Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

I knew the day would come when I would have to confront head-on the challenges and barriers to employment in my field. A life worth living involves me working in some role where I use my skills and expertise as a Social Worker and as a mental health professional to have a direct impact on the lives of others. It's who I am and what I do. It's almost impossible to shut it off the passion for helping others and the instinctual way in which I take on that role... in the way it calls to me.

To find meaning and joy in life involves certain aspects of how we occupy our time. The barriers and challenges only presented themselves after I had reached the pinnacle of success. It is precisely those tragic and disturbing experiences that I will describe below. These are the barriers and challenges I have faced every day of my life for some time now. It's about how one or two people can destroy a person's life, career, dreams, hopes, and aspirations - forever or seemingly forever.

I had believed that most of the jobs in my field would require that one pass a background check. This is interesting because I am not sure what it means to pass a background check. Just a couple of days ago I was told upfront during the application process for a job at the Health Department, a Government Job, that I must pass a background check. In such instances, employers don't ask about our full and complete background. They don't ask your friends, associates, clients, and others what they think about your character. Admittedly, that is hard for an employer to do.  

This is a common phrase for checking to see if a person has been convicted of or charged with a crime. The problem is that we all know the criminal justice system is far from perfect.  

Starting now, though, I'm going to challenge these flaws in all I do. I will challenge this system when I apply for volunteer work. I will challenge the system when I apply to work with children through a church or some agency or organization. I will challenge the system that harmed me when I apply for employment. As a person who works in the human services field, this will become very pertinent. Will employers, agencies, and organizations get to know me first before they assume that the "eyes of the law" are seeing the real me?  

It is my argument that the vision of me that you get from a background check does not resemble me at all. This is crucial to understand if I am going to jobs in my field. It is also crucial to understand as I pursue any of the ways I would like to occupy my time. There is nothing more triggering and painful than to be denied a right to work with children through the church to which I was a member because of what was going to show up on my background check. Such pain cost me my faith. It seemed that if there was a God who was good that God would not allow such harm and pain to come to me.  

I knew that when the Health Department did a background check they were going to find a felony on my record and so this would be one of those many times going forward where I was going to have to explain how I was actually the victim and that I did no wrong.  

I had gone to the Community Empowerment Fund which serves the needy and others who are struggling in life - they are located in my town of Chapel Hill North Carolina - and met with someone who helps people with criminal backgrounds and we went to the website that had the words "Public Safety" at the top of the page. Sure enough, a violent Class E felony was found on my background check.  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

This was the event that occurred in 2004 when a woman named Ana violently and brutally assaulted me. The incident in which the first police on the scene saw that I clearly was the victim of a bloody assault. If there had been cameras inside my apartment Ana would have been in prison and I would have sued the landlord - her husband - for sending his wife to attack me and then accusing me of a crime.  

In the "eyes of the law" I am listed as the perpetrator based on a background check. In using this language of the "eyes of the law" we are personifying "the law" as if it was a person. If that was the case, we would need to get glasses for "the law" so that it could see more clearly. No one should ever walk out of their apartment to greet the police covered in blood from head to foot and then be placed in jail like a criminal!  

That's how Kafkaesque my life has been since 2004 - meaning surreal and nightmarish. I tried to explain this to my counselor at Vocational Rehabilitation, Eric Peters, when I was arrested, referring to Kafka's story "The Trial" but Eric said that my story didn't match that of "The Trial" because I knew what my charges were. Perhaps, it didn't fit the story perfectly but from my point of view, I had called the police after being brutally assaulted and they arrived to see me covered in blood and took witness statements and did everything necessary to establish that I was the victim. Yet, an hour or so later different police officers from the same police department showed up and within twelve hours, I was in jail and the perpetrator, Ana was transformed into a victim. If that's not surreal and nightmarish, I don't know what is!

Now, in 2020, I am going to have to see if employers, agencies, and organizations will either not care about the poor eyesight of the law or if they will overlook it, or not care about events that far in the past. After all, if a person was the perpetrator of a violent felony that person would have a history and pattern of similar behavior. In my case, I had a history and pattern of helping others who were dealing with emotional and psychological distress. So, it has always been impossible for me to harm another person.  

Knowing the application process wouldn't go anywhere without me passing a background check, I realized I should address the matter upfront. Some people recently have given me advice that is different from the advice of others. My friend Suzanne said I shouldn't mention it unless asked. A caseworker who is helping me also suggested I should not bring up the topic until I get further into the job application process. Others have said to be open and forthright from the beginning, explaining that they will find something in my background check. There is another situation that is hard to address. When one fills out an application, it may ask if one has ever been charged or convicted of a crime or a felony. I could say "no" and explain that I thought it was implied to mean within the past 7 to 10 years or less.  

I have sought assistance for traumatic experiences in my life that include this event of being violently assaulted but which also include other incidents of victimization that I may discuss elsewhere in my memoirs. I have been receiving the services of the Orange County Rape Crisis Center (OCRCC). An employee there has written a letter that asks that employers disregard the information that will show up on my background check records. She, the individual at OCRCC who wrote the letter on behalf of the agency states that I am receiving their services as a victim and that she is aware of other incidents in which abusers or perpetrators manipulate the system to further victimize and abuse others.  

Let's step back for a moment and consider the broader notion of a "background check." We could consider the references section of an application. That should count for something. Our friends and professional references should be able to comment on our character and while that is not proof of our true character or the full story, it's still in my case, four or more people who will present a different picture of me than one individual named Ana. So, there's that.  

If we consider this job where I would be helping the homeless, my passion for helping others will be obvious in particular for helping those who are vulnerable, poor, and dealing with other forms of adversity, emotional problems, and psychological issues. You will hear about my passion for helping to confront the challenges of racism and other forms of discrimination. That passion will be unmistakable along with my compassion.  

As a quick note, dear reader, I am not implying that I am better than you. I am not stating that I am a saint or an angel. To brag is not very becoming of a person. Also, I don't want to use religious language to describe my character. I'm also not making a political statement about poverty, homelessness, racism, or discrimination. I'm not proposing any general statements about how people become poor, homeless, or disadvantaged. This is not a commentary on any of those issues. I am merely making statements that appeal to common sense. Hopefully.

So, what else can we consider when evaluating my character based on my background? My degree of passion can be conveyed subjectively in my words and statements.  However, it helps to have a verified history to support the character image I am presenting. To be more specific, I am talking about my history of hard work and effort that I employed over the years to become a social worker, or more specifically a once Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I did not take any short cuts or misrepresent myself at any point along my educational and career trajectory. These details can be confirmed and verified. In doing so, one can verify the commitment I have had for helping others to cope with emotional and psychological distress and pain. This should imply that I would not harm another person because I am uniquely aware of the lasting harm that occurs when one is victimized.  

I began my career and educational journey by volunteering at the Georgia Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. It would be hard to verify that my concern for helping others began at age 18 when I was first an adult. I was learning how to overcome my shyness so that I could consider entering the field of Social Work. I was at the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1984 through 1989. I could sign a release of information form to gain access to my counseling records at Georgia Tech if such records are retained for over 30 years. That's unlikely. One could determine from the University of South Carolina (USC) that I did work at Georgia Regional Hospital as a volunteer with the Social Work team because it was only as a result of the letters of recommendation from the staff that I was able to get into the University of South Carolina in 1994.  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

I spent about three years completing my Masters in Social Work degree at USC because I began as a part-time student. I thought I needed to work while going to school for my graduate degree because that idea was planted in me by my family of origin, more specifically, by my parents at the time. To be clear, they wanted me to work as an engineer, despite the fact that my supervisor at Digital Equipment Corporation Bruce Smith could easily see that I wasn't going to be able to get a job as an engineer. He knew what any employer would know that engineering was a very poor match for me. My parents and my siblings knew this as well but I don't know what they did with this knowledge.  

I did get a temporary job doing some software development at the National Science Foundation at Fort Gordon Georgia while living with my parents. It was temporary and so they weren't looking for a person who would be a long term employee of the company. I was a subcontractor. At around the same time that I doing this, I was volunteering at Georgia Regional Hospital. The year was 1991 and by April of the next year, I was living in Wilmington North Carolina. Within two years of moving to Wilmington in 92, I was beginning my graduate program in Social Work at the University of South Carolina.  

At Georgia Tech I had learned a great number of skills - social skills - while discovering my true calling in life. I had entered college at Georgia Tech in 1984 with the intention of studying engineering to become an engineer. At the time, I didn't know who I really was. Self-discovery and self-exploration was not something that was nurtured while growing up. I had not overcome or truly attempted to overcome my shyness. The key point to recognize was that I was able to overcome being shy because I thought the world was basically a safe place and that nothing bad would happen if I came out of my shell, metaphorically speaking. I will be the first to admit that some of my background stories involve commentary on my personal observations. However, it should be obvious that a common thread and theme can be followed as we examine my life story and extrapolate my character from the observations.

I moved to Wilmington for a six-month position with Corning - a glass-making company among other things - as a technical writer. That job lasted about 6 months and then I entered the human services field. I began working with companies and organizations that served those who had disabilities based on developmental disorders and mental illness. The ARC and similar organizations were hiring individuals to provide direct care services to children and adults with physical, psychological, and developmental disorders or disabilities. While living in Wilmington North Carolina, I found work with that agency and others and also connected with the New Hanover County Center for Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services.  New Hanover County was the county that included Wilmington as the largest city in the area.

I also began to work as a volunteer under the supervision of Dr. Chris Hauge (referred to going forth as Chris) at "The Oaks" psychiatric hospital which has been a part of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, NC. Chris was a mentor for me and quite an inspiration.  Not many social workers go on to receive their doctorate degree like the Master's degree is a terminal degree ( meaning no formal college or university education is required to continue to work in the field). Chris saw the budding talent in me and tried to nurture it. He inspired me with his compassion and empathy for others as well as his willingness to use self-disclosure with his patients, clients, and anyone else who decided to join the groups he facilitated at "The Oaks." It was inspiring to recognize how the nurses at The Oaks were encouraged if not required to attend his groups and that they weren't given the opportunity to get off the hook when it came to sharing their personal experiences as participants during the therapy groups.  

I knew that events that might have occurred when I was a very young child had an impact on my life decades later. I don't know why my parents told me I never had a baby sitter who molested me when I was in elementary school. I had distinct memories of the gifts he had given me - a stuffed frog - and the house where he lived as well as a name, a name that was very similar to the names of a couple of my classmates. The idea and experience of lasting harm that comes from physical and sexual abuse or assault were seared into my memory.  

The person who molested me had the same first name as the person with whom I competed in math during elementary school. I know that predators use the courts to silence their victims so I am not going to offer his full name in my story here.  He was at least 4 years older than I was. He lived two or three houses down from the intersection with the road that intersects with his street if one were driving toward St. Dominic's Catholic Church.  

The point is that this event prior to becoming a therapist and prior to getting a Masters in Social Work was seared into my memory. I would NEVER seek to impose such a traumatic memory onto the psyche of any person. Such trauma can come from sexual abuse but also from physical assault/abuse as well as emotional and psychological abuse. I knew that as a kid growing up in Southington Connecticut. That's where I lived as a child until I went off to college at eighteen. Granted, no single event caused me to be so shy and fearful growing up or throughout my life. Yet the shame of my victimization left an indelible mark on me.  

This was coming out of nowhere in the survivor groups, the Gestalt therapy, inner-child groups that were run by Chris at The Oaks.  I only tried to discuss the matter once with my parents when I found the once buried memories rising to the surface. During my second internship at the University of South Carolina (USC) where I was working at the Oaks in Wilmington North Carolina, which is where I lived, these topics came up again during the groups. I lived in Wilmington and had all my classes on Fridays at the USC in Columbia, SC. I suppose they assumed that many students might want to have all their classes on one day and a Friday.  

I would check into a dorm room on Thursday in advance of my classes on Friday - three classes lasting three hours each per semester. Since I spread things out for 3 years instead of two, I could have four classes instead of five for the final year of my graduate degree studies. One of those classes was the internship which I was doing during the week. During my second year internship, I was working at The Oaks during the week. During my graduate years, I was between the ages of 28 and 30, in the years from 94 to 96.  

I felt like an undergraduate living in the dorm rooms at a major university. The O.J. Simpson trial was on TV and it occupied my interests on those Thursday evenings before classes the next day. Lynn was the love of my life and we lived on Brucemont Drive in Wilmington. What more could a person want? I assumed that my family was proud of me. I had succeeded in turning failure into success or so it seemed. I had failed to find an appropriate degree for myself as an undergraduate but that's okay. I figured it out and on my own made things work. Lynn had CF (Cystic Fibrosis) as mentioned elsewhere in this book. Her health was exceptionally well for a person with CF during these years. 

Sure she was thin but I challenge anyone to see this or recognize her disease without hearing her cough at this time. For what it's worth, Lynn was the type who would leave any man who dared to hurt her. She would be alone if the men she met didn't stand up to her strict requirements. At the time, I recall a discussion with a friend of hers where we discussed the movie "Titanic." Lynn wasn't given to emotionality in romance. She rejected the choice of Rose to jump and be with her boyfriend (or was it the other way around?). She saw no value in illogical romantic decisions. Her friend and I disagreed on this matter. We couldn't imagine a life without the love of our life. Lynn was more practical.  

I could add that Christianity made no sense to Lynn but this doesn't really add to the point I am trying to make here. Lynn was a survivalist. She certainly wasn't going to pair up with someone who didn't love and respect her fully. Acting with aggression was something that never occurred to me but upon reflection, if it had ever been a temptation, I know that it would spell the immediate end of our relationship forever.  

Again, I assumed my family was proud of me. I was successful in achieving not one but two degrees. They were well aware that I wasn't going to be able to work as an engineer and they couldn't fund my graduate degree. I never expected them to do so. I was in Wilmington with my own life, a fiancé/wife.  

As you can see, dear reader, being accused of a violent crime was the last thing on my mind - the furthest from my imagination. I was too full of empathy and compassion. I was too innocent. I was too feminine in nature. I had no notion of the criminal mind - the mind of a psychopath. Psychology was a tool for understanding why we suffer... how to be a better parent. Psychology was and has been a tool for overcoming stress, anxiety, and depression among other things.  

One might think that a person like me who was well versed in psychology would have an understanding of dangerous personalities. However, that was not the case for me. We learned about how to help others not how to detect predators or psychopaths. I suppose I have become a bit like Lynn, very practical. The extent to which I have given up romance and emotional reasoning is underappreciated. Don't get me wrong, my field of expertise hasn't changed - rather it is coming back around to where it should have remained. The only area of hope for my success, employment, or where I should occupy my time has returned to the one truth that I have long known.  

I am supposed to be a social worker.  

So, there's that.  

I suppose I should have written all this prior to run across John Freifeld or Ana whatever her last name was. I had lived a sheltered existence growing up. It's unlikely that one is going to run across a predator or a psychopath in the part of Southington Connecticut where I lived. I never had the first clue that I was going to run across such individuals until I did meet them. The fears I had growing up where that of threats that took their form in the mind of a child or a teenager from the horror movies we watched.  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

Continuing with my story, in 1996, after getting my degree I worked in a private psychiatric hospital and then in public mental health. This was outside my local county and it was full-time. I haven't listed every job I had during the 1990s in and around the time when I was pursuing a graduate degree in Social Work. I worked multiple jobs on different days of the week during the same time period.    

It's important to note that none of those I served could be asked to provide a character reference. Unlike Freifeld, I never thought I needed such a character reference. This individual Freifeld (John Freifeld) comes up a number of times in my life-story. I haven't had much experience with dangerous people or psychopaths. I haven't had much exposure to dangerous personalities - at least not those who would deliberately and purposefully prey on others.  

Those who keep the confidentiality of our clients and patients do not have the opportunity to seek out character references from the many individuals we have helped over the years. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to understand that someone with my background has helped and/or had contact with hundreds of people. In fact, one could understand how such an individual like me would have helped hundreds of people in the decade that spanned from 1990 to 2000. There are easier ways to find opportunities to prey on individuals than the path I followed. It was John Freifeld who tried to project his own disturbed mind onto my motivations within my field.  

Why can't such a clever "support person" as he claimed he figured out the true character of someone to whom he is referring clients in Wilmington and surrounding areas? The fact was that he was never clever, educated, or skilled in the field.  

Individuals like myself go through all the proper channels to gain the skills and opportunities to help others. We understand the importance of our work and the fragile nature of the human mind and psyche. We are passionately concerned about not doing any harm to anyone who is vulnerable.  

As described here and which can be verified I did not take any short cuts. I did not provide services that I was not trained to provide. I obtained all the proper training, supervision, and expertise to be the best possible therapist. The training, education, supervision, and work experience can be verified. There will be other areas in my background that are harder to verify but I hope that the outline and the verifiable elements of my story paint a picture of someone who would not ever harm an individual. It is reasonable to assume that an individual like myself would appreciate the lasting harm that comes from any form of violence.  

It's also reasonable to assume that the story of having been molested as a child would be consistent with the passionate desire to help others. Contrary to common beliefs, we don't assume that every psychiatric condition worthy of concern is a trauma disorder. However, we certainly understand that stress or trauma would seriously harm a vulnerable person. That should be common sense.     

What is disturbing now is that this story might have an impact on my ability to work in a position where I would be helping others. 

The police in Durham who interrogated me in 2004 did not seek to discover these historical details. To their credit, those who were first on the scene in Durham on Holloway Street did treat me as a victim and went about their duties like any police officer called to a brutal assault. They took statements from the witnesses. They assumed that every witness had some basic humanity and the ability to report factually what they had observed. I don't have the facts or the insight to know what was going through the minds of the detectives who showed up after the first responders left. They seemed not to place any stock in the reports from their fellow colleagues and partners on the police force in Durham.   

Again, what is disturbing now is that this story might have an impact on my ability to work in a position where I would be helping others. How is it that one person can destroy the life of another person who has helped countless others? How is it that this person can keep a person like myself from helping others who are in need of the skills, talents, and compassion that I have? The job at the Health Department is the first test of this. Previously, I tried to pursue other jobs in other fields to no avail. It's not possible for a person to find meaning, success, or a job in a field that is inconsistent with one's true calling, especially a job which has no similarities with that true calling and career fit.  

No matter how much my parents wanted me to work as an engineer thirty plus years ago, it's just not possible. I'm not a con-artist who can trick employers into thinking that I am the perfect candidate for an engineering job. No matter how much I tried, they were going to figure out that something wasn't right. I'm not saying that my family asked me to be a con-artist 30 plus years ago but they wanted me to work as an engineer. Even my sister who knew 32 years ago that I was in the wrong field wondered why I didn't work as an engineer when I was in my twenties.  

I suppose my sister was too busy to consider the practical aspects of entering an entirely new field that had no similarity or overlap with engineering. I suppose Carrie never contemplated the methods and practical aspects of gaining entrance into graduate studies in an entirely different field of study. They knew I was shy and that was why I hadn't pursued a career in social work. Beyond that, I had hoped they were all proud of me for what I had accomplished.  

Is this proof that I could not possibly have committed the crime? Who knows the answer to that. At the time, I was discouraged by the insistence that the detectives had of my guilt. I cannot imagine a story that was more obviously misconstrued. I was covered in blood, literally, when I emerged from the apartment and the attacker left without a scratch. Yet somehow the detectives who later showed up insisted that she was the victim! Even her story of being on the floor where her attacker is over her doesn't make sense when you consider the facts. She left the apartment without a scratch. According to her story, she should have had all my blood all over her.  

I applied for work at the Health Department working with the homeless. I have to pass a background check to be considered for this job.  In North Carolina, it's very relevant what was alleged to have happened over ten years ago. If that were not the case, this chapter of my book would not exist or it would be entirely different. I'd be writing about how I overcame adversity and negative comments about my character. Previously, I overcame negative comments about my ability to work as a Social Worker. That was during my first-year internship. They weren't commenting upon my character. I didn't have a criminal record nor did I imagine I ever would have a criminal record.  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

In the nineties, I was trying to prove my talents and expertise in a new field - a field that was new to me. I still was in need of further expertise with the new social skills I was learning or had learned in the eighties. There were a few kinks that had to be worked out. My supervisors during that first year when I worked on the child and adolescent unit were over-generalizing my deficits to my ability to work as a Social Worker at all. After a short assignment on the child and adolescent unit, I worked with the day program for individuals with chronic and persistent mental illness as well as working with the homeless program in the afternoons.  

During the afternoons, I was not given a great deal of direction and that was problematic for me. The mental health center was working with the largest organization that was serving the homeless in and around Wilmington. It was one of the larger churches which seemed to have the most resources to serve the homeless in the area. I found a way to make a difference by creating a "street sheet." This was a map of downtown Wilmington based on the Wilmington bus routes. I took a map from the bus routes and used that to create the street sheet of resources in the area. When I found myself homeless in 2001 this street sheet that I created was still in use.

In 2001, with my wife dying and on IV antibiotics, I was dragged down to Wilmington like a dangerous criminal. This was the pinnacle of shame and I felt like my victimization would neither be believed nor should it be something which I ever discussed to anyone. Lynn was fighting for her life and I had no supports. Upon arrival in Wilmington and after release from jail I contacted my friend, the first person I met in Wilmington - Jean Arthur Jones. Jean was the poet who had gone further in his education than any of us in Wilmington. Jean was the guy whose name was listed in the newspaper (it wasn't the Wilmington Star-News but it was the independent paper that described opportunities for individuals to spend their time when they weren't working).  

I had been dragged down to Wilmington shortly after 9/11 when the public defender who first represented me in late 2000 had failed to get phone records following John Freifeld's false and unsubstantiated claims that I had hairdressing phone calls to him. In stating that these were unsubstantiated, it can be verified that I had not had any contact with him in months prior to his claims that I called and threatened him. I had assumed that nothing would come of his accusations because I had no experience with the criminal justice system in America. I wrongly assumed that such claims would require that one have evidence of these alleged phone calls.  

Not so. Indeed, if you can BS a judge into believing you then you can convict an individual - me - with zero evidence. This would set up a series of experiences with the law in North Carolina where I was resigned to accept that one public defender in North Carolina doesn't care about justice and two that the truth has no meaning at all. Once I demanded that the public defender assigned to me obtain the phone records to prove my innocence I would learn that proof of innocence was hard to establish after the first phase of a court proceeding. I can state that because, in late 2001, the lawyer who did finally get the phone records had proof that John Freifeld's accusations were false on one of the two occasions when I was alleged to have called and harassed him.  

The public defender assigned to me said that wasn't enough. I have no idea why he couldn't get records for both days when the alleged phone calls were separated by no more than 3 days, they were alleged to have occurred on a Friday and a Monday. Obviously, I was already traumatized and shamed by the entire experience. I had sat in a room outside the courtroom with other accused individuals with a place to urinate in the room with some 15 to 20 individuals. I had been brought down to Wilmington in chains like a wild animal because of a "failure to appear." That lawyer who failed to get the phone records before a trial in front of a judge could not keep me from an arrest warrant and being dragged down in chains!

I don't remember much about the day in court but I knew it was not the end of the matter. I had to stay in Wilmington until the matter was resolved. I was just 34 and had not progressed much in the past year or so. I had the MSW (Masters in Social Work) degree from 1996 and the experience working a few jobs as a Social Worker or Therapist. One of the first jobs after graduate school was as a "therapist" at Brynn Marr psychiatric hospital. Later I worked as "Social Worker III" at a public mental health center in Clinton (Sampson County) North Carolina, prior to entering private practice. 

Upon receiving my MSW I soon entered private practice by renting space at the location where Chris Hauge (mentioned above) had been working and renting an office. Chris only charged me a meager rate of $10 or $15 per hour when I needed to use the office. He was about to retire so he didn't need the office as much. I had been studying Clinical Hypnosis as a tool for helping others to heal from stress, anxiety, and depression, along with other conditions that did not involve any form of psychosis.  

Beginning as an intern, Chris has cautioned against using hypnosis with individuals who had poor reality testing. There were a few occasions where I felt comfortable using hypnosis with individuals with psychotic disorders. Obviously, this was after my internship years with Chris, and after I had my professional license.   

I understand, dear reader, that there are elements of this story that are hard to prove and verify with one hundred percent certainty. That being said, I would be truly astonished if anyone can come up with an alternative story about how a person like me ends up harming a woman in Durham at age 38. I would be astonished by the creativity of a lawyer who can come up with an explanation for how a person like me, Bruce Whealton, harms a woman named Ana. What are you going to suggest that I became frustrated and angry that I was poor and facing homelessness, so I decided to harm the landlord's wife because she might have been attractive? Really?  Without any evidence of any aggressive or violent behavior ever in my life I suddenly and for no apparent reason decided to harm a woman?   

Does that even remotely make sense to you, dear reader?  

Of course not! Ana made the accusation that I tried to pull down her pants in October of 2004 which was three years after the events of 2001 when I was dragged down to Wilmington like an animal for making harassing phone calls (allegedly). Again, my public defender, for reasons unknown to me, could only prove my innocence on one of the two occasions in which I was supposed to have called him and harasser him. It's mind-boggling how a predator who has harmed countless women from Texas to New Jersey and elsewhere would pass the credibility test against someone who followed all the rules and guidelines to get licensed to be a therapist!

I'm not going to presume to know what any reader might be thinking but I would be fascinated by anyone who can come up with a logical theory as to why I would have hurt Ana or anyone for that matter.  

Facts and evidence didn't seem to matter to the two detectives who rejected my honest statements about victimization. This didn't matter to the Durham Herald-Sun either. The reported that Bruce Whealton, the same name as my father, had sexually assaulted or attempted to sexually assault a girl. My attacker was not a girl nor was she a victim. She was a brutal and violent perpetrator who viscously attacked me with her fist and hands ripping through my face. This was documented by the police who first arrived on the scene in response to my immediate 911 call. Based on the fact that Freifeld accurately reproduced a story by the Durham Herald-Sun, I was told last year in 2019 that there was nothing I could do.  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

The lawyers at Merritt, Webb, Wilson & Caruso, PLLC said there was no hope of a resolution or remedy for the matter. They are the pre-paid legal firm for the area. They were not responsive or helpful in 2004 nor were they in 2019. If you seek alternatives for pre-paid legal services in the triangle area of North Carolina, you are out of luck.   

You could hope that within a couple of years of the victimization you realize that you should sue the city and/or the state. That's an idea that I got from the TV series "Unbelievable." It's a true story about how a sixteen-year-old girl gets raped by a serial rapist and the police do not believe her. Luckily her case can be solved within the time frame of the "statute of limitations" on matters of this nature. Why was I being shown this story in 2019 a decade after I could do anting about my situation? When I first watched the series I still believed that civil matters had no relationship to the results of a criminal matter and that there were no statutes of limitations on such matters.  

In North Carolina, I cannot seek a civil remedy or a criminal remedy. I can't sue Jimmy the landlord and his wife nor can I charge Ana with a crime. In fact, I cannot even get this expunged. Not in North Carolina!  Nope!

Deal with it! Why are you so upset Bruce, it's about fifteen years later?  

Maybe it's because I might not pass a background check. Maybe it's because I might never work in my field! It's only five years of undergraduate school and three years of graduate school plus all the other years of work in the field.  

Surely lawyers and judges in North Carolina must have a conscience. Surely, the detectives who interrogated me must be thinking, if they read this, "oh, my God, I can't believe I screwed up so profoundly!"  

What were they thinking? He's male and she's female. Let's ignore the blood evidence. Let's ignore the statements of our colleagues who reported an assault by a stranger on Holloway Street. Did they become tired when I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear? I didn't have access to the story that my attacker had brought to the police. So, I couldn't give them a story that would make them happy. Before they had a chance to discuss anything with anyone who ever knew me, they had me in an outfit for those who were suicidal.  

They were getting ready to send me to a jail full of psychopaths and real criminals and I was terrified. The insanity had begun a few hours previously. They had asked to speak to "Brucie." I would later learn that Ana had decided to tell them I had different personalities. It was just a few weeks before the assault that I told Ana's husband, the landlord, that I had worked with people who had DID - dissociative identity disorder. The nature of this condition was unusual enough to create an interest in anyone in society now or then.  

Someone like me might find schizophrenia equally disturbing but for the average person, this was fascinating. They weren't so concerned with how a person developed this condition, only the nature of the disorder. So, as an example to illustrate the condition, I suggested that if I had DID then maybe one of my personalities might have the name of Brucie. This was what my maternal grandfather had called me when I was a kid.  

I didn't know how to respond when the detectives asked to speak to Brucie. My friend Wes Clark said that they might have irritated when I finally acquiesced to their demands and pretended to be Brucie for them. It seemed easier than going along with their story about how "things got out of hand" and Ana got hurt. No, things were "out of hand" the moment she locked the door behind herself and started punching me in the face for no apparent reason. The moment her hands or fists ripped through the flesh on my face things were out of hand. 

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs

Does any of this matter sixteen years later to an employer? Actually, the employer might be concerned with how things were resolved in 2006. That's when I rushed to Durham to avoid missing a court date. I was terrified of the consequences of anything going wrong. If I thought that things had gone wrong previously, I was in for a surprise beyond imagination.  

This highly-rated public defender had met with me all of two or three times in the years between 2004 and 2006. The longest meeting lasted less than 30 minutes. He had explained that he would have to put me on the stand and I would just have to be honest and genuine and that no jury would believe I was guilty of a crime like this. He specifically didn't want to prepare me for trial and I was not in a position to argue about the matter.  

I arrived in Durham feeling very winded. I had rushed from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus where I made a call on a phone that became free at one of the libraries. This is what you do if you are homeless. You hang out at one of the two main libraries on campus which usually have scores of computers that are available for anonymous users. You look for jobs and in my case, you worry about what will become of your future.  

I wondered if I would go to prison and that terrified me beyond belief. I had trouble processing the entire matter during the seven months I was in jail or during the months after that when I was on the streets of Chapel Hill.  

Things like this don't leave one feeling confident or good about themselves. They certainly challenge one's religious faith and make even the most religious of individuals into atheists. I understand that this might not be easy to understand for the average person. Maybe it's good that most people don't go through events like this.  

The problem is in trying to make a story like this illustrate a larger phenomenon or reality in the world or in one's community. Every once in awhile I run across the rare story that resonates with my own experiences. As mentioned above, the TV series "Unbelievable" is one such story that resonates with me. Why? Because it's about not being believed. It's also about being harmed first by one's attacker and then by the police, the courts and etc. As stated previously, my exposure to this story was fifteen years too late... too late to see the perpetrator go to prison... too late to sue the city, the state, and the perpetrators. Clearly, the landlord had put his wife up to this since the landlord was seeking to evict me at the time.  

As things stand now, it's too late to even get this expunged.  

On that fateful day in 2006, I arrived in Durham after catching a few buses to get to Durham from Chapel Hill. Remember I called my lawyer from a phone at a library on the UNC campus. There my public defender suborned perjury. I can't prove that but he claimed to believe me not that long before this when he explained how no jury was going to believe I committed this crime and that I would be asked to take the stand to address the jury. Yet here he was threatening me. He said that I should have known the penalty if I was convicted.

Why and how should I know the penalty? He never had the time to discuss such matters. How does an average person know these things and prepare for them?  

I was told I MUST plead guilty to the second-degree kidnapping charge and that he got the sexual assault allegation and charge dropped. Wow! what an accomplishment! Elsewhere I have discussed the multitude of failures on his part.  

I was in a fog and outside myself as I walked down the aisle taking a seat next to my lawyer. I was so shy and terrified. The judge never asked as they do on TV if I have any psychiatric diagnosis or if I am on any medications. He just went to the point where he looks at me and asked if I was satisfied with my legal representation. I remarked that "I wasn't sure" trying to express my utter shock in arriving at this point in front of a judge.  

Then he asked, "are you in fact guilty?"

I stated, "that's what my lawyer told me to say for the purpose of this plea."  

I was still trying to process the entire reality of these series of events. What exactly did guilt mean? It used to mean in situations like this that one caused harm to another person. However, in this instance, I was the one who had been harmed a year and a half previously in October of 2004.  

It seemed that this was the end of my life as I once knew it. Forever!  

Reality itself had been shattered into a million tiny pieces.  

I had not considered a meaningful permanent job until this year. One of the most recent job applications stated that I must pass a background check. This makes about as much sense as the question "are you in fact guilty?"  

I can pass that background check perhaps only if they ignore what it says on that website where the words "Public Safety" appear across the top. I'll pass only if you ignore what one person said about me in 2004 and that with which the police detectives and the prosecutor ran. Even my attacker didn't want to testify. It's not like she was frightened of me. She made sure of that.  

I was raised Catholic and I tried to volunteer with the children's group a number of years back. It was about 2010 and Catholic priests were under huge scrutiny. What did that have to do with me?

Neither the truth nor reality mattered nor possibly would it ever matter. All that matters is what it says on that database on a website that has the words "Public Safety" across the top.   

How is it that one or two people can totally destroy a person's life forever?  

This article can be found along with other stories at from my memoirs at this link Applying For Work: The Challenges and Barriers: From my memoirs