how?

How did I get to be so messed up?

My mother used to tell that when I was a baby I did not like to be held. Typically, a baby is happy to be held by its mother. I resisted such confinement. She told a story of how she and my father were sitting downstairs in our house, having put my brother and I to bed, when they heard a loud "thump." Alarmed, they ran up the stairs to find me lying on the floor; I had climbed over the railing of my crib and over the side, falling to the floor. They made sure that I was ok and put me back in the crib. They went back downstairs. And not too much time passed when they heard "thump" again.

In second grade each classroom had a door leading outside to the schoolyard. During recess, I told my friends to please not tell the teacher, and I snuck inside, got my coat, and walked out the front door of the school and proceeded to walk home, about a one-mile walk. This was in midday. When I was about half-way home, I heard someone calling me, and it was the school secretary, running after me. She dragged me, protesting, back to school. I don't remember the aftermath, although most certainly I was punished.