My First Experience of Injustice

After I had lost everything, I was moving from place to place in Wilmington. I was living in Southport when I received a criminal summons. It was absurd. John Freifeld had gone to a magistrate and without any evidence claimed that I placed five harassing phone calls to him on a Friday and a Monday in September of 2000. I had not spoken to him in months since we had a falling out.

He also claimed that I was cyberstalking him. It's a sufficiently vague law that prohibits one from making any statements online that might embarrass or harass a person. I was not aware of anything that would amount to anything regarding my online activities.

I was absolutely certain that I had nothing to worry about regarding the harassing phone calls. Why? Well, wouldn't you need some evidence? A recording on the phone, or some phone records? Since it never happened - I had not contacted him, I had nothing to worry about or so I assumed.

Unfortunately, he is very charismatic, and my lawyer and I underestimated that. He represented himself in the matter. My lawyer demonstrated inept legal counsel by going to trial right away. I wasn't thinking until after the trial that he should have gotten the phone records.

Since this never happened, obviously Freifeld had no recording to present as evidence. The judge found me not guilty of the cyberstalking - the judge threw that claim out. However, just on the word of Freifeld, he found me guilty of the harassing phone calls.

I was livid as I left the courtroom. My lawyer asked, "do you want me to appeal this? Do you want me to get the phone records?"

I was thinking, "now you are thinking of that?" I answered, "yes, appeal it. And, yes, get the phone records. This did not happen!"

It was a matter of principle. It was wrong!

Moving Away

I had been working as a paraprofessional again as I had before I got my degree or my license. Freifeld cost me that job as well. I have no idea why he was obsessed with me months after I had no contact at all with him. He called my employer and told them about the matters related to my license and the grievances. Despite the fact that nothing had been determined yet (I had not signed the Consent Decree surrendering my license until a few months later) and despite the fact that the work did not require a license, I was not able to work with the agency.

Having no options as to how or where I could live in Wilmington, I left for Durham to live with the people who offered me a place to stay for a little while for free. David and Ruth were their names. Ruth had been hurt by John Freifeld, and they both followed the news about what was happening to me, what John was doing. Freifeld seemed to want to brag online about what he was doing to me.

I started going to the mental health center in Durham for therapy. It was all that I could afford.

Like other victims, I felt wretched and ashamed. I felt like I didn't deserve to exist. I had nothing to offer the world, I thought.

I needed some support from my family because I couldn't stay with Ruth and David long. So, I asked Ruth to explain the situation to my parents. She tried desperately to explain to my mother the cruelty of John and how he is able to convince people to do bad things. She said, "there was a time when if John said the sky was pink, I would believe it and see the sky pink."

It didn't matter, my parents didn't care at all.

I moved into the homeless shelter at some point after leaving David and Ruth's home. They asked me to leave as I had stayed long enough. That sense of isolation and loneliness, of being discarded and worthless was pervasive and traumatic.

Living on the streets was traumatic.

It was no wonder that I felt profound feelings of abandonment and feelings like "this isn't happening." I would find myself walking around places and visiting the emergency room feeling like I was unable to cope with the burden of life.

With everything that I had been going through, my sense of self was unclear. It was late in the year 2001 when this was happening. I felt like I had no real support in my life and that only added to the shame that I felt as a result of the victimization.

At about this same time, I was working at the Eckerd Store in the photo department when I was asked to work the main register, not the one in the photo lab which was less busy. I was totally overwhelmed by the long lines and I was still dealing with extreme anxiety.

I was so anxious and could hardly focus. There was this young woman who came to buy some alcoholic beverage and I asked for her ID. She presented it to me without hesitation. I was under so much stress that my eyes had trouble focusing.

I wasn't able to perceive that she was under 21. A manager stepped in and later, the police showed up and handed me a citation to appear in court. It was a minor error, but it might seem like something worse if you consider the statute that I was said to have violated - "buy, sell or obtain alcohol for a minor."

The Nightmares Continue

Somehow in the middle of everything happening that was so chaotic in my life and without a stable residence, I missed a court appointment. They issued an arrest order due to failure to appear in court for the misdemeanor regarding the sale of alcohol to a minor at Eckerd's.

I told my friend Johnetta what happened - she was someone I had gotten to know since I moved up to Durham - she owned a non-profit that helps the homeless and others. I was hoping that she could do something to keep me from going to jail. I was terrified of this happening to me.

Nothing could be done and now for the first time in my life, I was arrested and put in jail. People like me are never prepared for something like this. I had lived a sheltered life.

On top of that, I found out that I missed a court appointment in Wilmington. The lawyer who represented me in the case of Freifeld's lies that I made harassing phone calls to him had appealed the judge's verdict and he had a new court date, but he had not been able to reach me.

I was forced to move from place to place, including living in various shelters. So, I had lost track of time and I was not always in one location. Now I had a failure to appear in Wilmington.

I also had lost track of time. It was all a blur this past year or so. Everything happening was entirely new in that before a certain point in 2000, nothing like this had ever happened in my life.

I reached out for support in Durham to get out of jail. I called my parents because I thought they cared about me and I knew they would understand the fear I felt. Whatever minimal compassion that might have had in the past was now gone. They didn't give a damn about what was happening to their son.

I had no idea why I was being treated this way by my own family!

I ended up being brought down to Wilmington in chains, inside a metallic cage or box that looked like it had been put on the back of a pickup truck.

My nightmare was in full swing now. Day in and day out I was living in hell.

It was humiliating and shameful to be treated like this. I was pissed at my parents as well. They had lacked compassion and empathy in the past but this was a new low for them.

The message my own family was sending was that it's okay to hurt Bruce because nothing will happen to you. Go ahead, hurt Bruce.

I did get out of jail but was left down in Wilmington for a while. I didn't know what to do or where to go. My own family for reasons unknown to me did not offer any support at all. I don't know why I still expected them to care.

I felt so ashamed of my wretched condition as I wandered the streets of Wilmington. I had no home and nowhere to turn for help. It was cold and I was wet and limping about.

I had all my belongings in a couple of bags. It was coming into the winter with snow falling. My friend Jean invited me to dinner with his wife and family - his mother was there. I was so ashamed to be carrying all my belongings and looking like a street person or a homeless bag lady.

I tossed my belongings behind a bush outside the restaurant where Jean offered to treat me to a meal with his family. We had been friends for years. Jean was the friend that I met my first week in Wilmington back in 1992 - a mutual friend of Lynn and me.

I was feeling so overwhelmed by my circumstances. I couldn't think straight. Where should I go? What should I do? I was just wandering around, and it felt traumatic for me. It felt like I didn't matter as a human being. No one seemed to give a damn about me.

I was too ashamed to know how to seek support or friendship. I felt wretched. I wanted to scream out to the world or to God, "Help me! Please!"

I did go to the mental health center to get help to get back to Durham. I had been meeting with Vocational Rehabilitation and they said they could help me with employment. I had no other sense of what to do or where to go.

So, I found myself at the New Hanover County Mental Health Center and at the Department of Social Services to get financial assistance to get a bus trip back to Durham.

"Well, this is awkward," said the woman who sat down with me at the Southeastern Center for Mental Health Services in Wilmington.

"Yes, I used to be with the Society of Clinical Social Workers. Maybe you know me from that," I said.

"You were the president. I came to training workshops that you organized."

I felt myself tearing up. I answered "things changed so suddenly for me. It got so crazy. So much has happened. I lost everything in just one month back in August. It feels like many, many, years have passed and that was another life."

I added, " When you saw me, I had come so far. I had struggled, you know. I used to have doubts, but I found the encouragement that comes with success and the support of others."

She said something about how sad and overwhelming it must have been. Clearly, there was little need for a long conversation at this point.

I got a bus ticket and went back to Durham. You might be thinking that things can't get any worse than everything that has happened. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.