Where do you go after the edge?
I left the hospital in December 2019 no longer suicidal, but still fractured. I wasn’t healed. But something had shifted. The spiral of silence was broken. And for the first time in years, I didn’t want to disappear.
I wanted to live. But I didn’t yet know how.
Finding My First Steps
I was referred to HomeLink and the STEP Clinic, both part of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. Their programs picked up where the hospital left off: outpatient support, therapy groups, a case manager, even an occupational therapist. For six months—from January through June of 2020—I had structure, connection, and continuity I hadn’t known in years.
I was paired with Becky, a UNC counseling graduate student. She reminded me of the kind of therapist I had once aspired to be—empathetic, grounded, willing to sit in the heaviness without trying to fix it. At the same time, I was finishing trauma therapy with Andrea, who had guided me through EMDR. She was retiring. Another door closing. Another goodbye.
The groups helped. Brushes with Life, an art therapy group, met at the clinic. Emotional Resilience met out at the Farm at Penny Lane. In those quiet rural spaces, I found the courage to speak again—to draw, to name things, to listen.
Then came COVID.
In-person groups dissolved into Zoom squares. The warmth of community flickered into static. I was alone in my house, staring at a screen. The world shrank again. But not entirely.
Because that’s when I finally walked through the doors of the Community Empowerment Fund—CEF.
Facing the Story
The office was bright but humble. Student volunteers sat at folding tables with open laptops. Flyers lined the walls. “Empowerment,” they called it. I didn’t know what to expect.
But in that first orientation, I met someone who had once been a client, just like me. They had found their footing. That stirred something in me. Maybe I could too. Most importantly, I could relate to the mindset and attitudes of those who formed CEF. They had the same passions that drove me to become a social worker.
When I sat down with two UNC advocates, they asked: “How can we help?”
How do you condense 15 years of loss into a single conversation?
“I used to be a therapist,” I said. “Then I lost everything.”
I told them about John F., how he manipulated clients into filing false grievances, how he accused me of harassment with no evidence. How I lost my license, my career, my life.
Then I paused.
“There’s more,” I said. My voice faltered.
“In 2004, I was the victim of a violent assault. But when I called for help… I was arrested. The perpetrator was believed. I was branded. And now I have a felony. A violent one. For something I didn’t do.”
Silence.
Then one of them said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
It wasn’t pity. It was conviction. Like they meant it.
We talked about options: Peer Support Specialist training, resume updates, a legal clinic through UNC. They offered encouragement, not platitudes. And then one advocate said:
“You should write your story. It matters.”
They told me about Wattpad, a platform for writers. I didn’t know if I was ready. But I did it anyway. I wrote a few chapters and posted links a description of each chapter on Facebook. I was going to break the silence. Words flowed as I filled a first book with what would ammount to 530 pages of my first book: Memoirs of a Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton.”
Back at CEF
When I returned to CEF the next week, I told my advocates I wanted to work in mental health again—somehow. That I wanted to help others, even if I couldn’t get my license back.
They suggested a Certified Peer Support Specialist credential. They could refer me to Caramore. And they did. I would eventually complete the training and become certified in August 2021—a new beginning.
I kept going back to CEF. Repeating my story too often. Hoping for consistency. But even in the repetition, healing began.
One advocate, a young woman, looked at me and said:
“I believe in karma. I hope Ana gets what she deserves.”
It was the first time someone had spoken of justice—not in legal terms, but in human ones. No procedural language, no bureaucratic tone. Just raw, moral clarity.
And I felt it too.
What Ana did was despicable and evil.
The assault was horrific. But that wasn’t the most wicked thing she did.
The character assassination was worse. She stole something far more permanent than blood or bruises—she tried to take my identity and replace it with her lie.
I had been posting to Wattpad because I needed someone to hear me.
And someone did.
Sarah
During that same time, another voice entered my life.
It started with a Facebook message.
“Hi… I think we went to high school together?”
Her name was Sarah. She’d graduated one year before me. We might have passed each other in band class, or in the hallways of Southington High. But neither of us remembered clearly.
What mattered is what happened next.
She had seen one of the Wattpad links I’d posted—something raw, personal, painful—and reached out. What began as curiosity turned into something I hadn’t experienced in years: a conversation that lasted more than twelve hours. Not interrogation. Not judgment. Just questions. Real ones. The kind that come from someone who cares enough to understand.
I told her about John F. and the loss of my career. I told her about Lynn and Celta—the only two people who had loved me fully and unconditionally. I talked about the grief that followed, and the injustice that shattered the rest of my life.
She had so many questions… about the good people in my life and the bad people who harmed me. She wanted to understand every detail. When I spoke about how bad I was bleeding during and after the attack by Ana, she wondered if Ana had been wearing something on her hands. Brass knucks? That would have caused bruises not cuts. For the first time, I was talking about the criminal history in a manner that was so matter of fact. I had introduced the topic of what happened in 2004, the focus of this book, the false conviction, without the normal fear that I normally had when I spoke about this matter. Somehow she made this seem like a routine topic to discuss.
She asked questions no one else had thought to ask.
We would double back and revisit the same topics more than once. I told her about John. About Lynn and the love we had. About losing everything. I told her about Ana. The night of the assault. The lies. The conviction.
Sarah believed I could fight. That I still could prove my innocence. Even now she believes this.
The Bigger Truth
I had never been lazy. Never lacked ambition. I had put myself through graduate school, worked multiple jobs, built a life around helping others.
I had come from a toxic family, a broken justice system, a world that doesn’t understand trauma unless it fits a script. And still—I had tried.
Now, CEF was giving me a new way forward. So was Sarah. So was every single person who said, “I believe you.”
And as I sat with those voices, something shifted again.
Not just healing. Not just hope.
Maybe I wasn’t just meant to survive.
Maybe I was meant to fight.