jail called protective custody. I wasn't entirely clear why.

There were three inmates who were not only in this area called protective custody but they only left their cells for about an hour to shower and never when anyone else was out. They were going to testify against fellow gang members.

During my stay in protective custody, I met an older man who was also being held there. He had been caught printing photographs of young children, possibly both boys and girls, in various stages of undress – perhaps even nude. The crime was heinous and unforgivable. I couldn't bring myself to feel any sympathy for him.

What kind of person does this to innocent children? I was curious about the details of his crime, but I knew better than to ask him directly. Unlike me, he was not adamant and ready to explain how he would never harm anyone.

I also crossed paths with a man whose intellect was severely lacking. He had strangled his wife or girlfriend to death. His parents were very supportive. He always had money in his canteen, and he would share something if I didn’t have anything. His family kept his canteen stocked with cash, unlike the indifference offered by my family.

I thought they would offer me a place to stay when I was released. Who knows if that was a good idea, but it never panned out. 

I remained in this section of the prison for several months until I was finally released in May 2003. The Protective Custody unit was smaller than the general population area and most cells housed only one person, making it a safer environment.

I also discovered new things about my gender and how we think of gender. I met a very effeminate person who went by the name Lulu. She was born male but identified as female.

She was a striking African American woman, born into a man's body. While I couldn't help but know that she must be male, it was her soft and feminine legs and face that caught my attention. In one particular moment, none of my prior beliefs about sexual orientation mattered. I just needed human contact, someone to be close to. And she was kind, so sweet and understanding as I sat next to her on a couch in the shared open area.

As our hands touched, fingers intertwining and arms pressed together, I couldn't deny the comfort and connection that I felt. But this was no secret encounter - we were in plain view of anyone who happened to pass by. Despite the comfort she provided me in such an unbearable situation, there was no escaping the harsh reality of what was going on. Every second felt like an eternity as my entire life hung in the balance, consumed by fear and desperation.

Lulu may have been a small flicker of light amidst the darkness, but there was no changing the fact that I was trapped in this hellish place with no end in sight. My pleas for help to my "family" went unanswered, leaving me to wonder how long they would have left me here to rot. It became clear that they had no intention of coming to my aid - I was completely alone in this fight for survival.

Toxic shame had been an outfit I began to wear four years ago. It began with losing Lynn, the love of my life, and continued as I lost my career, my license, and ultimately my home. Being alone in the world for so long only compounded this toxic shame, making me feel like I was fundamentally flawed.

I felt like I had been turned into a creature deemed unworthy of basic human treatment. My situation was degrading and dehumanizing.

I had prayed without ceasing (still a believer back then). I repeated the plea to God, “you know I did no wrong. Please do something. Show me something today.”

The fact that my sister sent me books was a source of support but deep-down parts of me wanted her to do more. Convince Mom and Dad to act like parents.

I didn’t even get visits from my family at all! No words of comfort. Never did I feel a sense that I had a family that was in any way concerned with my circumstances nor did they seem to care about my chances for a normal life later.

If they were not going to act out of concern for me, I knew that appearances mattered in my family. I carried the same exact name as my father. This name would now be emblazoned in stone for historical reference and associated with a heinous crime!

They had acknowledged that I could not possibly have done what I was accused of doing.

Despite that, their silence, their lack of support, could not help but make me feel worthless, a pathetic person who deserved to experience shame.

I was not now, nor would I ever be in a position where I could forgive or forget the decision made by my parents not to pay bail to get me out and to pay for a good lawyer. This experience would always remain in my mind as something so shockingly painful that it would never be possible for me to excuse the inaction of my family.

I spent seven months in jail! Seven nightmarish months.

I was released finally, in May, to await the trial. My lawyer got the bond or bail removed so that I could be released without having to pay anything but with an expectation to return for trial and other court appearances. 

Of course, my so-called family had not even tried to get any clothes at all for me to wear when I got out. They had known that every single item of my own was gone other than the bloody clothing I wore when I was assaulted seven months earlier.

My earliest memory is of water. Learning to swim.

I am four or five. The indoor pool at the Y. The warmth of the water against my skin. The vastness of it—stretching beyond my reach.

I remember floating near the wall, small and weightless.

Then, a moment of panic. I lost my grip.

The deep end swallowed me whole. My arms flailed, my breath caught in my throat. Then, I saw her.

She was close—my instructor, a girl in her late teens or early twenties, afloat in the deep end.

I don’t know what gave me the courage, but I leapt.

I wrapped my arms around her, clinging to her like my life depended on it. She steadied me, her arms firm, unshaken.

My heart pounded against her shoulder, but she didn’t let go.

I was safe.

But something else lingered. Not just relief. Something deeper.

Something I wasn’t meant to have. I wasn’t supposed to know what it felt like to be held. To be protected. To be cared for.

And even at four or five years old, I knew that.

That is the birth of shame.

The First Lessons in Isolation

When I was a toddler, I was terrified of firetruck sirens on the firetruck that my parents bought me. My parents told the story often—laughing as they described my panic. I don’t remember them ever soothing me.

I have no memory of them saying, "It’s okay, you’re safe." I suspect they didn’t.

Now, decades later, I find myself instinctively comforting my own cat when he startles at a loud noise. I kneel down, stroke his fur, whisper, "It’s okay, everything is okay."

Something in me knows what I never received. I give to a pet what was never given to me.

The House of Unspoken Rules and Child Abuse

I don’t remember my parents ever holding me like that.

I was abused, physically. I was assaulted. That didn’t start right away when I was very young.

In my family, affection was something distant, implied rather than given. Love was duty. Gratitude was expected. Respect was mandatory and not earned.

My father, Bruce Sr., was a man of unshakable silence. He believed actions spoke louder than words, but his actions were cold efficiency—he provided, and that was enough. My mother, Kathy, was a storm you learned to anticipate, never knowing when lightning would strike.

But there was a chill in the air, a tension that wrapped around me like a vice. It was the kind of silence that demanded submission, not understanding.

I never looked directly at my father’s face. I kept my gaze down, or slightly averted, as if instinctually avoiding something dangerous. The thought going through my mind was that I should not expect an easy explanation of what I did wrong. I was wrong.

I felt that I was being met with a general sense of disapproval for being.

Later in life, I would become incredibly skilled at reading people’s body language. I had so much to learn because I was purposefully choosing to avoid observing the looks of general disapproval.

Our maternal grandparents were our refuge, our shield.

I remember Grandma standing up for me—her frail voice telling my parents, “Don’t hurt Bruce.”

That small moment, that whisper of resistance, was the only time someone tried to intervene.

Grandpa would worry about me lifting too much when I joined him to take out the garbage once a week and stack the garbage pails in a way that would ensure that dogs couldn’t get into them.

And then they died.

With them went the thin barrier between us and our parents’ unchecked cruelty.

What haunts me more than any specific moment of cruelty is the void—the absence of tenderness.

We went on vacations to Disney World. We had an in-ground pool. Yet, I have no memories of joy with my parents. They did things for us, but never with us.

It was not love. It was obligation. And obligation demanded respect, not warmth.

The First Vow: To Never Be Like Them

With no one left to shield us, the full weight of their anger fell upon me. Each harsh word, each slap, each moment of being made to feel small carved deeper into me.

I made a vow in the quiet of my childhood bedroom:

• I will never become like them.
• I will never lose my temper.
• I will never let anyone feel unsafe because of me.

I would spend my whole life keeping that promise.

The arrival of a protector

Paul and his family moved into the neighborhood in 3rd grade. He and I became friends. And I saw him increasingly as a protector. I had come out of my shell for a while in school during 3rd grade. Laughing and joking.

When Donna said she liked me in 3rd grade and kissed me, I felt like I had to put on a show that I didn’t like girls. Obviously, these rules change later.

By junior high, I didn’t have Paul in my classes but I hung out with him in the neighborhood.

I did have another protector in junior high school. Thomas from the neighborhood where we lived earlier said that the 9th graders might pick on the 7th graders and I should tell him if that happens.

No one really did pick on me. There were a few minor incidents that were handled by Paul. I didn’t have to go to any great effort to convince him to help me.

It might have been a few years later but Paul even sensed my fear when a dog came out to chase us on our bikes as we were going riding and peddling up a hill, moving slowly. I must have appeared frozen with fear. Paul got off his bike and chased the dog across the yard that was the dogs home! This was the dogs territory and yet it was running away in fear.

The Arrival of Family – And A Deeper Shame

In junior high, something changed.

My mother and her estranged sister suddenly reconciled, and a world I had never known opened up: extended family.

I met my first cousins—Linda, Sharon, and Karen. They were adults, but their children, Barbara and Dan, were my age.

I was drawn to Barbara.

I told myself it was because I preferred talking over roughhousing.

Dan played tackle football—a game of brute force. I didn’t want to tackle or dominate or crush someone to win. Winning had never felt good to me.

Even in childhood games of kickball, I remember the uneasy feeling in my stomach when my team won, because it meant another had lost.

The elation of victory never came.

Yet, I wondered: was something wrong with me?

The world told boys to compete, to fight, to dominate. But I wanted connection—not conquest.

And so I gravitated toward Barbara. We talked. We laughed. We hugged.

And then, shame crept in.

It came in the form of my mother’s jealousy.

"Do you think they’re going to let you live with them?" she snapped, her voice dripping with scorn. She was referring to Karen or Sharon who were the only cousins who could have taken me into their home.

I had never thought about it before, but now the thought seemed… wrong.

She planted a seed—a toxic, gnawing thought that I was a burden.  That I was wanting too much.

I had already learned that needing comfort was shameful. The pool memory had taught me that.

Now, I learned that even wanting closeness with my own cousins was wrong.

And so I learned to doubt every warm moment, to question every innocent connection, to second-guess every embrace.

Another aspect of the family get togethers that I truly enjoyed was the opportunity to spend time with the kids. Dan and Barbara were the first cousins once removed that were about my age but Tracy, Jaime and Wayne were little kids, relative to my age. I would be available to watch them and spend time with them… somehow I gravitated into this role. If the kids needed or wanted to go outside (maybe go for a walk or go somewhere nearby) and no one else was available to go with them or watch them.

I suppose I was always meant to be a parent. Even while I was just a teenager, a child myself, it was evident.

Had the events of this book not come to pass the way they did, I would have surely found a way to be a parent. This was on my mind later in this story.

An Invisible Shell: The Complete Silence of Selective Mutism

By junior high, my selective mutism was complete.

At school, I couldn’t speak. Who knows what I feared. Perhaps the scared part of me that hid behind my chair in Kindergarten instead of walking up front with the milk money. What was it that I feared?

That part of me that was hidden in my unconscious knew. Later in studying psychology, I would learn ideas like the wounded inner child, ego states, and parts that were frozen in time. Growing up, I just didn’t speak.

The silence was suffocating.

Speaking felt like exposure. Like a spotlight on shame itself. And so I withdrew.

I wandered the woods, hiked Ragged Mountain, disappeared into nature.

I was aware of the yearning for contact when I saw my cousins..

And yet, in the neighborhood, I had a paper route. I could talk to customers. I worked at the Medical Mart for my neighbor, where I had to speak to strangers.

Outside of school, my voice existed.

Inside school, it was buried beneath layers of shame.

As I grew, I became aware of the power I had—the power to hurt. When I fought with my sister, I would raise my hand or my foot to strike her—but something always stopped me.

Then later, I saw her fear. And that changed everything.

I made another vow:

• No one will ever fear me.

In a home where fear was a weapon, I rejected it.

With my mother’s jealously over my desire to prefer my cousins and aunt over my parents, this created a toxic sense of shame in which I had to second guess how things might look.

But it wasn't just physical touch that I craved. I relished in playing with our youngest cousins, dreaming of being the loving parent that I never had.

After my elementary school years with Paul in the same class with me all day, I existed inside an invisible shell. My selective mutism was complete at school. I often retreated into the woods, spending so many hours alone, hiking, enjoying the view from Ragged Mountain, throughout my childhood through age 18.

Despite this, I did gain a degree of limited confidence in the neighborhood.

I had a paper route and had to collect payments from customers in the large and extended neighborhood. I shared this with my friend Paul and my sister Carrie. I developed a confidence that allowed me to do this.

I also got a job working for the Medical Mart - a store owned by my neighbor Jack Donlon - it was a family business. He and his wife lived directly across the street from us.

I did come out of my shell as required for this job. I had to meet with customers and deliver products to them.

I also nurtured a very strong bond with my cousins.

This was the opposite of what my family created for me. I had been coming out of my shell.

I also learned that I didn’t want to be like my parents. I knew that fear of a parent is different from respect.

My mother revealed her jealousy over my preference for my cousins and aunt then my parents. She asked if I thought they were going to let me live with them. Kathy would also say, “they have their own lives” making me feel less valuable or less worthy of being included in the lives of my cousins and aunt.

This would have been occurring in my later teenage years.

The Final Realization

My mother called me a house devil and a street angel.

She meant it as an insult, but she was right. At home, I was silent, tense, wary.

Outside, I was kind. I saved my kindness for those who deserved it.

Because I had wanted parents.

Just not mine.