Leaving Cloud 9

by Ericka Andersen

  You can’t help but make friends when you’re holed up together, counting the days and dreaming about what you’ll eat when you get home and how many times you’ll shower in a day. You’ll talk about anything and everything to pass the time. You can forget how young and immature at eighteen or nineteen these guys are. They are loud, smelly, naive. But serving together, even for a few months, creates a bond that cannot be replicated elsewhere—which is why, twenty years later, your army buddies are the people you remember. What you did together are the stories that are cemented in your head, along with the feelings, the odors, and the palpable taste of the dust in your mouth. They will probably be what you remember at the end of your life, despite what happened before or after. If you lose your memory, those friendships will be the ones that stay with you the longest.

  Despite being introverted and dealing with his mental issues, Rick was forced to make friends in the army, and this was one of the healthiest, best things that came out of his service. Without the forced camaraderie of the military, he’d probably have continued a pattern of almost-damaging introversion and never made any friends at all.

  A few dusty photos of Rick’s time in Kuwait remain. There’s one of Rick leaning against a tank with his unit, a small smile on his face. But it wasn’t really a place for smiles. It was hot and miserable, boring and terrifying at the same time.

  Rick had chosen to go into a tank division for no reason whatsoever. He didn’t know what he was doing when he joined the army, so when the recruiter recommended tanks, he thought it sounded cool. He didn’t understand at the time that if a recruiter recommended something, that probably meant most people didn’t want to do it.

  Actually, taking the first suggestion from others when giving an answer was imminent would turn out to be something of a habit in his life—a template for trying to eliminate the stress of decision-making.

  “Would you like a bag with that, sir?” the grocery store clerk would ask. And the question would elicit an automatic yes without considering whether he wanted one or not.

  “The chicken dish is very popular right now,” a waiter would say. “How about that?” And Rick would answer, “Yes. Sounds good.”

  But this method can sometimes lead to inconvenience, like three years in the military doing something very difficult.

  Who knows what might have happened if the recruiter had suggested another job in the army—one Rick actually liked?

  Rick’s three years of active service eventually ended, and he went back to life as he knew it, though it all seemed a little different now.

  He did have some status as a veteran of the United States Army. He had a GI Bill to use, a job to get, a life to start living. He’d certainly matured during his time as a soldier. But going home still produced overwhelming anxiety. The next phase of life was unclear. He could use the GI Bill to go to school, but for what? What was left for him back in Arizona?

  After the army, at the age of twenty-two, he married for the first time. He was young and emotionally wasted, and the marriage had a rocky start, even if rooted in love. It began to crumble in only a couple of years.

  CHAPTER 21

  GIVING UP ON GOD

  During the same time his marriage began deteriorating, Sylvia committed an act that tore Rick apart. Rick remembers it as the “worst moment of my life.”

  He had been under the impression that she was doing better—trying to get sober yet again and actually attending church regularly. He had even attended services with her a couple of times. He knew better than to put a lot of stock in her recovery, but still, a small piece of hope began to emerge. He thought maybe God could actually help his mom—that was clearly her only chance. He wasn’t personally involved in church at that point. But if this worked, maybe he would give God a real chance.

  The hope didn’t last long. Rick was called to the emergency room the night Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself, having cut a vein in her neck with a butcher knife. He hurried to the hospital and was directed to the mental ward, where he found his hungover mother—pale, small, and sickly, with staples running down the side of her neck.

  As soon as his fear of her dying was gone, he blew up—screaming, throwing things, hating her for continuing this monstrosity of a life and forcing him to be part of it. The hospital staff rushed in to calm him down, telling him she wasn’t in the mental state to deal with this kind of reaction. But he was done. He had been through this too many times, and he couldn’t handle her drama anymore. When would it end?

  That was the day, he says, that he decided to give up on God completely. He had put some tentative faith in God to heal his mother, and that faith was now being mocked. I trusted You, he thought, and You didn’t do anything.

  Though he admits he hadn’t actually prayed for her, he felt that wasn’t his responsibility. He reasoned that God should want to save her—and that if He didn’t save her, He was a terrible God.

  Days after writing God off, Rick was in the worst emotional pain of his life. Alone and broken one Sunday morning, he drove to a church near his home. It was a last resort as he wallowed in the pit of his own misery and confusion stemming from his divorce and his mom’s situation.

  He didn’t know anyone at the church but went inside anyway. The music portion of the service started, and within minutes, he had broken down crying. Worship can be a very emotional experience for anyone, but the words of songs can hit a nerve if you’ve never heard them before or are going through a particularly tough time.

  Clearly, God was at work in Rick that morning, but he wasn’t ready to respond. Embarrassed by his outburst, he left before the sermon even began.

  He wouldn’t return to church for more than ten years.

  In fact, it was the last time he thought about God at all for a long, long time. His soul had been crushed so many times, it seemed irreparably damaged. He knew nothing but pain and hopelessness. What could this world possibly bring him that was good? Why had he even been born, when no one wanted to protect him, care for him, or raise him to be someone others could love someday?

  He decided it was time to cut ties with his mom for a very long time—possibly forever.

  CHAPTER 22

  COLLEGE

  Getting divorced nearly broke Rick. Though imperfect, his marriage had introduced him to love on a level he’d never known before. Theirs was the typical story of marrying too young, but Rick’s extreme experiences weighing heavily and unresolved over his head compounded things.

  When the divorce was final, he thought he would freak out, yell, hit the wall, be out of control. Instead, he just sobbed. He sobbed because he knew it was really over and that he had screwed up one of the only good things he’d ever had.

  Now here he was in the same little Arizona town with no job, no wife, no family to speak of, and nothing to show for himself.

  Thus began a new level of loneliness, relieved only by woman after woman, most of whom didn’t mean anything to him.

  The only other person who could pull him back from the brink of such pain was his sister. Jenny was living with her husband and kids in Clarksville, Tennessee, where Dean was stationed, and Jenny invited Rick to come live with them for a while. He accepted immediately. In those days he clung to his sister more than he likes to admit, always holding somewhere in the back of his mind his mom’s advice: “You two are all each other has. Never forget that.”

  It wasn’t long after this he heard that someone from their hometown had seen Sylvia picking through a garbage heap. Even though he wanted nothing to do with her, his big heart wouldn’t let the thought pass. His mom was alone, possibly totally homeless, and eating garbage. So against his better judgment, he went back to Arizona to see if he could find her.

  After asking around a bit, he discovered her in a drug-addled haze, living in a trailer even more dilapidated than the ones he’d grown up in. She didn’t even recognize him at first. When she finally realized who he was, she seemed glad he was there, but they didn’t
have much to talk about. He came away disappointed and feeling like he’d done nothing to help. It had been a pointless trip that made him realize he couldn’t change anything. Any money he gave her would be wasted. Staying in contact with her could be detrimental to his own emotional well-being. And he was reminded again that God hadn’t done a darn thing since that night in the hospital.

  He realized he had to leave Arizona for good, get both his divorce and his mother out of his life and his head. So he decided this was the perfect time to use the GI Bill and get a college degree.

  Going to college was something he never thought he would do. He’d hated school as a kid and barely graduated. But he’d always known at some level that college would be the key to freedom. He’d spent a year or so in community college at this point. And there was a pretty good school in the town where Jenny lived. Why not apply to Austin Peay State University in Clarksville?

  So Rick drove back to Jenny’s, headed for a new start in life. He had no long-term plan—only to continue his education and pursue that bachelor’s degree, the golden ticket everyone always talked about.

  He knew he would be starting college later than most people, but he didn’t care. This would be his mission, and he would succeed. With a failed marriage behind him and not much going on ahead of him, getting a college degree would now be the fight of his life. It would be a day-to-day struggle as he worked diligently to succeed academically.

  What would he major in? He needed something dependable, solid—something guaranteed to lead to a job after college. When a career counselor recommended accounting, Rick just went with the suggestion without much thought. Though that path would later turn out to be something of a thorn in his side, at least he had his focus for now. It would remind him of choosing tanks in the military, something he also regretted.

  Once the decision was made, Rick dove into his classes with fervor. He knew a degree was the only way he was going to be something more than a clerk. Doing well at college would give him the opportunity he needed to make something of his life.

  College work wasn’t easy for him. He had to work harder than other people—study twice as hard, memorize more. Still, it felt good to work for something meaningful. And though he was a slow reader, he discovered that he actually liked books.

  He could do numbers better than some, which is why he stuck with accounting, though accounting was never something he felt passionate about. And to his surprise, he made pretty good grades. He consistently made As and Bs as he trudged through his chosen course of study, inching toward that degree. He supplemented his GI bill with school loans and kept his eye on the prize—a diploma. He didn’t know what would happen after he earned it, but he wasn’t stopping until he got there.

  The familiar pitfalls of depression and anxiety were still with him. He would focus well for days at a time, then an emotional hiccup would set him back weeks. And the loneliness continued. Though he dated casually—girls were always a source of comfort to him—he didn’t develop any real friendships. Today he can’t name one friend he made while in college.

  Rick’s life in those days wasn’t easy or happy. It just was. He did what he had to do, not even drinking to numb the emptiness of life at the time. Like so many people who live in the torment of mental anguish without getting the medical help they need to flourish, Rick simply didn’t know life could feel much better. The brain is a complicated thing, and if its chemistry is out of whack, the world can be tinted very darkly. But if you’ve lived in such a world your whole life, you don’t know how distorted it is.

  He thought about his mom sometimes, but then shut off that train of thought. He couldn’t let himself worry about someone who had cared and worried so little about him. This was his life to make, and he was the only one who could make it. As he saw it, he had to keep spinning his wheels every day or end up homeless on the street.

  The thing is, he understood those homeless people on the street. He understood the feeling of just heaving a big sigh one day and saying, “I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard. I give up.” He always felt like he was one step away from being that guy living under the bridge or in his car. He sometimes still says he doesn’t know what stopped him from becoming homeless.

  He studied constantly, focused, nearly obsessed with getting in the hours to read and learn. It was like channeling his every need for fulfillment into learning—which was helpful, but never truly fulfilling. He was stumbling his way through classes, just trying to fill this emptiness with what only God can fill. A college degree couldn’t fill his soul, of course, but something had to.

  Through it all, he never considered going to church or even sending up a prayer. He definitely wasn’t chasing after God. But God was relentlessly pursuing him, trying to get the message across that these earthly things aren’t going to do the trick. There would come a day that these chains around Rick’s mind and heart would be broken. He didn’t realize then how heavy they’d become, layer after new layer wound around his neck. It was exhausting, and the weight of those chains caused the depression, anxiety, and social anxiety to worsen.

  Rick had picked up a part-time job at a local warehouse, and life became one big slog of work and school. With no real social life or friendships, the loneliness was affecting him in an unhealthy way.

  When you have no one to talk to and gain outward perspective from, you can fall into twisted thinking about yourself and the world. Satan has every opportunity to deliver negative messages to you about yourself, and there’s nothing to counter them. You think they are your own thoughts—they sound rational enough. God was there, too, of course. But God uses people in our lives to do His work, and Rick was shutting people out—even his sister and her family. It was a toxic mental environment that served to worsen his mind-set.

  In the meantime, living at Jenny’s house grew increasingly stressful. Understandably, she wanted him to help with the kids and clean up the house and be a contributing member of the family. But Rick didn’t have the time or mental energy to do those things. He just wanted to make enough money to get by and get good grades.

  So he did what was becoming typical for him whenever he got lonely enough—he fell into a codependent relationship with a woman. It wasn’t long before he was dating a coworker and a few months later, he moved into her apartment. She paid the rent and the bills.

  For some reason, she didn’t seem to care that she was supporting him. Maybe that was because she was high most of the time. The girlfriend smoked weed three or four times a day. Rick didn’t smoke pot and didn’t want to be around someone who was high all the time. It wasn’t a moral issue to him, just an annoyance—and also reminiscent of living with his drug-addict mom. So he talked to his girlfriend and told her that he didn’t want to be with someone who was always smoking.

  Surprisingly, she quit smoking at the house, and things improved. But there was never any real passion or any real relationship. There would be many women like that in his life, just there to pass the time and stave off the intense loneliness.

  Rick’s college experience turned out to be a seven-year journey, including the stint at community college. But eventually all that pushing and studying and hard work did lead to an accounting degree from Austin Peay. Rick was now a college graduate with a little more hope, a lot more pride, and a renewed sense of possibility. He had done more with himself than he’d ever imagined as a delinquent sixteen-year-old smoking meth with his mother. And he was determined that she wouldn’t hold him back, and neither would anyone else. That tumultuous but resilient attitude would push him through his next round of trying experiences.

  CHAPTER 23

  SHREDDED

  At some point in Rick’s journey through college and beyond, Rick discovered the gym. More specifically, he realized what working out at the gym could do for his body and, in turn, his sex appeal. A few sessions at the gym turned into daily attendance—sometimes twice daily—after he began to notice how other men built muscles and shaped their
bodies into “perfection” there.

  After the divorce, he had been depressed and overweight. Getting in shape was part of taking control and getting his life back. He couldn’t make himself happy, but he could make himself appear desirable. He had little money at the time, so he quit drinking alcohol and did his best to eat healthy. He didn’t necessarily love working out but liked what it did for him, and he enjoyed the adrenaline rush that sometimes came with the right music and the sweaty atmosphere.

  It wasn’t long before Rick heard talk that some of the men at the gym were using steroids. That made sense. He’d thought it was rather unlikely that they could look so muscular without additional help. And getting hold of steroids was easy. They weren’t considered “real” drugs—at least compared to what Rick had been exposed to. Rick briefly considered taking them, too, but eventually decided they weren’t worth starting. He thought it would be a never-ending battle to keep up with the doses, and he was aware of the potential health risks.

  But choosing not to pursue steroids didn’t stop him from becoming overly focused on his body. Building muscle and shaping his body turned into an obsession. Before long his body had gone from average to “shredded.” He had almost zero body fat, six-pack abs, and broad, perfectly sculpted shoulders. And women started to take notice. The muscle factor made such a difference in his dating life that it was too hard to stop. Of course, the transformation was also a personal kick in the face to the voice in his head saying man boobs, fat, sissy boy, weak.

  It makes sense that Rick would develop this preoccupation in light of those bullying comments coming from his mother and grandmother and his haphazard and faulty education in what makes a man. All he had to go on was a revolving door of bad male role models, negative messages from Sylvia and Annika, and what the media taught him about being a tough guy. Male heroes like the Denver Broncos players he admired and his beloved childhood superheroes were all big, muscular, strong, and charismatic. It’s no wonder that he wanted to be like that too.