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Several tragic and disturbing events collided in late July of 2000.
I had built a successful private practice that began in 1998. I had started undergraduate school in 1984 as someone with almost no social skills and I had turned that weakness into a strength... and built a career around it. I learned how to help others who are struggling with emotional and psychological issues.
I had no idea that I would run across anyone who would purposefully seek to destroy that career but that was what happened. That is part of a larger story involving a villain that appears in my autobiography and other books. Let's just say that he was someone who became obsessed with me and was hurting my clients and others. I don't know if he thought I was a threat or what. He convinced five of my clients to file a grievance with my licensure board.
This was a career that I built over a period of many years. I had worked hard to achieve something very valuable and now some guy posing as a therapist who wasn't actually a therapist was providing therapy to my clients and they were getting worse. This might sound totally crazy that anyone would be seeking psychotherapy from two people at the same time, one of which was not even a psychotherapist. Well, he claimed to be a "support person."
And they didn't realize that he was making them worse. They needed someone to blame and couldn't complain about a "support person" or try to sue that person. This is NOT to say that I didn't feel bad that they got worse. Over the years I have had to accept that there are some things you can't control and that includes the choices and actions of another person.
I find myself getting defensive about this because when my psyche was being examined and I was asked about my clients not getting better, I stated something to the effect that it wasn't my fault. This psychologist misunderstood the exact tone and intention of my words as a lack of concern for my clients.
This is a complex story that is described elsewhere. The point is that I was seeing a very successful career being destroyed by someone who I underestimated. My famous last words to Lynn, my wife, were "what can he do?" The answer was he could convince five of my clients to blame me for their problems.
I am writing a poetry book right now and so I will ask you, dear reader, to check out my other books for more information about these issues. I hope that just as when you hear a song and thinking "what's that song about?" you will similarly want to learn more about the backstory and inspiration for these poems in this book.
At the same point, when I was dealing with these issues related to my career, the love of my life, Lynn Denise Krupey became seriously ill in late July of 2000 - that's when I remember first noticing the changes. I had felt powerless to do anything about this. I titled my autobiography "Memoirs of a Healer: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton." I wasn't a miracle worker and I couldn't heal Lynn from the genetic and terminal disease that she was born with. I felt powerless.
Losing Lynn occurred with no closure.
That story is very complicated. She faded away out of my life. We never "broke up" or "separated" and then got divorced.
I had given her a ring in 1994 and yet we didn't actually have a wedding. If we had gotten married this could have affected Lynn's access to medical care. There was a state program that covers the medical expenses for people with Cystic Fibrosis - the deadly disease that Lynn was born with. They had strict income requirements.
It seems totally crazy that a person born with a terminal illness would have to live in poverty to qualify for medical care but that's what we faced. When you are born with a condition like this, it's not for an insurance company to pay for a condition that exists from the time of one's birth. Access to medical care seemed to be tied to Lynn qualifying for this state health care program.
If we were married they would consider both of our incomes. So, we never had a wedding but we lived as husband and wife and I believed that this was a blessed union. I was Christian at the time and believed that in the eyes of God we were married... just not in the eyes of the state.
Lynn went into the hospital twice in July and August of 2000. After the second time, she moved in with her mother in Wilmington not far from our home. One day she said she didn't think she was coming back.
A meteor had come crashing down upon my life. The home we had known was being obliterated. My home!
On September 7, 2000, I was summoned by Diane to retrieve what I might want from the home. I wanted Lynn. I didn't want to see these boxes. Lynn wasn't even there. I wondered how she was doing.
The kitchen table was still there. The living room couch still sat where we had it along with the chairs. This is where we would entertain guests - our friends - and family.
I felt like I was dead - literally. I know that might sound hard to imagine.
When we experience stressors in life, our minds and bodies react in different ways. We might become anxious and the fight or flight response kicks in. It's like being on the plains of Africa and seeing a hungry lion. Our bodies need to prepare us to run. Something like that happens in response to any type of stress that humans face - we respond based on our thoughts as if we were in physical danger.
There are other responses like the freeze response which animals use as well. One might imagine an animal playing dead as a survival mechanism. We might also think of this as a turtle withdrawing into its shell and hoping not to be noticed by a predator.
Something like that happened to me on that day when I showed up to gather what I might want. I wanted Lynn.
I was so overwhelmed, and my body felt like it was shutting down. I went into the room where we had the computer and the bookcase. It was around the corner and not visible from the living room. I put my back up against the wall on the left next to the closet with the mirrors on it.
I slid down the wall and raised my legs up at the knees and stared blankly ahead. I was vaguely aware that Diane was frustrated and angry at me.
I was supposed to be doing something. She needed to sell the place. I was expected to act. But instead, I just stared ahead blankly. Like I was dead. I wasn't trying to be difficult or put on an act of defiance. I felt dead!
I could vaguely register that she had called my mother when I didn't respond at all.
Diane was either mad at me for acting this way or frustrated.
Everything I had known was here... This was our home. It felt comfortable for me and now it was being packed up and put into boxes.
Life as I had known it was disappearing like ashes from a fire. The love of my life - Lynn - was a reality that was fading away. It couldn't be. My home was being deconstructed and taken down as if it had no meaning.
I wasn't being told that Lynn didn't want me to keep visiting her at her mother's place.
It was too easy to deconstruct the life we had. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Lynn had lost her ring.
There had been no wedding and no official marriage certificate.
We weren't talking about what this meant. There were no goodbyes.
It was a reverse of the first few years but all in the space of two months.
The engagement happened without actual planning. I mean it was just a part of us saying to each other, "I'm in love with you." I remembered how I had given her the ring and she was in tears – tears of joy – as I opened the box. I had been shocked because I had thought she knew I was bringing her ring over that day.
We had NEEDED to live together after that. As much as Lynn needed as much oxygen as she could get so had we needed to be together.
So, when Lynn said she might not be coming back, I didn't have to ask what that meant. I wouldn't ask or speak it!
No, no, no, no!
This is NOT happening! This is NOT happening!
What happened next, I don't remember. The next few days were dream-like. I was seeing the world as if I were looking through smoke, ashes, and fog. And all I could do is watch.
These next poems reflect that feeling of being lost... searching for Lynn. Feeling like I had no sense of identity and no home. This darkness and this nightmare would last for several years.
By the way, Diane was Lynn's mother. She bought the home and rented it to us.
The next group of poems tries to capture those feelings and experiences.