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

Introduction: Starting At The End & Suicidal Ideations

This chapter is going to cover a great deal. The main focus of this book will be those years between 1990 and 2000. This was a time of great career and personal success and happiness for me. This is a book that is about Lynn Denise Krupey, my first wife, as much as it is about me. Without Lynn's support, I would never have accomplished any of what I accomplished in my life when I was successful. 

This chapter begins with me in a psychiatric hospital and then I will take you back in time to that first date with Lynn on July 4, 1992. There is more to tell than just that but this is a framework for the book overall.

So, it was approaching midnight on December 11, 2019.

Suicide became the only idea that was on my mind. As Anne Sexton said in 'Wanting to Die,'

"But suicides speak in a special language
Like carpenters, they want to know which tools
They never ask why build."

I was no longer asking "why build?" I had the clearest sense of purpose in my life. I didn't want anyone to know what I was going to do. The tools were pills... either that or a noose that I would have to hang somewhere.  I had started drinking rum, a good enough alcoholic beverage to help me get the nerve up to do this.

My cousin Karen had hanged herself. That's how she ended her life. Hmm. I wondered how I would do that.

"There is nothing that can be done now," they said. It seemed like they were speaking about my fate and all my hopes and dreams. My thinking wasn't entirely clear but I heard that there was nothing that could be done.

Dear reader, do you care to know what it is that brought me to this point? Do you care? 

This wasn't a cry for help. I had no hope or expectation that things could get better. 

My perception of the world during this time was that it was exceedingly dark, cold, and devoid of human compassion.

This is the true story that an editor for a horror magazine didn't want me to write. The editor thought I was giving a green light to suicide and so I was encouraged to write something different. The editor wanted a story that had some sense of hope in it. However, at the time of these events back in December of 2019, I felt no hope.

Obviously, I didn't succeed or you wouldn't be reading this right now. 

Anyway, it was December 11, 2019. I had been drinking lots of rum and taking some pills. My mind was blurry and the hours were unclear to me.

At some point, I decided to pass on an apology to my ex-wife Elee for inviting her to come to America. She could have been a doctor in Iran and would have been successful. Instead, she came here for love and things never worked out for me or for us. 

I started to text her a message. 

I thought, "she won't find this out until after I am dead."

Before I knew it I heard a knock at the door. It was the police. It was some time early in the morning on Thursday the 12th. Elee had gotten the message sooner than I expected and/or I was unaware of the time when I was texting her. 

I was crying and extremely distraught. The police seemed nice now as they spoke to me. It wasn't always like this. The entire reason for my suicidal preoccupation was due to an injustice that happened many years ago. 

For all practical purposes, I was still living in a virtual prison. I haven't been free since those events. It wasn't an event that happened long ago and ended. The shroud of injustice hung over me and it seemed there was no escape. 

I had come to believe that those things that made life meaningful for me could not be obtained with the (false) criminal record... because not everyone knows that the criminal record, the accusations, were false.