Leaving Cloud 9

by Ericka Andersen

  Rick’s mom always voted Republican (or claimed to vote, since civic duty wasn’t high on her priority list) and blamed the government for many of her problems—even while relying on government programs to take care of her and her children. Entitlement was more than a fair word to describe how she felt about her “benefits.” Sylvia felt that she was owed the food stamps, rental assistance, and pension she received. She apparently never had any inspiration to get a full-time job and provide for herself or do better.

  It wasn’t until after 9/11 that Rick had any interest in politics, even though he’d been in the military before that awful event. The military, for him, wasn’t about politics or service; it was about a childhood dream and the possibility of escaping his background. He voted for George W. Bush twice and Barack Obama twice. He declined to vote in 2016 and truly is the quintessential swing voter. You can convince him to go one way or the other, depending on the specifics. Promises and policies do matter to someone who knows people still living in abject poverty, people who are still forgotten by those pushing wrong-headed reforms on TV.

  Life isn’t fair to anyone in the long run, but for those who really get the short end of the stick—either because of crappy parents, extreme medical needs, or other problems you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy—politics and policy look very different. Decisions on what you believe are taken in with a bit more thought as the reality for what it means for people just like you sinks in. It also becomes apparent, however, that none of those things could “fix” a broken heart, a broken body, or a broken soul.

  Politics and culture have some catching up to do when it comes to truly helping America’s most vulnerable, forgotten citizens.

  CHAPTER 11

  SOLDIER DREAMS

  In some ways, the labels and lack of assistance helped Rick build a tough exterior and a stubborn independence. With no one around to help him if things went wrong, he had to rely on himself. Perhaps that was part of what eventually gave him the perseverance it took to propel himself out of the long familial cycle of poverty, neglect, and abuse.

  From early on, Rick wanted to join the military. Strangely enough, he wanted to be like his dad. His were the tragic dreams of the abandoned—he wanted to make his absent father proud. Today, even in his forties, Rick continues to try and prove himself to the father who left him with a crazy drunk of a mother.

  Rick’s father is only the most blatant example of abandonment and rejection in his life. The sheer injustice of the way the rest of his family treated him is heartbreaking as well. Favoritism existed in an ugly way; everyone, including his mom and grandma, seemed to favor little Jenny over high-energy, mischievous Rick.

  Through it all, Rick dreamed of one day becoming a soldier.

  He would watch G.I. Joe cartoons or see a war movie playing on his grandpa’s TV and imagine himself in uniform, donning the camouflage and solid brown boots, a gun strapped around his waist and black war paint greased under his eyes. These men were tough, heroic warriors who saved the world. And since many of the men in his life had been part of the military, it’s no wonder he wanted to be a soldier.

  You can see remnants of that little boy today. If you walk into Rick’s closet now, you’ll see his army boots in plain sight, his camo gear piled next to it. He still wears his socks from boot camp with his last name in faint permanent marker scrawled down the side. He recently bought an army-green sleeping bag and prefers to use that as cover at night when he sleeps. And even though the army didn’t turn out to be what he expected, he still feels an undying pride that he was part of it.

  Sometimes he’s still just that little boy playing with green, plastic army figures on a threadbare carpet next to the cold Kraft Macaroni & Cheese someone threw down next to him—making explosion noises with his mouth and pretending he was off fighting noble battles.

  The childlikeness may always be there. Rick was never allowed to be a kid, so now he delights in childlike games. Maybe that’s why he’s such a great dad and why he loves playing with all his nieces and nephews. He didn’t have those friendships back then, so it’s all been saved up, waiting to be used in real life.

  But these days Rick’s aching for his absent father has subsided. He is living into the truth of Psalm 27:10:

  For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in.

  There came a day when Rick finally heard those words and believed them. All he had to do was open the door, but for so long he was paralyzed in ignorance, clinging to hope of the world and not of heaven.

  With so many father figures coming in and out of his life, it’s easy to see how God could have been left out altogether back then—and why Rick wouldn’t even consider Him as an adult. All the other father figures in his life had let him down. Why would God be any different?

  CHAPTER 12

  THE VILLAIN

  Sylvia was just twenty-four, thrice-married already with two kids, when she shacked up with a Hispanic man. Rick doesn’t remember this nameless man very well. He only knows the man spoke little English and barely paid any attention to the kids. He didn’t actually abuse them, but they found his complete lack of interest in engaging them scary.

  One night the man came home severely intoxicated, and Sylvia wouldn’t let him into the house. He and Sylvia had been together less than a year, but he was soon out of their lives—just one more instability, come and gone.

  The trauma Rick experienced in his short life up to this point is unbelievable. He was three “fathers” in and living in a warped sense of normality. And things were about to get a lot worse.

  A quiet night with Sylvia in those days was a contradiction in terms. Nearly every night, when Sylvia was drunk or high, she’d get into a fight with whichever boyfriend was around at the time. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be screaming and would even resort to harming herself and calling the cops to say the boyfriend had done it. Though Rick can’t say anything good about the men she brought home, he does admit that some went to jail for things they never did.

  That wasn’t the case with Tony, however. Tony deserved every punishment he ever got—and more.

  Tony stands out in Rick’s mind as the ultimate villain. He was Sylvia’s new boyfriend—a menacing figure who would put their family through a four-year nightmare. He was a large, barrel-chested black man, a thief who dealt drugs and abused Sylvia as no other man had. As usual, they met at a bar, and no one knows why the attraction held. Theirs was a tortured relationship that made life a dark and scary place for two frightened children.

  Sylvia would leave Rick and Jenny at home for the night while she went out drinking with the new boyfriend. Hours later, in the predawn light, they’d stumble back in the door, usually fighting. And that’s when the worst of the abuse took place.

  Though the violence occasionally played out during daytime hours, it usually took place after Rick and Jenny had gone to bed. Most nights they had trouble going to sleep, knowing they’d likely be awakened later. And when it happened, the kids would huddle in their bedroom, squeezing their eyes shut and praying that their door wouldn’t open, that their mother would just forget they existed. The yelling would pierce their ears as a nauseous knot sat in the pit of their stomachs. Anxiety would grip Rick’s heart as he swallowed back the fear and tried to lie still.

  Rick’s goal was to appear to be asleep and make not a peep. Otherwise, he’d have to deal with what happened after the arguing died down. Tony would pass out in the living room or leave, and Sylvia would often creep into the children’s room, searching for the comfort of another human being. Her aversion to being alone was apparent. He hated these moments and wished she would just stay away.

  “I love you so much,” she’d say.

  “Don’t be like me. Don’t ever be like me. Tell me you love me back,” she’d demand, the sour smell of liquor radiating out of her body. “Tell me how much you love your momma.”

  Rick had no idea what to do, his body frozen in fearful confusi
on. Her presence in those moments wasn’t inappropriate or sexual in any way, just uncomfortable and irritating, overbearing and confusing. He knew she’d get angry if he didn’t comply, so he would whisper back from beneath the covers, “I love you, Mommy.” All the while, he just willed her to pass out as soon as possible.

  As soon as she fell asleep, he’d have to strategically loosen himself from beneath her dead weight and climb over to Jenny’s bed or out to the living room. Sylvia never remembered what had really happened, and the kids were almost always up well before she was the next morning.

  During these years, Rick and Jenny lived in more or less constant fear and uncertainty, never sure what the next day would hold. Would they ever be able to get new shoes? Would their mom pick them up from school? Would she be sober when they got home or a complete disaster?

  There were no soccer games or bikes Rick could ride with neighborhood kids, no birthday parties or trips to Disney World. Not that those things are that important—but the important things didn’t exist either. Peace in the home and unconditional love in the family might have been all he really needed, but he didn’t even know those things were possible. He didn’t smile much, though a goofy, fun personality lurked under the surface. It just had no opportunity to come alive.

  Children living in situations like these are far more vulnerable to stress than their counterparts in stable homes. Such children often have trouble controlling and expressing emotions and tend to have violent or inappropriate reactions to challenges, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.1 Because they don’t develop healthy relationships with caregivers as children, they have difficulty forming healthy relationships as adults as well. It’s a connection their brain doesn’t compute in the present because it was never made in the past.

  It’s like when kids learn to talk. Language comes naturally, and language proficiency builds as time goes on. But if a child was raised in the jungle with no human to talk to, that child would have difficulty learning a language years down the road. He or she would have no context for that learning.

  Rick’s genetic predisposition for mental illness combined with this childhood trauma would create the perfect storm in his later years for relationship destruction, personal isolation, and magnified reactions.

  Even as he grew into a preteen, the consequences of his trauma appeared in the form of mood swings, irrationally angry reactions, and extremely low self-confidence. Such extreme reactions didn’t seem to appear in his sister in the same way, but males and females can respond differently to similar circumstances. A 2016 Stanford study on how trauma affects children pointed to differences in a part of the brain called the insula, a region that “detects cues from the body and processes emotions and empathy.” The insula is what helps a person integrate emotions and actions with other brain functions.2

  If males and females differ in how the insula works, it makes sense that Jenny and Rick experienced different results. However, they still weathered the same storms—and were better off for facing them together. Having Jenny in his life was the one healthy connection Rick did have, and in many ways they carried each other through these years.

  Their primary strategy when things were bad at home—which was most of the time—was to “ghost” their way through life at home, trying desperately to be unseen and unheard. When it came to Tony, this was even more important because he had an aura of violence surrounding him.

  Mostly he ignored the kids and acted as if they weren’t there. Their presence certainly didn’t give him pause when it came to abusing their mom. He must have grown up witnessing abuse himself to have abused a woman so casually and thoughtlessly in front of her children.

  On one particular night, Sylvia and Tony were screaming at each other— except it sounded worse than usual. Hearing the argument, Rick crept out of bed, creaked open the bedroom door, and peeked into the living room.

  If Sylvia and Tony noticed him, they didn’t show it. The screaming intensified, and Rick saw Tony draw back his fist. Snarling like an evil animal, he hit her on the cheek with his full strength. Sylvia’s face shattered into a bloody mess.

  She shrieked and sobbed, sinking into the corner, begging Tony to stop. But he launched forward again with a punch to the eye, causing almost immediate swelling before he went for the other side of her face. Sylvia cowered like a helpless animal, devoid of any hope that she could stop the violence.

  Within a few minutes her face was nearly unrecognizable, angry blue bruises the size of golf balls swelling up and nearly sealing her eyelids together. Her nose appeared crooked, and her lip was split with a tooth hanging loose. Blood streamed from her mouth and nose. Her dress was ripped half off her body, and she clutched a purse that looked as if it had been emptied on the floor in anger or in an effort to search for something—anything—to keep this animal away from her.

  In this moment she was no longer Rick’s mom. She looked like a disfigured monster—as if a scary Halloween mask had been painted on her face.

  Rick’s entire body shook with fear, his heart racing with confusion and defensiveness, a child watching his mom nearly beaten to death. He could stand it no longer and felt like he was having an out-of-body experience as he ran forward.

  “Stop!” Rick yelled. “No! Stop! Don’t hurt her!”

  Looming like a monster in a horror movie, Tony turned from Sylvia to Rick, angrily amused that this little boy would think to take him on. He looked as if he was going to pick Rick up and throw him across the room. But Sylvia ran in front of him and begged him to beat her more instead.

  “Leave him alone! Leave him alone!” she cried, dissolving into tears. “Rick, go to your room. Leave him alone, Tony. He’s just a little kid.”

  Rick backed up against the wall, terrified that Tony would come for him next. But the man just gave his mom a shove and hit her hard across the jaw before stomping through the kitchen and slamming the back door, leaving Sylvia in a pile of tears and blood on the floor.

  Rick could do nothing but stand dazed and fearful, staring at the woman who had exposed him to such horrific violence but then tried to protect him. He was horrified, thankful not to be bleeding, but filled with guilt that he had failed to stop the attack. It would be a moment that haunted him for years to come.

  Next time, he felt sure, Tony would hit him. If he would beat a woman nearly to death, what would stop him from going after a child?

  Outside they heard the sound of a car engine revving and screeching out of the driveway. Tony didn’t have his own car and regularly stole Sylvia’s when the night ended this way. They were trapped at home, in this nightmare of a life.

  Sylvia continued crying but didn’t move from the floor and didn’t speak to Rick either. He didn’t know what to do, so he just stood in the hallway until she was passed out asleep. He couldn’t leave her there alone. He felt a strange mixture of resentment and protectiveness toward his mom—feelings he didn’t know what to do with.

  That was the first time Rick witnessed the extent of Tony’s violence firsthand. It wouldn’t be the last time. He estimates he saw Tony beat his mom at least twenty times in the span of four years. The scenes are engraved in his memory—his mother just a pitiful victim of a man she continued to choose over and over again.

  The beatings were part of how the police ended up at the house and child protective services got wind of another instance of neglect. Neighbors would regularly call the cops over the noise—but Sylvia would always deny there was a problem. She was afraid of them taking the kids or finding illegal substances. So she usually stayed silent and allowed her children to suffer along with her. As often was the case, her parents were a last resort and she did not contact them.

  It is truly a miracle that Rick did not grow up to be an abuser himself. Many children like him do. In fact, those who grow up seeing domestic violence in the home are three times more likely to repeat the cycle. They are also six times more likely to commit suicide, 50 percent more likely to
abuse drugs or alcohol, and 74 percent more likely to commit a violent crime against another person.3 But Rick, by God’s grace, never had a problem with violence against others—men or women. The anger and rage generated by those nights of terror would emerge in other forms.

  Too many nights, a stony-faced little boy stood terrified in a trailer hallway for half the night, praying his mom wasn’t dead, confused by the violence no kid should ever have to see and wondering how God could be real if He didn’t make it all stop. He was wide awake most evenings and, to be honest, hasn’t really slept well since.

  CHAPTER 13

  WHEN SHE WAS ALONE

  Tony was a terrifying presence in Rick’s life, but he wasn’t a constant one. He came and went—even going to jail for a while and returning to plague the family more. During his absence, Sylvia was even more of a mess than usual, depression hitting more heavily as she drank rock-bottom vodka alone in the kitchen, blasting old country songs. Sometimes she’d stomp out the front door, screen door slamming, and walk the few blocks down the road to the local bar—because being alone wasn’t her thing, and kids weren’t the kind of company she wanted.

  Sometimes Sylvia would disappear for days at a time. If she told the kids she was going to get cigarettes, they instinctively knew she’d be gone for at least a day, maybe more. As soon as she left, Rick made sure to lock the door and begin praying that no one would come pounding on it. Usually there was at least bread and peanut butter or cereal in the house, so they never went hungry. But they also never knew when to expect her home.

  Leaving children alone in this way is one of the most prevalent forms of child neglect, with drugs or alcohol most often playing the key role in why it happens. The experts call it “supervisory neglect,” and it appears in up to 72.5 percent of child welfare cases.1