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

Chapter 13: Moving to Wilmington: My Adult Life Takes Off

In the last chapter, I ended with the announcement that I was moving to Wilmington, North Carolina. I had a six-month contract to work at Corning Glass. I was working as a technical writer. They needed someone who had a technical background, and I was told that my engineering degree and experience working as a software engineer met the requirements.

I was a bit nervous or had some uncertainty since this was just a six-month contract. What would happen after the contract ended in six months? The past year and a few months had been extremely difficult. I was not doing well, and my self-esteem had plummeted or so I thought.

As it turns out, I only had to move out on my own and get my life back on track. I had to resume my quest and continue with my career journey.

It also is obvious that the only problem I had had was that I chose to live in an environment that had become toxic in terms of my relationship with my parents.

I had spent over two years thinking about how unacceptable I was in the eyes of my parents. I could NOT make them happy for me to save my life.

What do I mean when I state that I was living in a toxic environment? I constantly worried that I wasn't good enough... I wasn't making my mother happy... My mother had made it known that she believed that I was stubbornly unwilling to work as an engineer. That nearly constant psychological and emotional abuse hung over me like a dark cloud... Other than when I was with Celta.

When I was with Celta, I felt acceptable... loved... special. I felt good enough. I could just be.

Prior to coming to Wilmington, I had been writing poetry and sharing poetry with a friend of mine named Martin Kirby. I give my mother credit for introducing me to him. It was interesting that she noticed that I might like poetry.

At any one time in life, there are things that stand in stark contrast to everything else that was going on. I mean, my parents had seemed to be completely unaware of everything meaningful that was going on in my life at that time. They were not at all interested in knowing that Celta existed and had played a role in my life. They didn't care to know why I had been so sad for the past year. My family showed no interest at all in my career plans or what I had done to move forward with those plans.

None of that ever seemed to matter at all. That was so exasperating but then my mother introduced me to a poet and English Literature professor because she knew that poetry was interesting to me. Yes, I am grateful that she noticed that but why could they not notice all of the other things that mattered to me?

The subject of the writing that I shared with Martin, my poetry mentor, was not something that either parent cared to know about. So, I'm grateful that my mother cared enough to introduce me to this talented professor of English literature but that was the extent to which either parent demonstrated an interest in anything that interested me or that would make me happy.

Anyway, this new interest of mine in poetry would prove to be important as I started to build a life as a young adult.

Before I moved to Wilmington, I had found a roommate who had a room for rent and her name was Donna Bender. She was a thin pretty woman who had been in a domestic violence relationship and had been involved in the domestic violence community.

When I moved to Wilmington, I obviously didn't know anyone, other than my roommate. I did socialize a bit with my roommate. I remember going downtown to a gay bar with her once. Apparently, a guy was interested in me and I remember Donna telling that person that I was straight. It was interesting.

This wasn't my main source of entertainment or enjoyment after work and on the weekends.

When I first arrived, that first week, I had in mind that I needed to make friends. I thought I would see what activities are available in the city. So I picked up an entertainment weekly paper. I had in mind looking into the poetry reading scene in the area. I believe my poetry mentor Martin had suggested this to me.