Chapter 1: Growing up 

The earliest memory I have that seems important is that of learning to swim when I was about four or five years old. In my memory my instructor was in her late teens or early 20s. I remember getting scared and putting my arms around her. I have tried to figure out why this seemed to embarrass me. Perhaps it was because I didn't see grownups as a source of support, compassion, and caring. I had a sense that she wasn't quite a grownup but she was more of a grownup than a young child like me.

I did feel safe though. I longed for this.

My parents, Bruce Martin Whealton Sr. and Kathleen Murphy Whealton. I have a brother named John Whealton and a sister named Carrie Whealton. There was also a lack of emotional bonding between my parents and me.

It is only time and my particular education and studies in the fields of psychology, mental health, human development, etc. that I learned about attachment issues. The most important years that have been studied when it comes to attachment are the first year and a half of life. We can't remember anything that happened. Much of attachment occurs as stories we tell ourselves though without having acquired language to communicate the stories.

We can look at our later experiences to understand our attachment style.

I do NOT remember clinging to my mother or father for support. I was too ashamed to talk about the things that frightened me. If I was hurt or scared it seemed like an inconvenience. I was described as a sensitive boy who was terrified by the sounds of a firetruck. I heard this story later from my parents.

There is a stark difference between how I act in the here and now and how my parents responded based on their retelling of this story. For example, if my cat is startled by an unexpected noise of something falling, he runs away. In a soft, soothing voice, I say, "it's okay, everything is okay." As if the cat can understand!

This is part of who I have always been up until the present. I sensed this need within people.

In fact, another early memory involves my sister and I getting lost in the woods near the first house that I remember living in when we were growing up. This was before we moved into a slightly larger house when our grandparents moved in with us. So, I was no more than 8, and my sister was about 5. Both our parents worked but my mother might have been home – we just didn't have oversight or rules, as I mentioned.

The woods were not that deep at that location before we moved to the larger home, but we were just little kids. We might have been 7 and 4 years old. What stands out is their utter indifference and the sense of being lost, scared and alone. The idea of Mom and Dad being worried was not something that even occurred to me.

I would say that I was never bullied. However, there is one memory of being taunted in Kindergarten or 1st grade. I didn't even think to tell the teacher, a grownup. I had to process this in therapy just a few years ago.

I am writing this as an adult years later and telling stories about the past. So, in 2019, working with a trauma therapist, we used EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for trauma in 2019 and one of the traumas was that incident of being picked on. I was encouraged to bring in a strong source of support and a compassionate, caring, loving presence. I could bring in Celta and Lynn who I did not know at all when I was growing up.

When Paul moved to the neighborhood in 3rd grade that was when I came out of my shell at school. This didn't last long as I didn't have Paul in the same classes with me later. In the neighborhood, I was less shy because of the protection offered by Paul. The idea that a grown up could or would be a source of safety and protection was not known to me.

Other than being picked on and taunted, which I just described, I was not bullied in school. At first sight of someone trying to pick on me, I would tell Paul who would protect me. I was very small and skinny.

Our maternal grandparents lived with us for a short while, roughly between the years when I was 8 until I was 13. They seemed to be a buffer and source of protection if they were aware of anything happening. My grandmother was 79 when I was 13, and my grandfather was 86. Grandma could not move without a walker, and grandpa did not see too well.

Grandpa died in June of 1979 when I was 13, and grandma died about 6 months later.

With them gone, I was much more vulnerable. The physical and other forms of abuse from my parents began at this time. I have worked through this in therapy and I cannot remember most of those incidents. I had to cut off contact with even my sister for a number of reasons, one of the least important reasons was that she engaged in gaslighting and claimed that we had a childhood like on the idealistic Leave Beaver Cleaver show. My brother, sister, cousins and my aunt talked about the abuse.

For this story, the abuse is relevant in that I had more self-control as a child than my mother and father had as adults. My paternal grandmother told me to be like a parent figure to Carrie. I needed to get her to follow my directions and "respect" me. Respect was modeled by my mother and to a lesser degree my father. It included creating fear.

My efforts to get Carrie to "respect" me involved temptations to hit her. I always stopped myself, though.

Most importantly, I vowed that I would never lose my temper. I NEVER wanted anyone to be hurt by me or experience any fear of me. NEVER!

Allow me a moment to reflect upon the importance of early life events on the here and now before continuing the narrative.

Many of the scars were and are emotional and psychological. This is worthy of a story in itself but it is important to know that these experiences made it easier for me to understand the feelings of others and to want to be there to help others.

The full impact of growing up in an abusive home is a story in itself but it shaped my sense of empathy, justice and compassion. However, that is only an insight that I recognize now decades later. The psychological wounds are still there as I write this. If only I had remembered that my mother, father and siblings lacked a capacity for empathy and compassion, I would NOT have turned to them for support beginning in the 2000s.

During Junior High school and high school, I had an undiagnosed selective mutism. I realized that looking back, I NEVER spoke at all during class. I was almost invisible. As best as I can tell now, I had a pervasive sense of shame. How else can I explain what I felt? I would start out without speaking and then worry that if I were to try to speak later, all eyes would be on me.

One might think, so what? What would happen if a teacher called on me? What's the worst thing that could happen? Eyes would be on me but so what?

I also gained a family when my mother and her sister started talking to each other again. This corresponded with the time when I was starting Junior High School. For the longest time, early on, my mother and her sister didn't speak to each other, and we were never given a clue as to the reason why that happened.

My mother's side of the family lived in the nearby cities and towns. Once my mother and her sister reunited, I looked forward to family gatherings and seeing my first cousins Linda, Sharon and Karen, who were adults while we were children. Karen and Sharon had children. Two of my second cousins, children of my aunt's children, who were close in age to my sister and me, were Dan and Barbara.

It was clear to my mother that I preferred my cousins. I remember my mother asking if I thought that my cousins would let me live with them. My first cousins, Sharon and Karen were adults with children, some of whom were about my age.

I hung out with both Dan and Barbara. The first sign that I was not like other boys was that I preferred spending time with Barbara than with Dan. I remember going out and joining Dan to play tackle football. That was too aggressive! I didn't want to use force to pull someone to the ground.

It was nice to have these cousins and an aunt. I shared the abuse with Barbara, Sharon, Karen and Aunt Maureen (my mother's sister). Barbara never said that this was normal, nor did she claim that her mother did things like that too.

I craved time with these cousins. The guys only shook hands but I got hugs from my aunt, my first cousins and Barbara, plus Tracy who was much younger than us. It felt good to have that human contact, with a sense of love, connection, and warmth. This was different from what I knew from my siblings or parents.

It was curious with Barbara because I hadn't hugged anyone my own age. She was pretty, too. Remember I was afraid of offering anything to cause me to experience shame. I had spent more time with Barbara than any one of my other cousins. It was more about not identifying with the things that guys did than anything like attraction towards a cousin. Just hanging out and talking was cool.

Still I craved human contact and not from my parents. Yet, when I saw my cousins, being greeted with a hug or departing with a hug was something I desired with an anxious hunger. It was like my first memory in the pool, holding and being held by the swimming instructor. This experience of being held challenged the sense of shame about my very being. It's hard to put words onto early experiences of shame.

I also enjoyed entertaining the kids, our youngest cousins, when we were growing up. I would play with them and take them places. I dreamed of being the parent that I never had.

I didn't have knowledge of the ways in which gender identity might be something to consider back then. Even when playing sports, I worried about the feelings of the person or team that lost.

Looking back and thinking about Sharon working for the Department of Social Services, I wondered why she didn't feel obligated to report the abuse.

So, it is ironic that they could have been charged with assault on a minor. However, no one from any agency checked in on us. Whereas, when I was a victim in 2004, I had done nothing remotely aggressive in my life.

While I had been able to speak in class for everyone to notice in 3rd grade, I remained silent at school throughout the rest of the years when I was growing up. I did gain a degree of confidence in the neighborhood. I also nurtured a very strong bond with my cousins. This was the opposite of what my family created for me. I had been coming out of my shell.

I also learned that I didn't want to be like my parents. I knew that fear of a parent is different from respect.

One bizarre memory was of my mother calling me a street angel and house devil. I don't know if this happened growing up or after I went to college. It did reflect my mother's desire for me to meet some needs that she had. It was still a very profoundly bizarre thing to say. There was nothing I did in the home that was remotely "bad."

I followed their guidance. Never caused any trouble or got into any trouble.

I had wanted parents but not my parents. For the purpose of this book, the important things to notice are the vow to not lose my temper, to never frighten anyone... the rejection of sports that required the use of force.