A loving spouse. A healer. How does this person cope with evil villains willing to destroy everything? They convicted the victim... now how does the victim goes on with life as a healer?
As the book opens, I was in a psychiatric hospital following...
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I found the above photograph, a high school yearbook photograph - Celta Camille Head through Ancestry.com. I had not known her in high school. In fact, she is 8 years older than me.
In this photograph of her, she is 16. She's thirty-one now when I meet her for the first time.
After I graduated from Georgia Tech, I was feeling good about my career prospects and I had a new direction in life. I had a clear path in front of me. I finally knew what I wanted and how to get where I was going ... or so it seemed upon graduation from Georgia Tech in December of 1989.
The problem was that I chose to move in with my parents after graduation. This would be a decision that haunted me for the rest of my life!
Ironically, just as I somewhat regretted my decision to move in with my parents, knowing how toxic they were, what began in the 90s would make this time period among the best years of my life. I'm talking about the chance I had to meet Celta in 1990. Also, the opportunity that I had to volunteer with the social work team at Georgia Regional Hospital - a state psychiatric hospital was so rewarding. I learned so much and I realized that I have a knack for this kind of work - psychiatric social work.
The work I had done in undergraduate school got me to this point. I knew that I had developed some powerful social and communication skills during my five years of undergraduate studies. I had learned to demonstrate empathy. I had overcome so much of the social anxiety that I had previously.
I want to tell you about someone special that I met.
I knew that some work needed to be done before I could begin to realize my dreams and to find success in my field. I was making a transition from having a degree in engineering to working as a social worker, a psychiatric social worker.
As I was saying, I met Celta in 1990. In an earlier chapter, I stated that I had only one date during my years at Georgia Tech. There was one other time when I went out with a girl who was a cousin of one of my best friends but we had only one date. That was my entire dating experience since I was too shy to date in high school.
I wasn't expecting anything special or amazing to happen in 1990.
I met Celta in an unusual setting. She had been in the hospital when I met her, making this story even more complicated, unexpected, and unplanned. She had anorexia. That is why she was in the hospital for a short while - her weight had gotten dangerously low. She was about five foot two and weighed under 60 pounds when I met her. Maybe less!
Even as I write this, I feel a bit uncomfortable mentioning these facts. How can one measure a person or their worth by their weight?
I had a cousin who suffered from anorexia and one of the medical interns mentioned Celta saying that maybe by becoming friends with her I might gain some insight into anorexia. This was different than my usual role as a volunteer with the social work team at the hospital. I will discuss that later.
