Prosecuting The Victim, Gender Biases, and The Psychological Impact of Injustice

Chapter 8: A Loss of Everything and Leaving Home

Prior to being attacked by Ana, a number of things happened that seemed impossible. I had built a successful career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker - a Therapist - in Wilmington, NC.

This was a journey that began in 1984 which will unfold throughout this book. In 1984, I graduated from Southington High School, in Southington, CT. I had been accepted to various colleges/universities and they were all far away. Southington was a rural town in Connecticut with roughly 30,000 residents spread out over a wide area with apple orchards and trails through the woods and across Ragged Mountain.

I went to the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and through the help of psychology and a psychologist, I had overcome social anxiety, shyness, social phobia, and what might be diagnosed as selective mutism - from Junior High, through High School and into Undergraduate School at Georgia Tech, I almost never spoke at all in a classroom where I might be the center of attention.

I didn't want to bring attention to me. I definitely NEVER wanted to bring negative attention to me. Clearly, the events that were alleged to have occured on October 1, 2004, would have brought negative attention to me which would follow me for the rest of my life. No matter how far I had come in overcoming the shyness and social anxiety, I certainly didn't want to give people a reason to point a finger at me, to dislike me, to reject me!

I had spent about 16 years building a life that was defined by success. During the late 80s, I worked on my social anxiety. I learned social skills. I realized that engineering was not a good match for me.

In 1992, I moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Eventually, I would fall in love with Lynn Denise Krupey. Two years later, we were living as husband and wife.

As late as early July of 2000, I was on top of the world. I had a family - Lynn and I. I had a home. I had built a successful private practice as a therapist. What more could I possibly want?

Lynn and I were madly in love. I thought that I would be with her for the rest of our lives. I thought we would have a home just like I knew when I was growing up. It would be two stories... with a big yard. I would have a six figure salary.

This part of the story is more complicated and I will get to it later.

Lynn started to get very sick in late July of 2000. I thought she would die. This was overwhelming and too much for me.

A meteor had come crashing into the life I had known and destroyed everything that year.

This is the best way to describe something that you don't see coming.

There was a character named John Freifeld that I mentioned earlier. He was providing therapy to some of my clients and they were getting worse. I spoke to him in 1998 and met him in 1999. He made a referral to me in 1998 for someone he thought had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). He was running an online support group based on the 12-steps for alcohol and drug dependence.

Details about this will be provided later. In July of 2000, as Lynn was getting sick and I thought she might die, I learned that John Freifeld (John) had convinced 5 of my clients to sign a single grievance letter statement to my licensure board and to file a malpractice civil suit against me. As a clinical social worker/therapist, I had worked in settings that do not cater to the most vulnerable in society so every working environment was not the best match for me. However, I NEVER had issues with clients having problems with me and how I performed.

I never imagined that I would have to defend myself against allegations by clients. This individual, John, was very persuasive. He had the characteristics of a cult leader - a malignant narcissist. He could make people believe he was acting in their best interests even when he was making them worse because he was not trained to work in this field.