Naresh Bhatt Suffered Childhood Trauma: Psychologist

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: How much time did you do, spend that time with Mr. Bott? [00:00:04] Mr. Josie: I spent about eight hours with Mr. Bott over two different days and about two-thirds to about three-quarters of that. I would say about five and a half to six of those hours were talking. And the other two, two and a half hours was doing psychological testing. [00:00:22] Speaker 1: Did you have an interpreter with you? [00:00:24] Mr. Josie: I did, Mr. Josie, who's seated over here. [00:00:28] Speaker 1: And did you hear from Mr. Bott what he described happened in that time frame of July 29th and his previous history in Nepal and subsequent in the military when he came to the United States? [00:00:49] Mr. Josie: Yes. Generally, the evaluation process is, I go chronologically. So we start with where were you born and what was that like and who's in your family and we work our way up to the present and then we, or I, dig more deeply into how did you get here? What happened? And that can be, you know, in different cases can take different shapes and different formats. But I want to know, you know, what were you thinking? How were you doing? What was happening? What was your decision? What were your thought processes? So we spent a fair amount of time talking about that as well. [00:01:24] Speaker 1: Did you, did he describe for you his upbringing? [00:01:27] Mr. Josie: Objection to the leading. [00:01:29] Speaker 1: What did he describe, fair enough. What did he describe for you that was relevant to your analysis? [00:01:40] Mr. Josie: Well, because that was a leading question, it's now it's vague. So I'm going to start with the beginning. And that was a huge question. That's okay. Sorry about that. That's not my fault. We started it, as I said, with his growing up in Nepal. And he had a number of traumatic experiences and challenges, and also a number of positive experiences. He spoke very highly and fondly of his life in Nepal. And some of that was clearly a struggle. He was from a very, very rural part, really the sort of westernmost corner of Nepal, right on the India, right near the India border. But, you know, in a, in a dirt hut with a father who would go to Delhi to work in many ways, he spoke very fondly of that, with the exception of a handful of very traumatic, traumatic incidents. The earliest of those, which he didn't even remember when we first started talking about it, but he brought up later, was, was encountering, I guess it was his aunt who, who he said, set herself on fire. Uh, because of spirits that were possessing her, and, and, and this is something that, uh, does happen in that part of the world. There's a very prominent focus on spiritual possession sometimes. Um, but that was not sort of the, the, I mean, that was something that stayed with him. The, the biggest issue that he, the challenge that really kind of pushed him off of the path he was on, if you will, was, uh, being held captive, uh, by the Maoist rebels. So there was a, a 10 year civil war in, and I'm not an expert on this, but, uh, I have had to learn a little bit about it. Uh, and he described being held captive twice, once when he was about 12 or 13, just for a couple days where they sort of, uh, tried to indoctrinate him and, and, and, you know, get the, a bunch of the youth from his town. It wasn't just him. They sort of herded everybody from the, from the, the playground. I think they were playing soccer, he said, or football, uh, and, and brought them into the woods and, and spent a couple of days there essentially being, you know, told like, you should be fighting with us and then let him go. And that was that, and then, uh, some time later, it wasn't clear exactly how much later, it sounded like it was months to a year later. Uh, he was held for a much longer period of time, again, captured as part of a big group as the rebels were recruiting soldiers, uh, held in the woods for about a month. Um, and during that period, lots of physical abuse, also, uh, a handful of incidents of sexual abuse where he was, uh, sexually abused by one of the, one of the rebels who had, uh, taken advantage of him or forced him really. It's, uh, uh, and that was really the most traumatic experience, but he had a number of other related, he pointed some scarring from that captivity on, on his foot, which again, sort of sticks with him and, and still upsets him when he sees the scar. Um, so those were sort of the traumas that he described from that period of time. The, the third trauma was a little bit later and a little bit different, which was as he and his next younger brother were leaving Nepal and going to India, they got separated. And so he's the older brother, he's caring for his younger brother and, and they get separated and they both wind up, uh, in different parts. And, and, and his brother is essentially lost for about five years. Uh, they're, they're teenagers at this point. So they, he goes and he lives in India and he's working to, to sort of scrape by, but, but he's very guilt ridden over the loss of his brother until years later. When he, when he makes the, there he's able to reconnect and the family is able to reconnect. I guess the brother finds the family. So those were the, the sort of Nepali traumas, if you will, there were a couple of other things that he described, but those were the ones that, that were the most powerful. Um, but, but then he goes on to, to be a very productive, uh, student. He goes to school, he becomes a pharmacist, he develops a company, all of this allows him to save a lot of money and eventually move to the U.S. [00:05:48] Speaker 1: And then did he also talk to you about, um, his history and things that were relevant to your evaluation when he moves to the United States? [00:05:58] Mr. Josie: Um, he, he did, he struggled when he got to the United States, despite coming with some money and having a, uh, working papers and all the authorization to work. He had a very hard time adjusting. His English wasn't, wasn't very good. He had a lot of difficulty communicating. He didn't have a lot of connections here. He only knew a handful of people. Uh, he ends up joining the, the, um, uh, I always get it mixed up, not the National Guard. The, um, uh, with the part time military, uh, the reserve. Thank you. The army reserves, uh, I always get those two confused for some reason, obviously, because I've not been in them. Uh, and, and, and during that service, he, some of that had, he had some challenges with that, um, had a lot of difficulty finding the kind of job he wanted. And that was partly what drove him into the military was feeling like this is a way to, to, you know, have a uniform, I'll have some status. I'll, I'll be more important if you will, because he had come from India where he felt like a very important, I'm sorry, Nepal, where he, he felt like a very important person because he had developed a company. He was earning a lot of money. He was helping support his family. He was paying for his brother's private schools, uh, which is how you pay for school in India. Uh, I keep saying India, so sorry, Nepal, uh, and, and, and then he comes to the US and of course he's now on the sort of the low rung of the, of the totem pole and, and has a really hard time adjusting. He talked about having some thoughts of suicide at times thinking, why did I come here? I should just go back. Um, and, and, you know, he's, he's essentially had some of those same struggles throughout his time here. Uh, he's had some challenges with, uh, the reserve service when he was called up, he does eventually, uh, get married, uh, obviously, and, uh, and that was, you know, a challenge for him. He, he talked about having his family try to find, uh, uh, a mate, a match for him and, and, you know, somebody he liked and the families matched, but the horoscopes didn't line up. And so there were a number of sort of failed starts at that, uh, apparently the, the horoscope is an important part of the, of the matching process. It was challenging for him because initially he was from, uh, uh, what he referred to as a high caste family, uh, even though they were not a wealthy family, they were from a high caste. And that meant that they didn't have the resources to match him with another high caste family until he started earning money. And yet the lower caste families, that was not appropriate for him either. So, so it was a very difficult for him to find, uh, essentially a partner.