I grew up in a house that looked perfect from the outside. My parents provided well financially, and by most measures, I had what would be called a privileged childhood. But privilege doesn’t protect you from what happens behind closed doors, and what happened to me began early… long before I had language for it, long before I understood that what was being done to me wasn’t normal.

I’m autistic, though my parents hid this from me. at least they didn’t say it out loud in ways I could hear. What they did instead was put me through ABA therapy, which in the 1970s and early 80s was essentially compliance training disguised as help. The goal was to make me less autistic, more “normal,” more manageable. The methods were behavioral modification through repetition, reward, and punishment. What I didn’t know then… what no one told me… was that this kind of conditioning was teaching me that my instincts couldn’t be trusted, that my discomfort didn’t matter, that compliance was survival.

This made me an easy target. When you’ve been trained to override your own nervous system’s warning signals, when you’ve learned that “no” isn’t an option and resistance brings consequences, you become vulnerable in ways that predators can sense. The abuse that began during this time wasn’t just physical or sexual… the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse was layered into the therapeutic framework itself. The people who were supposed to be helping me were also violating me, and the structure of the therapy meant I had no framework for understanding that what was happening was wrong. I was being taught to comply while simultaneously being exploited, and the two became inseparable in my nervous system.

This took place from age 4 till age 12.

The sexual abuse continued in other contexts as well, with family members and others who had access to me. It wasn’t always violent in the obvious sense… sometimes it was coercive, sometimes it was framed as affection, sometimes it was simply the assertion of power over a child who had already been taught not to resist. The exploitation was compounded by drugs given to me without my full understanding of what was happening… substances that made me more compliant, more dissociated, more available to be used. I learned to leave my body, to go somewhere else in my mind, because being present was unbearable.

By the time I was a teenager, I had been so thoroughly conditioned that I didn’t even recognize the abuse for what it was. I thought there was something wrong with me, something broken, something that made me deserving of this treatment. I was hyper-sexualized by the abuse, being exposed to and coerced into unspeakably horrible things. while simultaneously being taught by my religious community that sexuality itself was dangerous, shameful, something to be suppressed and controlled. The cognitive dissonance was maddening.

This phase of abuse lasted from 12 till 18.

The religious framework I grew up in as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) added another layer of control and shame. I was taught that the world was divided into the righteous and the wicked, that obedience to the organization was obedience to God, that questioning was rebellion. I threw myself into it completely, in part because it gave me structure, purpose, a way to be “good” that felt achievable. If I could just be faithful enough, devoted enough, maybe I could outrun the shame I carried. Maybe I could be “clean.”

I became a full-time minister, deeply committed to the work, believing that serving God would heal whatever was wrong with me. I didn’t yet understand that what was wrong with me wasn’t me… it was what had been done to me. I didn’t have words for trauma, for dissociation, for the ways my nervous system had been rewired by years of violation. I just knew I felt different, separate, like I was watching my life from behind glass.

On top of all the shame from what had been done to me, in my mid-teens, I also began to understand that I was mainly attracted to other boys/men – the consequences of which would mean my spiritual death.  There is no greater sin according to a JW than being gay.  I had that pounded into my head repeatedly throughout my childhood.  Which also seemed so backwards – especially because it was mostly “upright” JW men who were doing all these things to me.

One thing the abuse taught me was how to hide who I am, how to dissociate the parts of me no one wanted.  And no one – including me – wanted me to be gay.  So I was quite adept at shoving this into my psychological “closet.”

In the meantime, he autism that no one had named continued to shape my experience in ways I couldn’t articulate. I was good at certain things—memorizing doctrine, following rules, performing the role I’d been given—but I struggled with the social dynamics, the unspoken expectations, the way people seemed to understand things intuitively that I had to learn through painful trial and error. I masked constantly, exhausting myself trying to appear normal, trying to fit into a community that demanded conformity while never quite feeling like I belonged.

Through all of this, there was a part of me—small, quiet, but persistent—that knew something was deeply wrong. Not wrong with me, but wrong with what was happening around me and to me. That knowing was my lifeline, even when I couldn’t consciously access it. It was the part of me that would eventually say “enough,” that would choose truth over belonging, that would walk away from everything I’d known rather than continue living a lie.

By the time I reached the very end of my teens, the acute physical and sexual abuse had mostly ended, but the damage was done. I carried it in my body, in my nervous system, in the way I related to myself and others. I was about to enter a new phase of life… marriage, increased responsibility in the religious organization, a performance of normalcy that would last nearly two more decades. But the foundation had already been fractured. It would take years before those cracks would finally break open and force me to face the truth of what had been done to me, and who I actually was beneath all the conditioning.

I remained one of Jehovah’s Witnesses untill I was 35 years old. I was a full-time minister, served at the World Headquarters for the JW Organization, was an “elder” in several congregations for over ten years. At 35, I finally came out as a gay man and my fellow “elders” said, “We believe you are a wicked man,” and they kicked me out (it was called “disfellowshipping” back then). (You can read about this here.)

The moment I got kicked out (February 1, 2007), I lost hundreds of my closest friends, my parents and two siblings and grandmother.  The spiritual abuse and trauma from that (and the years of indoctrination) was violent and anything but loving. This caused profound spiritual trauma.  I’m grateful to extended family – especially my Aunt Linda – for remaining a close and dear part of my blood-family.

Also, my ex-wife, who is pictured in one of the photographs above, was surprisingly supportive.  We had been married for 13 years.  She was devastated when I left, but was so kind to me.  She has one of the most pure, tender and caring hearts I have ever encountered. I still love her with all my heart.

Since all of that trauma, I’ve re-built my family – I use the word “framily” (friends + family).  I have friends all over the world that I love and care for, and who feel the same about me.  I’ve also re-built my connection and relationship to the Divine.

Healing this kind of deep, complex trauma is a full-time job.  It’s work I continue to do to this day.  I’ve worked with psychiatrists, psychotherapists, somatic practitioners, sexuality therapists, done Internal Family Systems (IFS) work, yoga therapy, and dozens of other modalities and therapies to support my healing. I even went to in-patient rehab for 30 days after some experimenting with hard drugs. 

Thankfully, I have healed a lot of my wounds.  I do not suffer anymore.  I do not hate myself anymore.  My shame is almost non-existent. And I will continue to attend to my trauma and all the residual challenges that come with being exposed to intimate things way too early – during critical phases of neuro-cognitive development.  The healing continues.

In 2019, after six years devoting my life to another spiritual (and business) community, I had to let it all go because my integrity wouldn’t allow me to support the horrific misalignment and dysfunction I witnessed behind the scenes, and more importantly the unethical business practices.  As I left, I was shunned, shamed, and banned from yet another community of people I considered family.  My contributions over that time were erased and in its place, libel and slander was spread about me.

This caused even more spiritual trauma, which I have worked hard to heal from.

Today, I enjoy living in Chicago. I enjoy walking the city, enjoying the nature, and the energy of the neighborhood.  I live about 350 steps from an amazing beach right on Lake Michigan, which is my happy place.

Much of my non-work time is spent reading non-fiction books, doing artwork, photo/video editing, and spiritual practice. I also enjoy doing lots of introspection and exploring philosophy. And of course, my special interest is the nervous system.

I’m an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs and a 2 on the Enneagram, and as I mentioned earlier, am autistic, have complex-PTSD, experience RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) and PDA (pervasive demand avoidance), am a Highly Sensitive and Intense Person.

I also have lots of chronic physical crap that often comes with autism, like chronic pain, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, MCAS, POTS, and dysautonomia to name a few.  thankfully, while these things have an enormous impact on my day to day life – they have not forced themselves into the forefront of my priorities.  Thankfully, while I have to navigate life with them, they’re not steering the ship.

As introverted as I am, one of the things I hold most precious is deep, intimately connected conversations with others – not surface talk (that’s exhausting to me) – but real, sincere, penetrative dialogue from the depth of our souls. Ahhhhhh.

And lastly, but not least, I want to introduce you to the new love of my life: Connick Alexander Spoon. He came into my life on November 27, 2015 and he’s 15 years old (in Jan 2026).  He was a rescue originally, and I adopted him from someone in Denver, Colorado.  He is a demure, quiet, playful and sweet little Italian Greyhound.  I couldn’t love him any more than I do.