Leaving Cloud 9

by Ericka Andersen

  Dr. Harrison Pope, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, says these portrayals in the media have a strong effect on why many males today are developing more negative body images and eating disorders. “There’s this drumbeat that muscularity equals masculinity, and so we’re seeing more and more young men with muscle dysmorphia,” Dr. Pope said.1

  Muscle dysmorphia is an obsession with muscular makeup, wherein the person thinks they are never muscular enough. Research shows a strong correlation between muscle dysmorphia and depression. Rick’s preoccupation with his body didn’t rise to the level of this diagnosis, but it was certainly angled in that direction.2

  Once Rick had obtained the “perfection” he was looking for, the achievement was less than fulfilling. He realized that being shredded wasn’t something you acquired once and for all, like a medal to display on the wall. It required hours of daily upkeep. If he didn’t keep working out obsessively and closely monitoring his diet, his achievement would soon disappear.

  When Rick was in the midst of this bodybuilding stage, a female classmate asked if he would pose for her photography project. Feeling proud of his hard work, he agreed. He posed for a long series of photos that came out beautifully. The man in the photos looks confident and calm, sweet and charming—like the boy next door who just happens to have a fantastic body.

  Rick cherished those photos when they were done, almost as if they were that medal on the wall. At least there was proof of what he’d done, and it would still be there even if he lost his willpower and it all melted away. He has copies of those photos nearly twenty years later and occasionally still looks at them.

  After another year of intense physical training, the workouts started to feel like torture. He hated the hardcore regimen, which by now he was doing almost solely to look good for women—something that made it hard to maintain when he was feeling down on himself. There’s not a lot of satisfaction in that kind of lifestyle. It gets old, it gets hard, and it gets depressing when the results are not in your favor.

  Rick never had trouble catching girls anyway; all it took was a cleverly timed wink and a few drinks. He was easy to talk to if he was in his element, especially with a drink in hand. Lurking beneath those charming looks and friendly demeanor was a rippling pain so deep that no woman could be prepared for it. But as long as he kept that under wraps—which he usually managed to do—everything seemed fine.

  Eventually, the extreme workouts took a back seat to the rhythm of everyday life. He just couldn’t maintain the discipline needed to keep his body “perfect.” But he still committed to staying in shape, always concerned about keeping up appearances and maintaining at least some control over that portion of his life.

  Looking back, it’s easy to see that Rick’s obsession with fitness and his reliance on women were part of the same dynamic. In his young-adult years he went from relationship to relationship, accomplishment to accomplishment, forever seeking fulfillment that couldn’t be found. College, fitness, girlfriends, new places and scenery—they were all part of his ongoing quest to fill that endless need that gaped inside him. And everything he tried seemed doomed to fail.

  What he didn’t know is that we all have that need, and it’s impossible for any person or pursuit to fill it. Many Christian writers have put it in these simple terms: we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts and there’s only one thing—one Person—that fits there.

  Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth-century mathmetician, physicist, and theologian, famously wrote:

  What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.3

  It took thirty-four years before Rick finally began to realize that was true. And when you’ve been one way for thirty-four years, that’s a lot of baggage to lug through life. That’s a lot of aches to soothe, habits to undo, thinking to overcome, attitudes to correct, anger to de-escalate, and hurts to be healed.

  It would take at least another decade before Rick was finally ready to go there.

  CHAPTER 24

  FLIGHT SCHOOL

  After graduating from Austin Peay, Rick didn’t stay long in Tennessee. He wanted to go somewhere new, start fresh. So he randomly applied for a job in the accounting department of a Books-A-Million store in Alabama. No one knew him there, and he could just ghost through life unbothered, as he’d always tried so hard to do.

  When he got the job, he was excited to move, though this meant maintaining a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend. He didn’t want to break up with her because he craved the comfort of having someone care about him, check in with him regularly, and express concern about his life. His sister loved him, of course, but with four little kids, she barely had time to think beyond the moment.

  Rick’s time in Alabama turned out to be the loneliest in his entire life. He fell into a deep depression, kept to himself, went to work, went to the gym, and came home to a one-bedroom apartment by himself every night. He didn’t make a single friend, and darkness gradually shrouded his vision. He didn’t understand where his depression and anxiety came from or why it was happening. He didn’t even realize he had depression and anxiety. He just thought everyone felt the way he did, that unhappiness was the way life was. There were a few bright moments, but most days were very difficult for him.

  He reached the point where he didn’t have the energy for his girlfriend anymore. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, he told her he was moving back to Arizona—which, she said, wasn’t within driving range. They ended their relationship amicably, but he never moved.

  One afternoon at the gym, Rick ended up in a conversation with a man who was in the army. They swapped some stories, then the man suggested that Rick reenlist and this time try flight school. He told Rick it would give him some direction and said the Army Aviation program in Fort Rucker, Alabama, was a good one.

  Feeling stuck and sad and directionless, Rick didn’t spend too much time deciding. Why not go to flight school? His stint in the army, ironically, had been the only time he’d ever felt safe. And the prospect of being a helicopter pilot—the training at Fort Rucker was geared toward helicopters—turned a light on in his mind. Finally he had something to look forward to.

  While signing up for flight school temporarily lifted the cloud from his life, it quickly settled back down, and depression ruled his life more than ever. He struggled with insomnia, and lack of sleep made it extremely hard to learn or focus or be a pleasant person to be around. He started to wonder if he’d made a mistake by reenlisting.

  It wasn’t long, however, before—predictably—he met a girl. When he met Sabrina, the attraction was instantaneous, and Rick thought maybe this meant she was the one who would last. She was also in flight school, pretty, and extremely smart—which he liked. But mostly he felt that he could relate to her. She told him stories about a tough childhood, and he thought he’d finally met a girl who “got it.”

  But she couldn’t have known that Rick’s gentle exterior covered a hardened temper and emotional wounds that had been festering through eighteen years of emotional and physical abuse. When he left home, the abuse had continued in the form of self-punishment. He had never learned to love or to let anyone love him well. He was the boy always searching to find his momma’s love in the arms and heart and face and feelings of a woman who could never fulfill those outsize expectations.

  Before he knew it, Rick was spending all his time with Sabrina—and he quickly dumped his heart on the table. He fell in love in a matter of weeks, and the rush of that infatuation helped him gloss over all the deepening fears and anxieties in his heart.

  CHAPTER 25

  SABRINA<
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  Meeting Sabrina was the only good thing Rick had going in those days. Flight school grew increasingly difficult due to his worsening mental state.

  While Sabrina was an excellent pilot, full of confidence, Rick’s skills were not up to par. He felt terrified and unfocused and refused to take control of the helicopter until one day a commander screamed at him that he had to try it. That was the beginning of the end of flight school.

  He reluctantly grabbed the collective, the helicopter control system governing lift, and in a panicked state, drove the copter downward without any real control over it and with no idea what he was doing. It was like a nightmare. He had no idea how to gain control over the craft and soon was spiraling out of control. Why was he here? Why did he think he could be a pilot? He’d had no sleep—and he had no idea how to get out of the aircraft alive. The clouds whizzed by in a haze as the instructor screamed instructions at him before grabbing the controls himself and somehow landing them safely back on the ground.

  The instructor screamed at Rick that he’d almost killed them. And then something came loose in Rick. All the rage, the fear, the anxiety, and depression inside of Rick began to spurt out in the ugliest way possible. All that hurt was infected, never treated, and it was getting worse. It had been building up inside his heart for years, and flight school had unlocked the floodgates.

  Rick snapped back a string of curses at the instructor when the copter finally landed. The instructor, taken aback, just stared as Rick slammed the door to the cockpit and stomped off. He didn’t know what was going to happen, and at the moment he didn’t care. He just wanted to stop feeling this way—to stop feeling anything at all.

  Soon after this event, he developed a speech impediment, night terrors, and suicidal thoughts. All the awful experiences from his childhood were like demons rising up in his spirit. They were chasing him toward madness, taking shape in so many inexplicable, excruciating ways. It was like his child’s mind caught up with the thirty-year-old man he was and realized it had a lot of rotten memories to dispose of. But it was impossible to get it all out—those thirty years of trying so hard in vain to be loved.

  He was still a master at cover-up, though. He didn’t let Sabrina in on the whole story of what had happened that day—and certainly not how he was really feeling. As usual, he met her for drinks and gave her the sob story about his childhood. It wasn’t a manipulative thing—at least not consciously. It was simply the only way he knew how to convey to her who he was.

  That kind of personal information can freak people out—or make them feel special. Sabrina, who had a few family sob stories of her own, felt special. Rick initially made her feel like she was absolutely adored. And she was—he wouldn’t have intentionally misled someone. But all Rick’s unhealthy relationship habits were kicking in. And with everything else in his brain spiraling out of control, the addiction to love was heating up.

  CHAPTER 26

  PTSD

  For the first time in his life, Rick was basically forced to see a psychologist. After the flight-training incident, his unit leader told him to go speak with one of the base psychologists. In the past he would have brushed off the idea, but he had grown desperate. He made an appointment.

  By now he was convinced that something had to be very wrong. This couldn’t be the way life was supposed to feel. Maybe the psychologist could help him figure it out.

  As it turned out, the appointment would be a start, but only a start. He wouldn’t have the whole picture for a few more years down the road. If only someone could have reassured him then that it was all going to be okay. You’re going to feel God’s love. You’re going to find the right woman. You will have a family that loves you. You will someday feel good enough, strong enough, and brave enough. You will be a man of God, a man who helps others and experiences what joy really is.

  But not yet.

  Rick was given a psychological evaluation and a therapist diagnosed him with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder from his childhood. Most people associate PTSD with veterans, as research on the condition originated with large numbers of Vietnam veterans suffering from depression and other mental illnesses after the war. Suicide rates were high and people were—still are—despondent after experiencing the trauma, hopelessness, and bloodshed of the battlefield.

  But war zones exist outside of battle. PTSD can also affect individuals who’ve experienced extreme natural disasters, horrific accidents, witnessed murder or fatal injury even just one time. And traumatic events in childhood can affect adults in the exact same way war does. The symptoms are more or less the same.

  For Rick, the trauma hadn’t come from just one incident or one time period of his life. It had been a constant state of being. For him as a child and adolescent, trauma was life. Neglect and abuse were constants throughout his childhood. The repercussions of his mom’s mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction quickly made their mark.

  It didn’t take long for a psychiatrist to diagnose him. He fit all the classic symptoms of a person suffering from PTSD. Everything he had been feeling—the depression, rage, anxiety, social isolation, guilt, fear, hopelessness—were a part of having PTSD. And while some people, with proper intervention, can overcome PTSD in as little as three months, some will have it for a lifetime. They can get better, but the symptoms will never completely disappear.

  Luckily Rick had taken the first step by being diagnosed. It was not the last diagnosis he’d receive. The majority of people with PTSD also have a companion mental illness—everything from personality disorders to depression. But this first diagnosis was the best thing that could have happened to Rick. Even though it felt like a crushing blow, at least there was an explanation for what he was feeling—a why behind the darkness.

  The question was, how did he navigate out of that darkness?

  One thing was certain, though—this would be the end of both his flight career and his military career. He was medically discharged from the army with the diagnosis. People with mental diseases plaguing their minds can’t be trusted to fly helicopters for the United States Army.

  The discharge was humiliating, but also a complete relief. Learning to fly was the most stressful thing Rick had ever done, and the pressure to do everything exactly right had stretched him until he broke. Every morning he woke up had been a Groundhog Day nightmare that never improved with time.

  Joining back up had been a rash decision, based purely on limited options and one random conversation. It hadn’t been right for him, and his experience in flight school proved it. But what could he do now? He felt like he’d been launched out into an ocean of life with no boat, no raft, not even a life jacket. The freedom was binding.

  Left, once again, with no direction or guidance, no family support, and no idea how to proceed, Rick did what he’d done before. He clung to the girl—the girl who could talk tough and fly helicopters and match him drink for drink.

  He told Sabrina that he loved her. She said she loved him back, and they did what they did. Within two months of meeting, they were married.

  Not long after that, Sabrina received orders to go to Hawaii. Rick packed up his life—not much more than a box of photos and papers with his college degree, birth certificate, and old photo of his grandfather in his uniform—and accompanied her.

  Moving to Hawaii brought momentary relief for his pain and confusion. Rick was excited to be moving to one of the most beautiful places on earth. It would be a fresh start. Anything could happen in Hawaii. But when you are a guy without a job, relying on your wife to provide by doing something you failed to do, things get dark very fast.

  Rick and Sabrina were already fighting as they made their way to Hawaii. It was only a matter of time before things crumbled. Then would come the drinking, the fighting, the screaming, the yelling, the lying, the raging.

  In the meantime, Rick was still grasping his diagnosis of PTSD. What did that even mean, and how was he supposed to fix it? You can’t just undo an emotion
al disorder—especially when you’re living with a bad marriage in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, far away from what little support system you have. That’s what it felt like at least. Again, life felt out of his control.

  For the first time, on the advice of his therapist, he began taking psychiatric medication to deal with the effects of the PTSD—depression, anxiety, insomnia. It was the beginning of a long road with various drugs.

  Dealing with multiple mental illnesses calls for a cocktail of medications. Finding the right ones requires months and years of testing, changing, adjusting mixtures and measures. What combination of chemicals, spiraled together with his mind, could relieve the pressure of creating a successful future and avoiding complete life failure again? It would be another decade before he figured all that out. I’m not sure if there was a problem with doctors, compliance, or both, but it’s a shame that the medication was wrong from the start.

  At least now Rick had something to blame for his insomnia, his unexplained anger, his unhealthy relationships. But placing blame is just temporary relief. Having a reason for a problem doesn’t make the problem go away.

  On top of that, he didn’t feel like Sabrina understood what he was going through at all.

  CHAPTER 27

  A MARRIAGE UNRAVELS

  No one had the guts to say out loud that their marriage was a mistake—at least not yet. All Rick could think about was that if they divorced, he would have failed at something else. He had failed at being a pilot and had already failed once at being a husband. He’d have nowhere to go if this fell apart. Of course, having nowhere to go was one reason he married Sabrina in the first place.