Memoirs of A Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton

Chapter 2: Junior High and High School Years: Domestic Violence, Abuse

Note: the last names of females mentioned below are different than what they were at the time since they took on the last name of their husband(s).

Members of our extended family knew it was happening. The emotional, psychological, verbal, and physical abuse, not to mention the emotional neglect. We had an aunt, my mother's sister, Aunt Maureen (Bingham), who was eight years older than our mother. Aunt Maureen had three daughters – Sharon (Salerno when we were growing up), Karen (Gleifert), and Linda Bingham. We called them Sharon, Karen, and Linda.

They were our first cousins, and they were adults the entire time when we were growing up. Sharon had sons named Dan and Jaime. Dan was almost four years younger than me, and Jaime was over eight years younger than me. Karen had a daughter named Barbara (Bingham), a daughter Tracy, who was about the same age as Jaime, and a younger son named Wayne.

I spent time with Barbara from time to time since she was just over two years younger than me. We talked about the abuse (sometimes my sister Carrie was present). I liked spending time with Barbara the most. I always could relate to females better than males and some of the activities that guys like, I didn't like, e.g., sports like football.

I enjoyed spending time with Dan, but I felt more comfortable with Barbara.

The thing is that during our teen years, Barbara became interested in boys and that doesn't include your cousin. I could see how guys would be interested in her. She was my cousin so I wasn't looking at her in the way I might look at another girl.

As an aside, my female cousins and/or aunt might greet us with a kiss as well. Nothing inappropriate but I still remember my aunt Maureen placing her hands on both sides of my face and kissing me on the lips when we showed up for Thanksgiving. I had never seen a kiss between my parents that was any different.

It's hard to put your finger on things like this but I reflected on this years later when I visited my family with Lynn, my wife. Even when my brother and his wife had a "newer" relationship they showed less affection than Lynn and I did everywhere, including when I visited my family.

There was nothing new or unique about where Lynn and I were in our relationship. Anyone would have or could have said something like "aw, you can see how they are in love." Even without me trying to make some kind of declaration of my love – like when I read a poem about our love and read it to others. More on that later.

I had noticed that males are socialized differently. I didn't greet my male cousins with hugs. In our culture, there are differences in the ways that two males relate to one another. Males maintain a greater amount of personal space between one another, in general than a male-female relationship, even if you are talking about close relatives.

I could always relate better to females and so I felt close and was more relaxed with Barbara than perhaps with a male relative who was the same age as me. Anyway, with Barbara, I would lay back on her bed while she put on makeup before we were going out somewhere like to the mall or something.

Of course, my mother got jealous of the time I spent with my cousins. I remember her telling me that Barbara doesn't want to spend time with you because she is into "boys" now that we were teens. Or she might say regarding all of our cousins that "they have their own lives to live."

In a more extreme example of this jealously and which may reveal the fact that our mother knew we were talking about the abuse, she would say "your cousins aren't going to let you go live with them."

So, anyway, we – my sister Carrie and I - talked to Aunt Maureen about how we were being abused. We spoke to Barbara about it... and I talked to Barbara when I was alone with her about the abuse. She spoke to her mother Karen about the abuse, and we also spoke to Sharon, Dan, and Jaime's mother, about these things.