There are various questions that are of utmost importance in getting successful answers, as we wander down life’s pathways.
- Do our needs (physical, emotional, spiritual) change over the course of life, from gestation to death?
- What do we need as a gestating being within the womb of our mother, besides nutrition and oxygen that is carried through the placenta?
- What do we need as a newborn baby, as we observe with wonder, and perhaps some occasional distress, our new world?
- What do we need as a newly conscious being, having spoken our first words, and now intuitively understanding that there is a word that might represent everything that we see, as well as that which is unseen?
- What do we need as six to nine year old youngster, while we are vibrant, curious, fully mobile, exploring, engaging with others, and experiencing the joy of being alive and the false sense of our immortality?
- What do we need as a young person of any age, when we have been subjected to trauma, lies and gaslighting, hypnotic suggestion, neglect, and abuse, whether it was intentional or accidental?
- What do we need as an anxious, disillusioned person of any age, having had a traumatic childhood, and little comprehension of its impact upon the quality, and duration, of our life?
There is nothing more crazy making, and schizophrenia producing, than the conflicting messages that confused parents give to our children, corrupted religions give to their adherents, or politicians give to those they represent. The most destructive of these messages is the claim by parents that they love their children, religions that they are only here to bring us meaning and help us alleviate our suffering, or politicians who say they represent our interests, all the while bringing harm ot us. These messages continue to spread like viruses through our culture, continuing and protecting the toxic conditions where love and healing cannot ever flourish..
“I am only doing this because I love you”, or,
“This is for your own good”
“Don’t tell anybody what I did to you, and I will give you a present”.
are the familiar refrains that help justify the unjustifiable from the parental, religious, or political abuser. The child will be trained to be someone that they are not, or, in the other extreme, smacked around, verbally abused, and/or sexually exploited. Damaging our children is the surest way to continue our culture’s disintegrating social structure and deteriorating collective health and well-being.. And the more damaged we get, the less emotionally and spiritually available the systems who created our distress become.
There is no greater trauma to the human soul, than to have one’s native sense of self esteem and innocence ripped away and replaced by a needy, wounded self image. The willingness to be in honest relationships, and to show and feel real, unconditioned love becomes a very threatening proposition to the victim, often times for the rest of their lives. Other potentials for the spreading of traumatic influence upon others appear to originate within this now wounded sense of self that has been accepted and normalized within the victim. The victim, while unconscious continues to victimize both self and the other, in mostly unintentional, though sometimes tragic ways.
This is my experience, and it appears that this is a consistent and historical representation of the fact that the propagation and transmission of trauma is humanity’s primary historical dysfunction. Even as a young child, I knew something was horribly wrong with the world, and with my response to it. I had a profound, prophetic dream while only eight years of age, and though the message was clear, my path for how to practice it and successfully implement the new truth became a lifelong adventure. My own yearning to become an astronaut was to “get off of this fucking rock”, a refrain that I repeated in many dysfunctional ways for many, many years.
My own spiritual launching pad had to first get constructed, which is what the pain and suffering of my own life helped me to design. All journeys have to have a starting point, and a decent scribe to record the sights, if others are to be edified by the experience.. All stories of trauma and dysfunction begin in the family and society, and it is up to each of us to face our history, learn and heal from it, and carry the message of hope to others..
It can be an extremely uncomfortable experience hearing about, contemplating, and then writing about the foundational information about our childhood and all of our family relationships. But creating the narrative, and then measuring our total response to it, especially as we get closer to the sources of our original wounding, can reveal the bodily and psychic damage that has already been internalized and unconditionally accepted. As we have seen in the previous chapter, we can either fight it, take flight from it, deny its very existence, be paralyzed by it, and/or see where we have been impacted, and have impacted others, through the mirror of our lifetime of relationships, and make appropriate healing adjustments.
I will start by making an extended presentation of my own father’s life, and a brief summary of his parents and siblings, as he was the vehicle for the transmission to me of at least half of our ancestral heritage, much of our society’s values and its apparent and real toxicity. I will also briefly mention my grandmother Henry’s life, who was my mother’s mother, as her family history also played a major influential role.
My father, Beryl Donald Paullin, was a product of the Great Depression, having been born in 1927. His Father, also named Beryl, was a Fire Chief, respected within the community, and a horribly abusive alcoholic in his private life. I know little else about Grandpa Beryl (also known as Bruce), other he also served in the military, during World War 1, and is buried in Willamette National Cemetery, as is my father. My father kept my sister Pam and I away from grandpa Beryl until we were teenagers, that is how much my father wanted to protect us from the oppressive presence of his father. While in our early teenage years, Pam and I did visit with Grandpa Beryl at his La Center home twice, and I visited him in the VA hospital prior to his death. In his later years, he was sober, and seemed like a pleasant enough man.
Grandma Elsie, Grandpa Beryl, Susie Paullin circa 1948
Dad’s mother Elsie was the classic abused wife, suffering also through physical and emotional problems while married to “that brute”, as my father referred to him. I also know little about her, either, other than she had kidney disease, and she died of cancer shortly after my birth. John Edward was dad’s older brother (Ed preceded him in death by three years). Ed was removed from his home and placed at their grandparents’ farm in Oregon City at 6 years of age, after nearly being beaten to death by their father. My father was traumatized by the family, including his younger sister later in life, when Elsie wrongly claimed, and Susie subsequently spread, that it was my father ‘s fault, AS A FOUR YEAR OLD, that Ed was nearly beaten to death and subsequently removed from the home to his Oregon City based grandparent’s farm by county sheriffs. Elsie was regarded as imbalanced by some. My grandmother Henry told of a story where Elsie was seen chasing my early teenage father down the street with a knife in her hand.
I later learned that Elsie secretly gave birth to a daughter at age 15, which she gave up for adoption. Elsie claimed that she had been raped, which subsequently was proved to be lie. This story is significant, as it played into the spiritually deadly lie that Susie was coached by her mother to tell the world after her own affair as a 25 year old woman, with a married man that resulted in the birth of her first daughter Sharyn, who was immediately after birth given up for adoption. My dad had an older sister that he never knew of, until very late in his life, when Wendy Myers, daughter of Elsie’s first child, located all of us to tell us the tale.
Sharyn was to eventually locate Susie around 2003, and eventually moved in with her in 2015. A very sad tale of betrayal,Susie’s lies and a deadly pancreatic cancer for Sharyn in 2017 was a most gut and heart, wrenching end to Susie’s traumatizing lies about Sharyn’s origins. Sharyn was originally told that she was the product of a gang rape, and she believed it. When we heard the truth from Susie that Sharyn was actually a love child, we was so appalled that Sharon insisted that Sharyn be told the truth. Sharyn died a painful and spiritually disfiguring death, hating her genetic mother fir her traumatizing LIE.
Uncle Ed and Dad
Gloria (or Susie) as most people now know her, was his younger sister, and both Susie and my father suffered under horrible abusive conditions for most of their childhood. Both my father and my aunt displayed some symptoms of PTSD for most of their lives, as well as being products of the age of which they grew up. Over the years, Dad found a way to manage his life much more successfully than his sister Susie, for sure.
My father really loved his older brother Ed, through all of the years of his life, though he loved to challenge Ed about the mess that was always present in the yard on Ed’s farm. Ed loved to collect old and junk cars, much to the chagrin of his neighbors, friends, some family members, and the local police department. Sharon and I started sharing in their love beginning in 1995, when we all started sharing breakfasts, and family gatherings together for the first time.
In 1943, at 16 years of age, Dad enlisted in the Marines, as he wanted to serve his country, get away from his family of origin, as well as he thought of himself as a “dummy” ,with no faith in his ability to successfully finish high school at Benson PolyTech. His mother promptly collared the local Marine Corp recruiter, and forced dad’s return home from the service. He re-enlisted in the Navy the moment he turned 18 years of age, and was assigned duty on two different warships, the West Virginia, and the Wisconsin, during his two years in the Navy. Upon his return from active duty in 1947, he returned home, where he threatened his dad with death if his dad ever laid a hand on his mother again. Dad moved on from that relationship with his mother and father, not seeing either of them again for many years.
He started college at the University of Portland, studying Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, and other courses, from 1947-1952. He really wanted to understand the human mind at the deepest level, and his curious mind about other issues only left him late in his life. But he had to delay his academic search for the truth about the broken human mind, as his now hyper-busy life got in the way of him finishing his studies of the human condition. Dad formed a great friendship and relationship with Father Delaney, who taught at the University of Portland, and in whose name the Delaney Institute was named. He struggled a bit with his school work, but he did stay at it over a course of five years, which did not result in a degree.
Note: I was to later pick up my father’s mantle, and I have made my own attempts to finish the job that he had started, which was understanding the human mind. And, like my father, I rebel against the spiritual and philosophical authorities of the day, sometimes sharing with the readers of my blog and Facebook readers my insights.
Dad still had a fire in his heart, and an incredible desire to succeed. He worked harder than anybody around him, the sign of a classic “overachiever”. He endlessly drove himself, and he was going to overcome his upbringing, and prove to the world that he had higher value than the poor self-esteem that his verbally and physically abusive father had inculcated him with. His perfectionism and zealousness for order and efficiency was utilized to its best advantage in his future employment with the US Postal Service. That same attitude tended to, at times, challenge others, especially those that he attempted to help, or manage, as both a general manager with the Postal Service, and as a friend and family member. A person with a passive/aggressive personality, like me, had the most difficulty with him. Those who were self-assured or had found their own voice, and engaged him directly, had the best relationship with him, and he really enjoyed engaging with others in stimulating, challenging discussions. Those who took the time to get to know Dad, also found a way to love him, in spite of his rough edges. But it was hard to get to know him because too many times he would lead with a derogatory remark, or insult, and bad first impressions rarely get changed.
He had several choices in his career, either as a policeman, fireman, or joining with the US Postal Service, of which he ultimately selected. He also began courting my Mother, Corinne Beatrice Henry, who happened to be quite a “looker”, and also quite a hard working young woman, as well. Mom worked at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland, among many other jobs over the course of her own career. Mom’s parents were not impressed with my fathers’ parents for obvious reasons, and Dad had to overcome some real judgements to make inroads into that family. My Grandpa Henry made my father mow his yard before he would even let Dad take Mom out, as part of their desire to prove that Dad really wanted to move forward with her.
Marriage photo with mom’s parents.
Dad married mother in June of 1950, and they lived in NW Portland for several years. Pamela came along in 1954, and Dad knew love in a way he never knew before. Pam was a precious prize, and Dad delighted in her presence, and her life, until his death. I came along in 1955, and Dad initially had trouble embracing who I was, as I had troubled early years, causing much disruption to the family lifestyle, because of health issues (the underlying truth is that Dad had trouble understanding the innate value that I had as a baby, and as a son). Dad had a house built in West Linn in 1955, and spent the next nine years there, investing thousands of hours of work turning his property into his own outdoor temple. He repeated the same process with his next two homes, as well, converting the landscapes into his own unique paradise.
Mom, Dad, and Pam, circa 1955
First and foremost, Dad loved his older brother John Edward, his new family, eventually including all of his in-laws, and all the new friends that they developed through the Oakey Doaks square dancing group. These included, among several others, Bob and Dorothy Fero, John and Cleone Edwards (John worked with Dad at the Post Office), Dick and Eunice Jamison (Dick also worked with him at the Post Office), Joyce and Merlin Litson, Joe and Sue Constans, and Bob and Diane West, along with several others. When mom and dad withdrew from dancing in the early 1970’s, they still remained friends with many members of the group.
The Oakey Doakes Square Dance Group, with Mom in front row, fourth from right, and Dad behind her
He carried a lifelong friend, Roland Mills, far into his adulthood, with Mom and Dad sharing many fond memories with Roland, and his first wife, Eloise. They attempted to continue their friendship with both parties after Roland and Eloise’s divorce in 1980. Dad’s dementia late in life kept him from being friendly with Roland, though he still recognized Roland and knew his name, but had lost the willingness or ability to share memories with him. In the very early years, my sister Pam and I shared some fond memories of staying at Roland and Eloise’s home while being babysat by their daughter Cindy, watching horror, science fiction, and Elvis Presley movies with her, and her brother Gary. Gary and Pam’s first deceased husband Jim Graham actually ended up working together for a while in the early 1990’s in the home real estate industry, resulting in the sale of the house to Sharon and I that we presently live in.
Dad, Mom, Eloise, and Roland, at the Roaring ’20’s Nightclub during younger, happier days
When dad was a young husband and father, he carried two jobs for a number of years because he did not like feeling in debt. Because Mom had to work, too, we spent much of our first years with baby sitters. I never nursed with my mother, and, as a baby, because I cried at night, I was wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the car in the garage in the evening so that my father could get sleep before arising at 2:30am for his first job every day.
My father loved to play hard, and he had many stories of being a top flight beer drinker in the local tavern scene, while also becoming quite the accomplished shuffleboard player. He told a story that the owner of a tavern even served him a beer while he was in the bathroom. Yes, he became friendly with the suds during that time period.
My father’s love of the suds translated directly to me, where I learned, quite early, how wonderful the flavor of beer was, and how wonderfully intoxicating it’s effects were. He told the story of how when I was 5 years old, he left an open beer on the coffee table, and when he left the room for a moment, I lifted the beer up, and drank it all. Within 30 minutes, I fell off of the couch, and dad and I both knew that I had a new, but dangerous, friend. Dad took care to monitor his beer after that, and so did I. I would steal drinks off of his beer after that, until I learned how to steal whole beers later in childhood.
My parents hosted many parties over the years, mainly for their Oakey Doaks friends.
Dad carried a tarnished understanding of how to discipline his children, though he later claimed that he eventually came to realize that he was repeating his fathers’ abusive behavior, as far as physical discipline was concerned, and thus he stopped (I still got beat with a belt to age 14, though). His rebukes were quite powerful, and, at times, seemed to outnumber his praise and acknowledgement of us. Early on, Pam and I suffered under the abuse of his belt too many times to recall. But through all of that, I never lost my love for my father. He was my hero, albeit a broken one. He loved my mother deeply, though at times unskillfully. Fortunately for mother, dad never lifted a hand against her, though they both traded many barbs over the years. A lot of it was just the way they communicated, thinking that they were being funny, and a lot was thinly veiled mutual aggression.
They shared much pride in their children, and being parents brought untold gifts, and meaning, to both of their lives, because of, and in spite of, all of the challenges and lessons that we presented to them as children, and then as adults, over the years.
In the year 2000, The Parents’ Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Luau on Maui
Dad was an avid reader, but spiritual or religious readings were not a draw for him. The last time that I remember Dad being present in a church was to witness my baptism in 1987, which also corresponds to the last time I was in a fundamentalist church environment, as well. Dad avoided going to church, having never been convinced that church attendance had any relationship to a connection with God. He stated that if he ever walked into a church, it would probably fall onto him. His church was his love for nature, its beauty, the wildlife, hiking through woods and meadows, hiking the deserts in Arizona, the trails of the Columbia River Gorge, or any of thousands of places around America, and the world. His church was also his love of his wife, his family, including his brother and sister, and his in-laws, his love of his dear friends, his love of his dogs, of which he had many. He adored his dogs, and they supplied a constant supply of the unconditional love that his heart, and soul craved, and which his experience of his exterior life sometimes failed to supply him in sufficient amounts. He loved the homes in which he lived, and prepared the grounds of each of them carefully, as if making each one a sacred offering to his creator. His body of life was truly the temple of his living God.
He was the type of guy that, had he ever met Jesus Christ in person, if he noted lettuce in the Christ’s teeth, he would tell him about it. He liked to state that “heaven was not ready for him, and that the devil did not want him either, as he would try to take hell over and run it the way it should be run”. Dad lived his life “outside of the lines” so to speak, and he delighted in challenging other people’s assumptions, sensibilities and understandings.
Dad was an accomplished card player, square dancer, stamp collector, avid fisherman, hiker, camper, traveler, scout troop leader, general outdoors man, adventurer, humorist, wise man, and golfer, but retired early in life from hunting. As a young man he hunted with his father, though he grew to be repulsed by the idea of killing innocent creatures. One time while hiking in the Arizona desert with his dog Misty, they were confronted by a rattlesnake, and he had to draw his pistol and shoot the creature. He regretted having killed it, which shows how his love for all life had taken over his soul. He had a challenged understanding of cats, though, and was quick to punish wayward cats that strayed unto his property to assault and kill birds and squirrels.
Ed, Dad, and Misty
Dad’s high point in his career was when he was promoted to Operations Manager of the Main Office of the US Postal Service, in Northwest Portland. His career there spanned 35 years, and he developed many friends, and a few enemies, along the way to his peak. He was respected by the Postmaster, though it was the Postmaster’s dissatisfaction with an aspect of dad’s personal life that encouraged dad to retire at 55 years of age. Dad’s next step would have been to become Postmaster over the entire Portland operation, and succeed Ben Luscher, had he not entered into an affair with Karen, the office nurse around 1980. Mother had a lifelong investment in my father staying married to her, and she took charge of a situation that would have discouraged most other people by informing the Postmaster of dad’s indiscretion. So my fathers’ official retirement date was 1982, and a whole new world opened up to mother and dad.
Costa Rica 2004
Dick Jamison (Eunice Jamison taking photograph), Dad, and Mom on a trip to England 1983
Dad traveled extensively with mother in retirement. They took their verbal “Punch and Judy Show” around the world, and around America. Eventually they settled upon their yearly snowbird excursions to Queens Valley, in Arizona, where they would park their travel trailer, and spend the winter in sunny southern Arizona. My wife Sharon and my sister Pam eventually incorporated Mother and Father into our annual vacations, beginning in 2000.
Dad lived the dream, and learned to make mom his best friend, and travel companion. Mother’s health had taken a downturn in 1978, when she learned that she had kidney disease. Dad would admonish her about her weight, thinking that if only she would lose her extra weight, her health would be better. Mom would do her best to comply, but, hey, that chocolate cake was just too hard to resist sometimes, and, anyway, she deserved it because she stayed so active. Dad had a habit of being disrespectful to my mother over the years, and the weight obsession my father had only added to all of our uneasiness with him.
There are some who thought that my father was a horse’s ass, but that is the view one sometimes gets when in second place, having been passed by his race horse of a mind. A man like my father, who lived a full life, could have his own book written about him, and not scratch the surface of all the people that he impacted, positively or negatively, and all of the experiences that he had, all of the humor that he shared, and all of the wisdom that he developed. My sister, my wife, and I wrote several pages of “Beryl-isms”, which are quotes directly from my father about life in general. I have presented a few of his “top 50” statements, which he repeated many times over the last few years of his life. In parenthesis, I have included a few of my replies to his common statements that I used to give back to dad as part of our “conversation”..
1). Don’t wait too long to retire. People think they need to work those extra years, they work that extra one or two years, thinking they need the money, and death takes over, and they never make it to retirement (well, Dad, I retired early, but we will have to wait and see if that has any beneficial effect on my longevity. Right now, my main goal is to try to outlive you, oh immortal one!).
2). Oh those rich people, all of that money, and they still have to die anyway! (and the rest of us, we have to die too, darn it!)
3). Why do you need to know, are you writing a book? (well, as a matter of fact I am!)
4). I really took the system, didn’t I? (after being retired and on pension for 35 years, contributing $22,742 to your pension, and getting over one million dollars back, I would say that you did!)
5). Come back again when you can’t stay so long (well, I am working on that one!)
6). Don’t you have something better to be doing? (yes, but you are the priority of the moment, so try to enjoy it with me)
7). Sure am glad that I am retired, or is it retarded? (um, I won’t touch that one)
8). I might be here, but I am not all here (then where is the rest of you?)
9). You know, having a dog like Rocky adds 7 years to my life (yes, but your dog took 7 years off of mine!)
10). (to any waitress) Say, you sure are looking good this evening. Would you like to come home with me and serve me my favorite meal? (argh! So embarrassing!)
11). I am not trying to be pretty, and I never will win any beauty contests (I can’t argue with you on that one)
12). The doctor needed a urine, stool, and semen sample, so I just left him my underwear (oh, boy, what a bad joke!)
13). You couldn’t hit a beach ball with a banjo! You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn! (comments made to me both as a youth when pitching or batting on little league baseball teams, and while playing golf with him as a child and as an adult)
14). When I get to Heaven, I am going to have a talk with the “Old Man” about my wife dying before me. Wives are supposed to outlive the husbands. Either I should have died first or we should have died at the same time (Maybe mom finished her work before you did. In what form would you have wanted a simultaneous death, like in a murder/suicide, or in a car wreck?)
15). Son will we all meet again in heaven? (are you sure that you really want to hang out with the same crowd for eternity?)
16). Heaven is not ready for me yet, and Hell is afraid that I will take it over, so that is why I am still here (maybe you are still here to provide a few more lessons for the living. I know that I sure am getting a crash course!).
17). I am in no hurry to die. Nobody I know has ever come back from the dead and told me what a great time that they are having after death. (yes, and wayward religions continue to capitalize on that mortal fear, ignore the fact that heaven is here and now, and do not effectively teach us how to die to ourselves and our fears and suffering to experience heaven in advance of bodily death)
18). I provided care for you all of those years when you were young, now its your turn to take care of this old man (I should have read the contract more carefully before my birth!)
19). You should always be best friends with your sister. Never let anything get in the way of that friendship, because she will find a way to love you to your death, as you should love her as well (Well, Dad, you sure have shown commitment to both your brother and your sister, especially over the last twenty years. Somehow you all endeared yourselves to each other. Thank you for being a success in that aspect of family love, and overcoming the chaos created by your parent’s relationship. I think that Pam and I are on a good course right now)
And on and on it could go. My dad was a great story teller, and fountainhead of wisdom, one-liners, humor, self and other deprecation, and sarcasm.
It was tough watching my father deteriorate, which began in earnest after his radiation treatment for prostate cancer in 2005. After mom died in 2009, Sharon and I had him over for dinner every evening. He was anxious, and suffered horribly from grief, and deteriorating cognitive health. I took him to the doctor’s office for treatment for depression, and the doctor ending up prescribing anti-depressants for me instead. He continued to threaten to kill himself, and I had to locate all of his guns, and empty them. In the process of emptying his rifle, I almost shot myself in the foot, sending a bullet through his bedroom floor.
Within three more years, late in 2012, Sharon insisted that Dad have his driving competency evaluated, as he appeared to no longer be capable of driving safely. When the doctor confirmed that Dad should no longer drive, my life as I knew it came to an end. The loss of his independence also became my own loss, as well. I became responsible for 100 percent of Dad’s life, health, nutrition, meals, baths, finances, home and lawn care, and spiritual support. Dad no longer managed his life, other than dressing himself, going to the bathroom (mostly), smoking his cigars, and eating the food placed in front of him
The family up at High Rock,in Clackamas County wilderness area watching the total solar eclipse in August of 2017
I found a way to love that man on deeper and more profound levels, as I continued to release my own expectations of how he should be, and how he should live. His sole concerns became his love for his dog, Rocky, and maintaining residence in his own home until his own death. He had lost all short term memory, and was basically unteachable the last 5 years of his life, though he maintained his dignity, his sense of self, his recognition of his family, and his love for his children, including my wife Sharon. At the beginning of 2016, I finally hired a support person to help me with Dad’s care, a loving young woman by the name of Madison. She helped for about 15 hours per week, which went a long way to take some of the burden off of Sharon and me.
Dad and Rocky, Kerr Island 2015
When Rocky died in June of 2016, ten days after our own dog Ginger’s death, Dad’s final thread of love and companionship with his past was snapped. He asked me over 5000 times where Rocky had disappeared to, after his dog’s death. I watch my father call out 30 times or more, Every Day, to his deceased dog, Rocky, who died. We made up a sign for him, so that he can see, in writing, that his dog is dead, that it died of old age, and that he is ‘in heaven’. But, he never truly got it, because his short term memory was gone. Reexperiencing my father’s inability to listen and understand what I tried to present to him probably stirred up some old wounding of mine, but I did not have the time to consider it and heal from it. At times, I felt compelled to set him straight, and tell him he is neglecting this moment, where Sharon White and i lived, and instead he was worshiping the dead,, where all of his grief and losses reside, but of course he quickly lost that. My heart broke for him, and for all of us
One of our last two dinners out with Dad, August 2017. This one was at Stone Creek Inn at Carver, Oregon
Our presences were just not quite enough to make all OK with Dad. But, we made him as comfortable as we could until his last days. He never took one medication, nor was I about to force one onto him. Dad’s final four years were a real labor of love for me, forcing me into early retirement from work, and the experience almost tanked me. But I learned how to love another human being unconditionally and completely, though the lesson plan exacted a price from me. I am only just now coming out from under the spells of anxiety and stress around the experience of care giving for my Dad, as well as being fully present for my friend Marty for the several months prior to his own death, which occurred five days prior to Dad’s death. These events were to stimulate trauma and its resultant anxiety within me for an extended period..
The last conversation that I had with my father was 6 hours before his death.
This is what we exchanged with each other:
Dad, you are still in bed, and its 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s up, it’s such a beautiful day outside.
You know son, I am always tired now, but I am about to get up.
Well, Dad, this might be the last sunny day in a long time, so why don’t you get up, and go out on the porch and have a cigar? I’ll put a chocolate bar on your table, and a drink for you.
I’ll get right up son. By the way, who is caring for me this evening?
Well, Dad, Madison is caring for you this evening.
Oh, poor Madison!
Dad, Madison benefits by being with you, as you do with her.
I will be with you beginning this Sunday morning, and I will be with you for the next three weeks as usual. You know we are planning one final trip to Hawaii with you, right?
Oh son, I am happy just staying at home. I have everything that I need here.
Well, OK dad. I am going to leave now, as I need to prepare for Marty’s funeral tomorrow.
When will I see you again, son?
Dad, it will be Sunday morning, OK?
OK, son, you know that I am dependent on you. Please take care of yourself.
Oh, dad, you know that I am dependent on you, too. You be careful too!
I love you, son.
I love you too, Dad.
I leave his room, not knowing this is to be our last exchange.
The next day, at 10:58am, as I stand in back of the hearse, as a pall bearer in Marty Crouch’s funeral, I prepare to receive Marty’s body to place into the hearse. I receive a call from Madison, which I cannot take, so I hand the phone to Sharon. Sharon is informed that my father is deceased. Sharon has to leave the service for our friend, and tend to my fathers’ body.
Oh, father, you really knew how to place your unique stamp on my life, didn’t you?
Now I will try putting to words the perceptions and experiences around being a youth, from the current perspective of a nearly 66 year old man. My intention is not to resort to “revisionist history” when it comes to presenting the memories and experiences of my childhood. And, I will only resort to editorials where I perceive that it might enhance or develop the story in a way that could not be done so otherwise.
Bruce circa Feb 1956
I have read in the medical reports that I was fed formula from the earliest of ages, as Mom did not nurse me. I was a fussy, crying baby, and caused much distress within our household.
A story about my early childhood was shared with me from a US postal clerk, who sought me out when I started working at the USPS in 1975. He had been an acquaintance of my father since my father started working at the postal service in 1950. Apparently, when my father was much younger and working two jobs , both for the Oregonian, and for the USPS, he only had limited time for sleep. Because I was a “crying baby” that kept him awake at nights, mom and dad would bundle me up into blankets and leave me in the garage, in the car, at night, until he left at 2:30am for his first job of the day. He first delivered newspapers for the Oregonian, then he would go to his regular day job at the US Postal Service. When asked, my mother and father both confirmed that this actually happened, though they could see no harm could have been done to me through this isolation..
My mother started back to work two weeks after my birth, because of the almost compulsive need for my father to pay off all debts, as he felt out of control by owing money to others.
Thus, I became a by-product of many baby-sitter relationships, as well as some loving family connections.
Dad, Pam and Bruce at Rooster Rock Park on the Columbia River in 1957
I started 1st grade while I was still 5 years old, having taken an advanced entry exam to qualify me to start earlier. My mother arranged for this because I was so unhappy with the baby sitters that my parents had arranged to care for me (one, Jo Stanley, was an unloving presence who also had an abusive teenage son who terrorized me). My mother especially wanted to help me get out of my baby sitting hell. This ended up adding stress to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Tozier, who had a difficult time accepting me and my behavior. To quote her, from my first grade report card:
“Bruce’s main problem is talking to others and to himself. Some of his behavior problems have disappeared, however, and he is working hard”.
In the third grade, she had me again, and her final statement about me was the following:
“Bruce is a careful worker and wants very much to do his work correctly. It has been interesting and rewarding to watch him develop this year. His main problems are social ones”.
I spent a lot of time under the dunces cap in the back corner of the room in her class. Mr. Hill, the school principal and Mrs Tozier required that I take medicine for my hyperactivity to continue to be allowed in her class. My mother and my doctor conspired together, and I was prescribed sugar pills, which were placed in a methedrine labeled prescription bottle. The “prescription” was given to Mrs. Tozier, who made sure that I took the fake pills daily. I miraculously improved, though I believe that Mrs Tozier’s behavior also improved through me taking the placebo!
Third grade photograph, Bruce back row, third from right
Third grade photograph, Bruce back row, third from right
My sister Pam was a fourth grader at Cedar Oak Park Grade School, and I was one grade behind her. I was small compared to some of the bigger boys for grade three, having been admitted to 1st grade when I was five years old.
After school one day, I began the walk back to our house, located about 3/8 mile away. My sister also was preparing to leave, but she first wanted her new boyfriend to meet me. Her boyfriend had a younger brother with him, who was a first grader.
My sister started to tease me, as she would often do. Her boyfriend offered to beat me up for her, then saw how small I was, and said it would be funner to watch his little brother beat me up.
I had never been in a fight, and I wanted no part in the bullying behavior. The first grade boy, who was about my size, proceeded to start punching and kicking me viciously.
I did not know what to do. My father had never taught me how to defend myself. My sister taunted and laughed at me
When the boy added insult to injury by pulling my ears and hair after tackling me to the ground I had taken more than enough of a beating. For the first time in my life I felt a surge of energy unlike anything I had ever experienced, and I began to not only resist the physical assault, I started copying the fighting bevior of the other boy. I proceeded to clean his clock, and when the older brother got concerned for his little brother’s safety, he pulled me off.
I was still so riled up I began to go after the big brother, but my sister broke it up by laughing some more, and dragging her boyfriend away,
I had learned how to fight. I also learned that some boys are untrustworthy and prone to capricious violence against innocent people, like myself.
I learned how absolutely vulnerable I was.
I started playing more with the girls, too, who played non violent games, like kickball, instead of the often times violent game of prison ball
My mother was a constant presence of love and respect for me. She was a great supporter for me throughout all of my years until her death. My mother, in case in it is not obvious elsewhere in this story, was my “great protector” from the over-extension of male punitive technology and methodology. I had to draw her into a couple of the discipline efforts that my dad extended to me, especially when his belt hit my ass especially hard and often. But the image of my mother crying hysterically as my father raised his belt into the air remains one of those “marker memories” of a traumatized life. My basic discomfort with aggressive male energy probably started here, and this “fear” informed and guided me through all of my relationships to follow.
As a child, it appears that I learned that my personal world could be an unsafe place, especially while I slept. I remember most nights lying awake at least until midnight, fearing sleep and its dreams, until I fell asleep out of exhaustion, even if I was put to bed at 8:00pm. I remember using that extra time to rehash my entire day, and everything that I said and did. I would try to see where I could have behaved better, or differently, for a greater advantage. I intuited that if I were a “better person” by day, my nightmares at night might not be so severe. Yet, my day time behavior rarely improved, for I was fairly spontaneous, and I tended towards impulsive activity.
I have memories of waking up from sleep, and, with my older sister, walking over to the garage window, and crawling up onto my rocking horse to look out of the window, to see if our parents’ car was in the garage. Of course, if the car was gone, we were both distressed by the parents’ absence, and, to this day, we both agree that this event did happen, and it happened several times.
Uncle Wayne and Bruce on the famous rocking horse given to me by my great Grandpa (Grandpa Henry’s father
Other memories include terrifying nightmares almost every night until I was 8 years old. I would be so afraid that I would stay in my bed and pee it quite frequently, which presented some problems over those early years (I was removed from the top bunk of a bunk bed that my sister and I shared for a while, of course, because of a couple of yellow “waterfalls”, leading to us having separate bedrooms at age 4 for me).
I had fantasies about friends, of which I had so few (or none) in the early years. One fantasy with remarkable staying power is that the only people that will be attracted to me are those that somehow I miraculously saved their life, otherwise people would be uninterested in befriending or loving me, which led into a few real life disastrous situations in early adulthood, and later on. We lived in an area devoid of children my age and sex prior to 1965, and so I grew up fairly isolated from friendship until we moved to a new neighborhood, where it was a much more mature neighborhood, with more options for childhood friendships located closer to our new home.
Even after I started sleeping by myself, my mother allowed me into her bedroom at night after my typical nightly nightmare terror sessions, as long as dad had already left for work. I remember how protected from my demons I felt, as I lay in bed with her. I also know, now, that I unconsciously sought out women, MUCH MORE THAN MEN, to bond with, with the hopes that the relationship would bring a measure of safety and acknowledgement into my life, which seemed to be quite lacking in too many of my male to male connections. Yes, this was to become an unconscious “center” , yet another locus of energy, in addition to other ‘energy’ centers (such as the fear of being ignored), around which all of my future perceptions were to be influenced by.
There were many moments in the earlier reaches of childhood when I really loved my life. What I really remember well from my childhood memories are:
My love for my mother, my uncle Wayne, and my maternal grandparents (who provided for me a safe, loving home to stay with them at least one weekend a month for most of my childhood),
My conflicted love for my father,
My love for our pets
My love for exploring the outdoors,
My love for playing with and studying animals,
My love for running through the forests on trails, or creating my own trails,
My love for building ground forts out of fallen branches,
My love for climbing trees and making tree forts,
My love for exploring islands on the Willamette River near our home, and ,
My love for playing with friends, which were especially hard for me to find, or to make while I was young.
Sometimes, I felt uncomfortable around people my age, especially the boys. I did not always enjoy playing with the boys, who could be too aggressive. In first through fourth grades, I usually hung out with the girls, and I played kick ball and other non-contact or reduced violence games with them. I would become quite attached to one or two girls, and I was already trying to figure out how to incorporate a girl into my life quite prematurely. I preferred girls to boys, becoming overly attached to girls when I was as young as 8 years old. The girls, by and large, totally lost interest in me by 5th grade, so I had to stick with the guys for most of my childhood from that point forward.
I usually like my father, but i was often angry with him. Many times dad was my only friend, and I felt betrayed by him whenever I was over-enthusiastically punished for doing something wrong. I was always guilty of doing something wrong, whether I admitted it or not. If I did not admit it, I was lying, which could lead to yet another swat (As the Course in Miracles has stated, these were unrecognized calls for love).
The day after the Columbus Day storm of 1962, when tree branches and fallen trees were everywhere, including our large backyard, my dad was so controlling as to how I was supposed to pick up the branches that I got angry with him, abandoned him, and walked a mile to help Steve Roth (son of owner of Roth BMW) and his family clear the wreckage around their home. I liked Steve’s mom, anyway, as she was always so friendly to me. They were comparatively wealthy, and I remember being told by Steve’s mother that my father was not rich, like they were. This was the first time that I became conscious that there existed people who were better off than we were.
I stole from my father’s wallet sometimes, so that I could go to the store and buy candy. I did all sorts of things that I knew to be wrong, yet I took some delight in going against authority, and boy did I pay the price! There were too many beatings with the belt. Most of the behavior that I was accused of I actually committed, so in Dad’s mind I deserved what I got, though mercy sure would have been a nice charitable gesture, had he offered it to me, or my sister. Looking back at my childhood, I was confused as to the best way to attract attention, and it may have been a subconscious desire to be recognized that motivated me to ’go against the grain’.
I was taken to Sunday school at a local church, when I was six years old. I did not like it very much, and I did not nor could not believe that Jesus Christ “died for our sins”. I knew that I was not a “sinner”, at least not the way that they were trying to explain it to me, and that the language of this church was very harsh and confusing. When they tried to tell me that my only hope was to believe all of their vague, boring stories, I balked, and in my own unique passive/aggressive fashion, I just ignored what they tried to teach me. These Sunday School experiences appeared to show me that the church was promoting a bunch of confusing stories with little relevance to my experience. I tried bible study only two more times in our new Milwaukie neighborhood, but stopped when a girl that I was interested in at the time stopped attending. Yes, women were the best reason for going to church. For me, that would prove to be true at least two more times, beginning when I was twenty eight years old.
My father loved dogs, and would always try to have a dog available for our friendship. He instilled into me a great love and appreciation for the canine species, which I still hold onto tightly. I loved my first dog Nina, who died while running with me while riding my bicycle along a busy road while I was 7 years old, having been hit by a car (my fault for riding too far from home). I, of course, was devastated, and my dad and mom knew better than making me wrong for her death, but I knew it was my fault anyway. Our “replacement” dog was promptly run over by our next door neighbor when he got into his truck and backed over our sleeping dog. Heidi was our third dog, and she was a beautiful Samoyed. She became, without a doubt, the most wonderful creature that I had ever met up until that era of my life. I began to recognize the miraculous power that the ‘love’ for another being has on me. She became the ultimate canine companion for me, as well as for our entire family.
The strawberry picking, sucker punch story might fit here.
Another aspect of “family shaming” was evident whenever my father came to sports events that I was involved with from 6th through 8th grade. He never took the time or effort to teach me or coach me on sports, but he was overly critical of me and my level of play on athletic teams. One of his famous public humiliations of me was when I was pitching on the mound one day, and dad yelled out “you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn!” That is just an extension of the same “blanket party” behavior that he adhered to whenever he felt the need to garage my baby body. I won’t go into the details of the discipline that was administered to me over the years of my childhood, but one little story is quite telling. A machine gun toy was donated to the Oak Lodge Fire Department during their toy and joy drive one Christmas in 1969 (that was where my mother worked then, with me being 13 years old at the time). The gun had some damage to it, which is probably the reason why it was donated. My mother brought it home for me to mess with. I tried to get it to work, but could not. I began dismantling it, trying to understand how it worked so that I could attempt to repair it. Ann Cook, a daughter of some friends of my parents, was over visiting me at the time. Dad came downstairs and saw the gun parts spread all over the basement floor, accused me of destroying the gift, and then proceeded to remove his belt, and whip the hell out of me, right in front of Ann. That one hurt a lot of different ways, for sure. I was horribly shamed, but it did not feel too unusual, at the time. Little did I know at that time that for me to disassemble and examine, and then to attempt to reassemble, my own life experience was to become my life’s greatest challenge, and then passion, at a much later point in time.
School was not a problem for me in the new neighborhood, as the quality of the North Clackamas School District, at least in the grades schools, was substantially lower than that of the West Linn area from which we had moved from, so I was already a bit ahead of my peers, at least in math and English. And, if the truth be known, I was starting to really get a handle as to how to succeed in school, by watching and imitating the behavior of others who were doing well. I noted at the time that I despised, at times, the competition to get good grades at school. Teachers graded on the curve, meaning that a small percentage of the students got A’s, as well as the same percentage got F’s. Part of me had associated getting good grades with getting love and acknowledgement from my parents, and I hated the idea of having to compete with others to get love at home. It was this experience that led me to sometimes feel good about other student’s failures at school, since it might mean that I would thus have a better opportunity to score some attention points. Collaboration was definitely out of the question for me while living in this scarcity consciousness.
I started to become a bully to some girls around the age of 10 years old. If they were not attractive to me, they were susceptible to gentle, and not so gentle, ribbing and ridicule. I found a behavior where I could get support from other boys, but it was damaging behavior on my part, and was to bring shame to me when confronted at a later time by victims of my abhorrent communication style. One time when I was 15 years old, and waiting for a bus in downtown Portland, a young woman walked up to me, asked my name, and then asked if I knew who she was. I had no idea. She then told me how I victimized her with my poor humor, and made her pee her pants once. I told her that I was sorry, that was not who I was now, but I felt ashamed. I met another of my victims when I was close to 40 years old in an Oak Grove Fred Meyers store, and I sought her out, introduced myself, and apologized for what I had wrought upon her. She had long ago forgave and forgotten, but I had not. It felt good seeing her living a successful life in adulthood, complete with a happy family. Yes, I was part of the oppression and traumatization of the feminine spirit, until I became conscious.
Grandmas heritage and dying experience
Donelle experience needs plus and minus editing
My experience with Donelle through twenty four years of a tragic relationship contains enough information to be a book in and of itself. Her life does not neatly fit into a linear time frame, and her story, just like her life was painfully disjointed, a quality that characterized both of our lives through at least 1987. Mental illness ultimately left her in a permanently broken state, regardless of the multitudes and diversity of medications administered by ‘professionals’, the follow-up care received, OR LACK OF IT, or the rest of the outer circumstances of her life.
Donelle’s life experience as an adult is a direct result of her relationship to traumatic abuse as a child at the hands of a pervert and a beast of a man, as well as the all-pervading aspects of our damaged male dominated culture. Other factors such as poor professional mental health care and few, if any, alternative therapy options, as well as unknown genetic predispositions may be factors that kept her spiritually, emotionally, and physically imprisoned in a life lacking in freedom and good health. Her early years with mental illness had no relationship with recreational and illicit drug use, as she did not use them at all in high school.
Donelle was never able to speak out against the abuse that she
experienced throughout her life. Being born into a socially diseased
family, where her mother’s narcissism and selfishness, and neglect of
her young children were the defining characteristics of their relationship. Her mother’s poor relationship choices with men resulted from her own brokenness, leading to the conditions that promoted sexual abuse and assault against Donelle when she was but 6 years old.
Her mother, Marlene, was a young bride, who married Donald Flick, in 1954. Don owned 2 sections of land in North Dakota, which he managed and leased out, as well as being a full time worker at the Camas Washington Crown Zellerbach paper mill. Don would work so much at the mill, that time at home was quite limited. Marlene would have parties at their home while he was away, and she would invite single men. There was always alcohol being served, and Marlene tended to promiscuity during that time period. While she would be taking leave to the back bedroom with her latest “friend”, she would leave her young children vulnerable to whoever was left without a partner. Donelle, being about 6 years old during this difficult period of time, was selected and abused by Bud Barr, who was a child predator, heavy drinker, and all around bad attitude man. Bud would repeatedly abuse Donelle, and it was also later learned that he abused his other daughter from his previous marriage.
Marlene and Don’s marriage collapsed in 1962, and they were divorced. But Marlene married the abuser Bud, and they moved in together near Five Corners in Vancouver, Washington. Donelle lived with her mother the majority of the time, due to the conditions of the divorce decree.
Donelle had to face the threat of sexual attack from this criminal for
the next ten years of her life, though her brothers told me that Bud was
not allowed to be alone with Donelle, after Marlene and Bud moved in
with each other. Yet, the damage was already done, and Donelle came to know trauma intimately, and she continuously felt the threat of his presence for all of her childhood years.
I was to meet and talk with Bud twice, and found him to be an angry, dark, judgmental man, and I learned to hate that man. I could see that he was an extremely oppressive presence, and he practiced intimidation in all of his spare time, apparently. Upon hearing the story of sexual and physical abuses meted out by Bud from Terry-Lynn Barr, Donelle’s step sister, I was to experience the desire to murder human beings for the first and only time in my life. Bud sexually abused both Terry-Lynn’s other sister from another mother, and her step-sister Donelle when they were both young. Don’t ask me what should be done with those people. Life has a way of punishing them, but it is always too late to save the victim. Many of these victims are so traumatized that they never recover, so prevention is really our only hope here, at least for now.
This might be another chapter, or ignored, below.
Traumatization through anxiety, poor self-esteem, drug addiction, and alcoholism.
