Memoirs of A Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton

Chapter 61: Some Other Unusual Experiences

I had been going to the mental health center for treatment. In my mind I still envisioned myself returning to working as a psychiatric social worker. That was my passion in life. I had helped so many people.

I now know that I have a rational mind and can objectively review the entirety of my professional experience from start to finish. I know that the conclusions of Dr. Ziff that I lacked social skills and empathy were totally and completely false. It was irrational to imagine all the success that I had over the years would have been possible without empathy, communication skills, and compassion.

I knew at the time that I had to go through therapy first. Life had taken a toll on my mental health and I needed to build back. There were doubts that I felt. How had I gotten to a point where anyone would want to file a grievance about my actions? I had felt "out of it" in August of 2000 and I had not been at my best, to put it mildly.

The work of psychotherapists is so serious that I felt I needed to find out if and when I would be ready to begin again.

Let's skip ahead a few years now.

We are into 2002.

I tried dating some. I used online dating services. I guess I wanted the connection I once had with Lynn and the same feelings.

Was I ready to date or love someone?

In looking back, I had not started loving myself completely yet. I think that to fully love another one must love, value, and respect oneself. One must love oneself and have self-compassion.

One such intimate experience was very unusual. It wasn't with someone I met through a dating service though.

I had been a participant in a therapy group at the mental health center and I may have mentioned that I had worked, in the past, with people who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and that this experience had caused me some problems.

Sometime later I was staying with Elaine, a friend I made in Durham, and I made friends with someone else from that therapy group named Cathy. She had seemed "normal" for the most part. I wasn't so sure I was into her or attracted to her, but I let things develop in that direction.

At one point, we were in my room and we were becoming sexually intimate. Suddenly she changed. Her demeanor and expression were that of a child. I felt like I was with a child. I got up and put clothes on and asked her to cover up. It was like she had become a little girl.

She was like a child in an adult body. This reminded me of those times when people with different personalities will switch to another personality or identity. Technically she was an adult, but it still felt weird and uncomfortable.

I would find out that this had never happened previously in the presence of another person to the best of her knowledge.

Later, she seemed to want my help in dealing with this. I explained that it is not possible for me to do this. For one thing, I wasn't credentialed at the time. Secondly, I had been her friend and the nature of the relationship was such that it would be inappropriate for me to be her therapist.

This was strange because I had never said to anyone that I was looking for people I could help with their psychiatric issues. I could not imagine why she would have gotten the impression that I would be able to help her.

DID is supposed to be rare but here I was miles away from my private practice in Wilmington, years later, and without even looking I seemed to have found another person with this rare condition.

I thought she understood that I could not treat her. I thought we could be friends still. She got back together with her boyfriend and invited me to move into a spare room in their apartment. That didn't go over too well. I had noticed she was expecting me to be there for her at certain times. I couldn't live my own life. Cathy was acting like she was jealous of the girlfriend that I had named Shonda. What was strange is that she was back with her boyfriend.

I wasn't in a serious relationship, but Cathy was jealous of the time I spent elsewhere.

I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable ANY time I returned to the apartment and it wasn't just that she was jealous of me dating. She was mad that I had not been there for her.

I had to involve the police to move out because of how uncomfortable I felt. I was hiding outside until the police arrived. My girlfriend Shonda helped me move out of there and temporarily stay on the bed in the area behind the store that she was renting for her business. It was behind the area where customers would come into the store.

I moved around a few times before I found a place to stay that was advertised as a male boarding house in Durham. The upfront move-in cost seemed like the most affordable option for me and therefore the best choice. That would prove to be a very bad decision with painful consequences.

This would lead to the next nightmare. As I mentioned, you might imagine that things couldn't get any worse than they have been described.

At this point in the story, we are into the first part of 2004.

I don't think it is worth it to describe each and every place where I laid my head each night during this time period of several years... I was either in a homeless shelter or staying with a friend temporarily.