Podbit · We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson
Bullied by brothers for being adopted, mocked at school for her wheelchair and black pants, Briel never talked to anyone about it. She felt she was already taking too much of her parents' time for physical needs to add emotional ones. She kept conversations to herself — literally talking to her reflection.
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At 15:50 · chapter starts 14:26
From the age of around six or seven, Briel's mornings began not with breakfast but with a physical trial: 20 trips up and down the stairs, within 20 minutes, before school. Her mother's logic was stark — there won't always be someone in the room, so you must be able to do it yourself. Briel resented it. She would lie when her mother wasn't watching, say she'd done it, then get caught by the inconsistency in her times. The lectures that followed are so effectively blocked from memory that Briel can't recall their content — just the feeling. She describes learning to slide down on her stomach, angling her body to break at each stair, and going up alternating sides. The outcome of all this grim morning effort is visible today: Briel is so independent that now, when she visits her mother's house, her mother offers to help and Briel refuses — pointing out that she was the one who insisted on this in the first place. [1] — Briel Adams-Wheatley "Briel's adoptive mother required her to go up and down the stairs 20 times in 20 minutes every morning before school and breakfast. When sh…" 10:20
Briel suppressed her identity due to religious pressure and family expectations from childhood until age 23, when she came out as trans and began to live authentically.
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