Emily Whealton

When I speak of waking up after a suicide attempt, I am referring to the sense of having been detached from truly living life. I would get married to Elnaz Rezaei Ghalechi in 2010 and it is not hard to understand that aspects of this marriage were problematic. 

I didn’t approach this as a true chance at happiness but more of a desperate desire for connection… to share a life with someone else. To find someone who cared about ME.

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!

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.