You can read the why and the what, here.
I went to Baton Rouge for reasons I still did not fully understand at that moment. I grew up in a rather strict cult purporting to be Christian. It was not. It was filled with emotional and spiritual abuse, leading to physical abuse, strained relationships, stunted flourishing, and a host of other issues. However, growing up, I had formed a close relationship with a family in the sect, and after somewhat reconnecting, I felt a strong urge to go and see them one more time. The mother had died, and the father – a U.S. Marine himself – was bedridden and not long for this world. I think maybe the reason I went there was because my mentor had asked me why I kept going back to Becca when I knew, both personally and with my professional training, how unhealthy it was. What was my type? What was my pattern? I had to understand this to break it and maybe, maybe, end the cycles of bad relationships.
I have this burning need to discover things, either about the world or about myself. That and honesty be able to have an answer. That was why I initially went to seminary, because someone I had daily argued with told me that because I did not have an advanced degree, I could not comment on a verse. Oddly enough, when I got that degree, he demanded yet another degree to speak with him. Maybe that is also one of the reasons I went into the counseling field, to better understand people – to better understand myself. Thus, going to Louisiana was in every way more about me achieving something of a self-understanding and getting closure with that part of my past that I had, in many ways, abandoned than it was about seeing my dying friend. In some ways, even in the good that we do, we can be selfish.
I was born in Baton Rouge, in a charity hospital, when they used to have those. My family was poor, and I spent most of the 80s with one pair of shoes at a time, regardless of how they fit. We would go hunting and crawfishing in the swamps, and later, when I was older, we hunted alligators for the food not supplied by the government. That is a story all in of itself set on a very cold December night, cruising the lake around Pierre Port. My parents were divorced, and custody was split. Somehow, for some reason, I gravitated towards my father. I think that is because his cult gave me something I did not have otherwise. I was an awkward kid who would have rather spent time reading than anything else. I didn’t care for sports or the outdoors (such as hunting and fishing). I would have rather watched Star Trek on repeat. Granted, they did not believe in television or fiction books, either. I did not fit in anywhere. The cult gave me something different. Here, we were the chosen ones, and all our plights, toils, and troubles were easily explained – the world was evil and out to get us, and only by a strict adherence to the religion that had clearly skipped 2000 years could we find ourselves blessed enough to have a 50/50 shot at making it to heaven. It gave me a world of black and white, which is what my mind craved, simply because it helped me make sense and provided structure for what I was experiencing. The world is bad; God is good. Simple.
When I chose to live with my father at age 12, I came quickly to realize that the grass was not as green as I had been led to believe. Rather than the freedom to read, wander around, and be loved, I was controlled, abused, and living with someone deeply paranoid about everyone and everything. He could not maintain friendships, even within the cult. His fear that somehow, I would be killed would even keep me from going to school some days. Of course, I didn’t mind because the town I had moved into – Central, Louisiana, which is now a real city – was upper middle class, and I was still trying to get up into the lower class of poverty. His paranoia also meant that I required a babysitter – which I had until I moved back to my mother’s when I was 16. The family, the only other family in the cult, technically raised me, and it was this family I was going to see on my trip south.
The mother could be kind, compassionate, and loving, and suddenly, without any reason, I could detect, change into a raging, anger-filled, cursing woman who believed easily enough that if you spared the rod – belt or wooden spoon as it were – then you certainly spoiled the child. I never knew where I stood with anyone. This caused such anxiety in me that I did not get rid of it until I was in my 30s, and even now, I can sometimes feel it creep in. This is not to say that she or the family was bad. They, too, were a product of their raising, but it still inflected emotional damage on me that I had only recently come to understand was the reason I was choosing the women I did.
She had passed some years before due to cancer. I had lost contact with all the family, intentionally, but something inside of me suggested I reconnect with them, and I did. The only one I did get to see of the three siblings I was raised with was the youngest. Somehow, even though the sect had disintegrated some years, or decades, before she had managed to integrate some of the strictest beliefs with new allowances, such as watching TV, going to doctors, and letting her children wear shorts and skirts and play in sports. This was such a taboo growing up that it startled me even to see it within her family, although I had done the same for the last 20 years. It was almost like stepping back into my childhood when the old ways suddenly resurfaced, and I became judgmental and bitter. I did not let that stop me from enjoying my time there but listening to the old stories and the new stories of more anger, betrayal, and generally what we would call backbiting helped me to clear my head further and understand where my pattern of life choices had stemmed.
There are these a-ha moments — epiphanies or revelations, as others may call them. Such moments give us dopamine in the brain and cause a slight euphoria. I had several of these moments during this time, but I can tell you none of them caused me euphoria. Rather, I think more than anything, there was pain that I had in some way taken that which I thought I had abandoned in my childhood with me through adulthood and kept holding onto the worst parts of it all, including the way that I perceived love and relationships – the way I accepted abuse in relationships, believing that was what love truly was. I spent much the time while driving or sleeping deep in thought about how suddenly my entire sense of being made sense and then working on a way to start to identify these red flags, which are nothing more than magnets, pulling me ever so closely to my doom so that I could escape the next time. What I was also realizing was that Becca and I were not the match that I thought we were and that what was coming to the surface was how much she was like my ex-wife. This retrospective viewing of the past two years started to make me ill.
At the same time, while all of this was going on in my personal life and deep in my subconsciousness, my company was going through a financial crisis. The insurance company that had promised a deep well of monetary support for me to open a primary care practice had not only withdrawn their support but was working from the inside to destroy my company. I know this all sounds conspiratorial or like I’m shoving off the blame. I carry plenty of blame for my own leadership, but there are too many coincidences to ignore that the insurance company empowered by the state had it out for me. They had turned to using people who worked in my company, or who had worked for my company, as is the case of Dan, or known liars in the community to try to bring me down. One of these included the girlfriend of my friend Rich, who, while I was upholding every promise I made to him, and she was still working for me — was doing her best to take down my company. There is a backstory, of course. I had treated her for several years in her severe addiction and had even placed myself between her and law enforcement to keep her from going to jail for something she clearly should have gone to jail for, and I did that several times. I found no rest for the weary, and the weary being my heart and head. I was at a breaking point. I started to contemplate my own death to alleviate the problems targeting my company.
My company was the most important thing to me. Not in the materialistic way that one might think, but because it encapsulated all my ideals of helping others who could not help themselves. We would pay rent, buy food or a car occasionally for those who needed a second chance or a helping hand when all others had turned against them. So often, this came out of my own pocket. I also believed in paying people well, and we did that, sometimes a great more than the local average. You cannot take money with you, so I made sure that we gave it out to the people who worked and the people we worked with.
My thoughts about taking my own life were manifold. I could escape being a target for others, and I was always a target no matter what I did or where I went. I was a target. I did not feel like I deserved love or that anybody would ever understand who I truly was. I felt like maybe if I was out of the picture, then maybe the company and what it stood for could be saved. I felt like I was tired, tired of fighting this battle called life alone. When I had to sign those papers for my friend, feeling the guilt of having bought him the motorcycle, having to say the words I needed to the doctor, and everything else that went along with it, I was tired.
I started to work out a plan. I started to write my goodbye letters. I was being crushed in every way, personally and professionally, and while I did have friends, they could not understand the depth of guilt and hurt I was experiencing. As a crisis responder, I would have to respond to numerous calls from people contemplating suicide. Part of the values of a therapist is that we cannot impose our values upon another, and it was at some point in the last few years I began to question whether or not trying to talk someone out of suicide or going the extra step of placing them on a mental health hold was not us in some way, or in every way, imposing our values that their life mattered upon them when they had decided that the only way to preserve the sanctity of their life was to take it. This became clearer to me, and I started to shrink away from others.
I remember when I was an undergrad, I was taking a sociology and religion class. The professor was arguing that we had no such thing as human instincts, to which I responded that there are, in fact, human instincts. His big retort was suicide. How could anyone claim there are human instincts when someone is willing to take their own life? I was a very young 20-year-old know-it-all, and I responded to him that at times of such grievous peril in the life of the individual, the only way they see out is to take their own life. They know what is here, and they know how bad it is because they themselves live it every day. Perhaps the instinct then is to explore the unknown – the undiscovered country, as it were, because the known is too difficult to deal with. That was how the conversation ended, and that is a conversation I’ve played over and over in my head for so many years. What is the instinct that drives some people to consider or to then implement taking their own life? It is the instinct, albeit right or wrong, moral or immoral, lasting or not, that the unknown must be better than the known.
I think this also plays a part in all my decisions around this topic. When I can control nothing and I see everything spinning out of control in a way that hurts so many people, I choose this one last act of free will as a rebellion against the chains of mortality that limit my choice only to how I respond to the hell that has sprung up around me.
I am left to wonder who you are reading this. Do you hate me? Do you feel pity for me? I would much rather you hate me and find disgust in my actions than feel pity for me. I wonder if you will forget what you read here. Or take it and make the world a better place, which is something I tried to do but failed so horribly in doing so that the only option I have left is to end it this night. What are your eyes like as you read these words? What are your eyes like, period? Can you imagine me as a five-year-old in the swamps of Louisiana, up to my chest in murky water, trying to find enough crawfish to eat that night? Do you laugh? I bet your laugh is something others love to hear. There are times when I am telling you this story of mine, and I am overcome with tears. I truly hope you are not.
There has always been music above my head or maybe a painting just out of the corner of my eye. I fell in love with Holst’s The Planets years ago, fascinated by the otherworldly interpretation he gave each heavenly body, to each of our named gods. It was not a cacophony but a true symphony that he had orchestrated to produce what I think is the most magnificent piece of music known to us. As I sit here by this little creek just outside the castle grounds, having grown so restless in that room that I have to walk out and continue telling you my story here, in the calmness of this little grove of trees, I cannot help but see so deeply everything that points to me, and how everything in what points to me points me to here. I wonder what music you might have in your head that makes you make sense of your life. It would have been nice to talk with you during these final hours here in Ireland. I hope you can see, especially as we move along, why it is good that I take my leave of Ireland and of you.
It was hot when I returned to Colorado in August after nearly a month away. It is always hot in Colorado in August. Colorado is beautiful, with plains and mountains, peaks and plateaus, and, of course, the Grand Mesa. I loved kayaking on the rivers and reservoirs of my area. I must confess to you that moving to Colorado was no accident. It was no real choice. When asked, I would tell people we moved out of West Virginia because West Virginia was dying and becoming so politically different than the state I had come to love, but I felt the need to move for the safety of my children. I would also tell people that it was between Georgia and Colorado, and we started to narrow it down to Colorado. However, the truth is a little bit more, well, something else to envision.
The part about moving from West Virginia was accurate enough. But it was always going to be Colorado. I took the chance upon becoming a therapist to move from West Virginia, along with the happy acceptance of my ex-wife. It was tough because West Virginia is and always will be a special place to my heart. I was introduced to Colorado through a friend, in the way we are introduced to new thoughts. Growing up, when I was much more conservative, I had wanted to live in Texas. As my views shifted, I wanted to live in a place that better reflected those views. I have always felt, and I can remember this as a child, a special connection to the land. Not property, but land. It is as if the land (and in the United States, that meant political boundaries such as States) brought forth the people and somehow pre-existed human arrival, calling for the people to come and inhabit. Louisiana had called the Cajuns; West Virginia the rugged Appalachians; Ireland the mythical Celts. Colorado was calling a variety of peoples to come, be one people, and make up the State; I was one of them. When my friend first told me of her childhood there, I knew I had to go.
The heat of Colorado wasn’t just climate; it was also the pressure of our business and personal life unraveling. Becca and I tried counseling, but it didn’t last. The therapist saw the truth we were avoiding, and deep down, I knew it was over, yet I kept trying. After another argument, I finally asked for the ring back. It was the breaking point, a moment of release from the toxic cycle I had been trapped in for so long. The weight lifted, and for the first time, I felt free. Shortly after, I met M, and everything shifted. The love I had with her was different—pure and effortless. With M, I found hope again.
In the immediate aftermath of Becca, I began to plan a trip to Ireland with a friend, seeking refuge once more in that distant place where I’d always found solace. Ireland, with its rugged coastlines and whispering winds, was the escape I longed for, a place that had saved me before and, I hoped, would again. As I have said, it was where I ran to when life became too much.
There is this part in the third movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy where the ring is finally thrown into the volcano – although, if you’ve seen that movie, you know it wasn’t necessarily a choice. When that happens, the evil of the world dissipates, leaving the heroes of the story victorious and bewildered as to what had just happened to cause a certain defeat to become a triumphant victory. I wish I could say I was being dramatic or over-inflating the situation about the immediate after-effects of that momentous request. But I am not. I felt something so uplifting at that moment, as if all my past strangleholds, my dark patterns of relationships, and my need to earn love had suddenly been vanquished by some heavenly force. I wish I could tell you that much like everyone in that fabled mythology and all equally fabled mythologies, I lived happily ever after that moment. But you would not be reading this if I had lived so happily ever after, if everything I had hoped for had come true and had been lasting. However, that was the first day of 167 days of such happiness, such bliss, of loving and being loved without having to work and sacrifice so hard, to sacrifice myself, to sacrifice my sanity.
That was the day I met my dearest M in so many ways for the first time.
I remember every time in all the previous relationships when it came to an end, I vowed I never wanted to be in another relationship again. I felt like since I could not make it work no matter what, why try? I felt beaten down and destroyed by the thing everyone seemed to have sought, to have longed for, to have for themselves — love. There was nothing in me that said I deserved love or that I could ever love someone enough for them to love me. As I have said, I am a man of science, and science requires evidence. The evidence suggests that I cannot make anyone happy enough to truly love me, no matter what I do. No matter how honest and open I was about my emotions, feelings, and needs, I could never be connected to someone. All the evidence pointed to the very real fact that I did not deserve to have anyone truly know me or love me. It was clear that I was the problem in the relationship.
I have mentioned Lucy before, Rich’s girlfriend. She had been a long-term client and the reason I am comfortable with saying this is because that information is public knowledge and is documented in court findings. I first met her when she almost had me thrown in jail. How, you ask? She had made contraband; that is to say, she had attempted to smuggle in illegal narcotics through homemade candies to her son in the local jail. During any group session, where confidentiality is about as good as having a session in the middle of a crowded shopping mall, she confessed to this act, to which I was able to convince her to bring me such contraband so that I may dispose of it before she gets herself in trouble. What she did not know was that she was being monitored in the phone calls she was making to her son in which they had devised the plan. I did take the contraband and disposed of it with the help of my supervisor. I was an unlicensed therapist at the time and needed direction. When the detectives showed up at my door, I answered every question truthfully, as well as went to court later to defend her actions and ask the judge for a reprieve. She was in drug court at the time and could not afford any mess-ups as she was likely facing a decade in prison. As I said, everyone deserves a second or third chance. On my cynical days, I would add that everyone deserves a second or third chance to stab me in the back.
Later, as she was progressing through drug court, she slipped up a lot and went down her usual spiral. She wound up with a major overdose, which led me to go to the hospital to help her as well as help her kids while she was recovering. I then had to go to the judge again to ask for another reprieve. When she graduated from drug court, and she started showing good signs of improvement, she and Rich got together, which I did not support. He later convinced me to give her a chance. Following his recommendation, as well as the recommendation of two of my assistants, I gave her a chance. I let her come work for me to take over a program that she would for, which, on paper, be the ideal candidate.
After Rich’s accident, after I paid for all of the expenses for her to stay at the hospital for two weeks, her bills, and the funeral expenses, and after months of her using others to pay her bills while she was still working, I found out that she was also working with the insurance company to take the company down. Every so often, she would mention that person you and I know is my dearest, and M was her best friend. Lucy had a distinct way of lying. She was very skilled at manipulating people. And I was very skilled at believing that if you just believed in people, they would show you the best version of themselves eventually.
I think, in large part, due to my own childhood, I loved working with child protective services, especially that unit that was in that county of western Colorado. When I opened my business, I was able to secure a contract with them and start working with their families, including parents who had abused their children and children who had been abused. The goal was always reunification. As I developed my practice and skill set, I was invited to go with DHS caseworkers in such instances as child removal, welfare checks, and initial assessments. That is where I met my dearest M. I had no interest in anything, but I admit I thought she was striking. We only talked business, period. In fact, as a rule, I never talk about emotional or relationship issues with any other woman who is not my significant other. But I admired her for her dedication to the job, regardless of how soul-crushing it was. I was still married, and she had just gotten married after a brief engagement. As I said, I openly admit that I admired her for her work and her intelligence, and yes, she was striking. I refused to allow any such thoughts in.
There was a case that we shared. A little girl who had severe developmental issues and was being abused. We showed up together at the house, and both of us conducted our own individual assessments, my therapeutic and clinical-driven one and her child-protective-driven one. We spent not a lot of time together on this case, but we spent a lot of time individually on this case, which meant we were both heavily involved in the outcome. Make no mistake, there was never a mix of boundaries here. I’m telling you about this case because it is this case that directly led to my divorce from my wife. And I want to be as honest with you as I can.
Our final approval for her placement in a foster home came. Because I had spent so much time with the family, I was invited to go along with her to take this little girl to the foster home to help ease the transition and make sure things were OK. And that is exactly what happened. This little girl still has a place in my heart. The last time I knew of her, she was doing well, and she finally arrived in a situation she was able to thrive in.
During such an occasion, she mentioned that she was looking for a different job because of the soul-crushing nature of the current one. My ex-wife, who had recently gotten a job at the county working in criminal justice of all things, due to my influence, had told me about an opening coming up to which I recommended this person. What I’m going to tell you is only what my ex-wife told me, is that during the interview, my dearest M had led my wife to believe, and please remember my wife said this, and this was not the first time such an accusation had come in this manner, my dearest M did not want to let me down and that we had in fact, worked closely together, closely. All of that can equally be true without the added commentary by my ex-wife that this person had developed feelings for me. I was confronted with all this that night, which was yet another round in a long series of accusations, much like had been done before. My wife then demanded that I tell her everyone that I was working with, whether it was confidential or not. That was not going to happen. What I agreed to was to drive my car if any similar case evolved in the future.
I thought the matter had been put to rest. However, as I tend to be, I was wrong. We had spent about a year and a half in therapy ourselves, learning to overcome our baggage and what makes for a good, healthy relationship. One of those is not withholding affection if you are angry with your partner. At Walmart one Tuesday evening, I was checking out, and suddenly, my wife had disappeared. I confronted her about it, to which she then revealed to me that not only was she still mad, but she was doing her own investigation, including bringing employees of mine into the mix. She was accusing me very plainly of sleeping with this individual in the truck while the little girl was in the backseat. She had created a huge story in her head. At this point, she also demanded that I no longer work with either the hospital or with local child protective services. She also demanded that she could control who I saw as clients. Sitting on that gray sofa in that 150-year-old Victorian mansion that had been our dream home, in a living room I had spent weeks working on at her behest, all the while saying I did nothing to help her, I decided to divorce her. I could not do it anymore.
My dearest M would go on to get that job – and as she always did, improve the job while helping countless individuals. My ex would become more embittered and use her position to target me, including breaking into my text messages, using her position to look at court documents, and finding a way to make sure everyone knew everything about me, true or not. From what I expected then but now know, I was made out to be a monster, although when you speak with the people around my ex, most do not believe her. However, all of this cut off my dearest M and I from any friendship. Again, she was married, newly so.
I am not sure I told you all that backstory – even if I have left out so many details – because you needed to know, or maybe rather it was because I needed time to prepare myself to tell you about the happiest days of my life that ended so quickly that I wish I were not here even now. Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest. Every time I write the euphemism for her name, my heart hurts. To break up my sobs, I have gotten up, walked around, watched the wedding party from inside my window, or gone for a smoke. I cannot even say her name and I must now tell you about her. And I am hesitant.
I had room service brought up. On Google Maps, the menu clearly said that there was a ribeye. How I have longed for a ribeye this past month. I had one in Sligo, but every other piece of beef is usually a sirloin. The Irish do not like fatty meats, but the fat is what gives it the flavor. I was hoping that would be my final meal here in Ireland. As I said, I have things planned, but things never seem to go according to my plan anymore, now do they? Instead, I ordered the cheeseburger, some fries, and a bowl of chowder. It was not the best, to be honest, the chowder. It’s too much like a soup rather than a chowder consistency. But it gave me something to do, I guess.
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