Note: This essay is nonfiction based on true events and contains depictions of psychosis and manipulation. Names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent. Some dialogue and details have been reconstructed for clarity and narrative flow.
Before I take you further into the labyrinth of our family home and the maze of recent history, it is necessary to do some time traveling to understand how my mother got to the point of getting carried out of her own house in a bag. It is also necessary that you understand the nature of the man who put her in that bag.
Visualize a 6’4” mixed breed, 53-year-old lovechild born to Dwight Schrute, Gollum, and Mitch McConnell. Add sweat, grandpa glasses with Coke-bottle lenses, and soiled hunting clothes: you’ve got Dale Colgrave. I’ve never met a woman who was not immediately uncomfortable in his presence.
Aside from my mom.
Dale’s vibe says rapist meets conversion-van driving 7-Eleven cashier, with cologned echoes of bestiality.
After eighteen years of attempting to defend my mother and our family land from this backwoods amphibian, I have come to know a few things beyond the superficial. Dale Colgrave wasn’t born a full-grown swamp creature. He came from Clearwick, a one-tractor town a hundred miles north of Brookford, where fine dining is a Dairy Queen and retail is a liquor store with a gun and bait section. He was raised on a 300-acre farm and became a zealous Lyndon LaRouche follower.
I was employed as a real estate agent when I first met Dale and my mother for lunch in 2007. Unbeknownst to me, he had already been patrolling the fractured arteries of Sylvia’s consciousness as a psychiatric patient for five years at that point.
We met at an Italian restaurant that wasn’t Olive Garden and sat in a maroon booth. He ordered a giant Dr. Pepper and was introduced to me as a “friend.”
Sitting across from Dale is unsettling.
His mud-brown eyes sparkle like disassociated fog lights.
He asked me thirteen different ways how much money I made.
Given that I’d just bought my soon-to-be ex-wife a car to placate our divorce, was smoking too much weed, and eating pathological amounts of take-out? The answer was: not much.
“I do all right, Dale. It’s a lot of stress. The fax machine beeps a lot.”
The things you wish you had said later are always better than what you come up with at the time.
I called my brother, William, after that lunch and said, “This guy seems like a turd on a log.”
“I don’t trust him,” replied William.
“Better than Ricky Vega?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
Ricky Vega was my mom’s last boyfriend. Ricky drove a T-top Pontiac Firebird, took his Haldol religiously, and also liked guns.
My big brother was always right about Sylvia’s suitors.
With Dale, the first indicator of trouble should have been the fact that my mom called me the following day to ask what I thought. Before I could answer, Sylvia began answering for me, fluffing Dale’s non-existent credentials. She told me that he had devoted his life to caring for his elderly mother, and that his brother and sister hated him. They were “very cruel people.”
I remember sighing into my Bluetooth earpiece, “Why are they very cruel people, mom?”
She wasted no time, “They say he’s abusive and a bad caretaker. But he’s not. He’s a devoted son and a brilliant farmer. Did you know he was going to school to create a form of genetically modified grain before he had to drop out, give up his own life, and come back to Clearwick to help his parents?”
I should have done a better job of reading between the lines of this statement.
The future was all around me. I was blind to it.
People today often ask, “How could this happen to a brilliant psychiatrist?”
The short answer is that Sylvia was always very proud of her intelligence. She also loved fixing broken, charming men and having sexual relationships with her patients. Karma being karma and ego being ego, eventually, she was bound to meet a patient who was smarter than she was. Combine erudition with my mother’s propensity for chronic anxiety? The foundation was laid to create a perfect storm of personality dysfunction.
It is possible to describe a psychopath with words. However, the finest description is hollow in comparison to experiencing a psychopath yourself. Nothing I can write will give you a better insight into the consciousness of Dale Colgrave than one of his early, obsessive letters to my mother.
“Worry may have co-evolved with intelligence. The ability to imagine future dangers and prepare for them is a sign of intelligence, but it also carries the cost of anxiety.” Dr. Jeremy Coplan, MD (Study on intelligence and worry, Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience)
“Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets.” Dr. Robert Hare, MD (Without Conscience)
My mother, Dr. Blackmoor, was 70 when Dale Colgrave wrote the letter below.
He was 49.
He had been a patient for almost a full year.
September 2003
“Dear Dr. Blackmoor,
I had a very strange dream a few nights ago. I awoke suddenly, alert and concerned. Because I did not have the sense that this had been an ordinary dream, I found a notepad and wrote down everything I could remember.
At the time, I felt that I should write you immediately because you were in this dream, but now in the light of day, it seems silly. I am writing to you anyway on the remote chance that it might be important.
The dream was in three phases. The first of two I perceived as long and complicated, and were life journey stories with trials and adventures. The third phase was when I found myself going to meet you for an appointment.
After some polite conversation, you seemed to think it was time to be more direct with me. You took me outside, and we were both reclining in the grass under a shade tree. You were earnestly telling me to stop wasting time and start living.
Suddenly, you became ill as if a severe back pain was caused by a pinched nerve from your relaxed reclining position under the shade tree. Your distress was so severe that your assistants called an ambulance. The mood of myself and your assistants was one of extreme worry and concern.
As you were being loaded into the ambulance, I heard someone say something about “fibromyalgia.” (I know this sounds ridiculous. I hope you are amused rather than annoyed with me.)
After the ambulance left, your assistants showed me some books you had written under a pen name. I do not remember your pen name, but I remember there were only 3 or 4 letters in the first name.
There were 4 or 5 or more books of about 100 pages each. Your assistants seemed to be indicating that these books might be of interest or value to me and that I should look through them. They seemed to be offering to show me something very important.
I never saw the faces of your assistants. I was only aware of them at the edge of my peripheral vision, but I heard them speaking clearly. When you first became ill and they rushed to your aid, I perceived them as your office assistants. Later, as they were showing me the books you had written, I began to wonder if they might be your guardian angels. At this point, I awoke suddenly, alert and concerned.
I have no reason to think you might have back problems. I have always observed you to move gracefully and sit with good posture. Conventional dream interpretation theory would say that my subconscious mind was using dream characters as metaphors to illustrate some aspect of my own life. The warning of spinal or nervous system injury was probably meant for me.
I may be a superstitious neurotic fool, but on the remote chance that this was a divine message from your guardians, I would feel better if you took all practical precautions to safeguard your spinal and nervous system health.
I apologize for what must seem like an inappropriate intrusion into your personal life. Please forgive me.
If this was truly a divine message from your guardians, I am sure the words Fear Not would apply.
Dale Colgrave”
When you are born into a family of psychiatrists, it’s hard not to leave college with a psychology degree, as I did. It’s also hard not to see the world in 131 flavors of behavioral diagnosis. Ultimately, I did not choose to go into the family business. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun unpacking the greatest hits of Dale’s letter.
Each line blurs a boundary. Each apology baits compliance.
“You took me outside and we were both reclining in the grass under a shade tree.” Translation: I’m intruding on boundaries. I’m putting us in an intimate, pastoral setting of closeness that I couldn’t get away with in reality, so I smuggle it in via “dream.”
“Suddenly you became ill… pinched nerve… assistants called an ambulance.” Translation: I’ve flipped the script. You’re vulnerable, I’m the strong observer. This archetype portrays you as fragile, dependent, and in danger.
“As you were being loaded into the ambulance, I heard someone say something about fibromyalgia.” Translation: I can implant seeds of health anxiety about your body. If you believe my words, you’ll associate me with special foresight and concern for you.
“Your assistants showed me some books you had written under a pen name.” Translation: I’m elevating myself as someone with access to your secret self. I alone am able to see the “real you” that others don’t.
“I may be a superstitious neurotic fool… forgive me.” Translation: This is classic manipulation and I admit it’s an intrusion, but I do it anyway. By apologizing in advance, I make it harder for you to reject me without feeling cruel.
Conclusion: Dale’s letter was never about a dream. It was a test - a probe to see how much intimacy and authority my mother would allow, carefully crafted while wearing the mask of concern. His dream narrative was camouflage. It was a way to cross boundaries under the guise of naiveté. By implanting fear, then stepping in as the chosen messenger, he made himself indispensable. The entire performance was a sociopath’s textbook opening move, gift-wrapped in pseudo-spiritual language and false humility.
The only thing more cringe-inducing than Dale Colgrave’s letter to my mother?Sylvia’s reply.
It reads like she never saw the trap being sprung.
And liked it that way.
To be continued…