I experienced my first traumatic event at 8 months of age. It would not be recognized as such for over 40 years.
My parents, both studying at Concordia in Montreal made a decision that would change the course of our relationship forever. They didn’t know this then, this is dedicated to them, so that they may know this now.
I was separated from my mother, my primary caregiver, at 8 months of age. The attachment phase begins generally at 7 to 9 months in infants. I never got to the point of secure attachment.
Throughout much of my life, I would struggle with the ongoing pain of separation anxiety. It’s like a switch that never went off and so there was no rest.
That’s when the infant learns to trust that the primary caregiver will return. That process teaches the child to attach securely. When the caregiver is out of sight the infant feels the pain of separation until they are reunited.
My mother and father didn’t return…. or so I thought, I was the one who left. She became a nutritionist, and he became a Doctor of Psychology and got a master’s in law. The cost? I think I paid the highest price.
Rejection, abandonment, anxious pleasing, and crippling fear became my parents. They raised me until I learned to raise myself… or so I thought.
My grandmother favored me, for I was light-skinned. She would have me kneel on a grater, the long-curved one where the holes were built by the 4 corners facing outward. I can only imagine how she treated my brother; he was darker than I was. She did make the best coconut treats with that grater though.
At age 6 we were living in New York; I was living with my mother again after 5 or so years apart. She had gone to work and had left my brother and me home alone as was the norm. I would assume she could not afford a sitter.
The lady next door had been ironing. There was a fire, we got scared and my brother jumped out the 4th floor window. I took the stairs. The constant fear from infancy had caused my brain to process intensely. My reasoning had to develop as I had no external support.
This would prove to be a pattern for me throughout life. Reasoning and choosing, reasoning, and choosing.
Downside? Well, had social services taken us I could have been an American, and from New York at that, the horror… the only redemption would have been my swag.
At age 10 or 11 I “met” my father, he was in Montreal, and I remember the highways were magical. Huey and I took the bus to see him. He wasn’t much interested in me. I was very interested in him.
I wanted to become a psychologist, but I never became a psychologist. I always wanted to please him. I could never please him.
In 1982 my mother took a contract with CUSO and moved us, my brother Huey and I to a tiny island in the Caribbean named Grenada. We would spend 3 years there.
They felt like an eternity. The boys in school would beat me mercilessly, Lester and Big Tick, they took great pleasure in those days especially.
I had no friends; books were my only friends from the time I could read. My mother would bring home novels and I would steal away and read them without her knowledge.
Danielle Steele, Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, and Robert Ludlum all came together and gave me worlds to explore beyond the reality that I had grown to deplore.
Robert Ludlum introduced me to Eric Van Lustbader and Lustbader introduced me to Oriental philosophy while Jackie Collins introduced me to sex, power, and violence.
My thirteen-year-old mind devoured anything written that I could find. I would debauch for days in a book and then mourn the end as if my closest friend had died.
Books were like lily pads in a pond, my mind leaped from one story to another. Words saved me… stories preserved me.
All of that ended when Ronald Reagan decided he had had enough. The relationship that Grenada had developed with the former Soviet Union, Cuba, East Germany, and other Eastern bloc countries had gone far enough.
Somewhere along the way, my mother became political… looking back it makes perfect sense now. Back then it didn’t. Nothing did really. It was probably one of the loneliest times of my life.
I did however have my first girlfriend there. She was 18, I was 13… I was even too shy to kiss her. I’m not sure how we made it to boyfriend and girlfriend. Poor thing must have struggled with me.
Things started to heat up in Grenada, from the outside there were talks of invasion and military action. They were building an international airport, but Americans asserted that they were building a military base.
I learned to drive at that airport, my brother Huey would steal my mom’s car and teach me. if they were building a base there were no signs of it that I ever saw. The Cubans I knew were just blue-collar workers who liked their amber rum. If you ask me, it was an excuse… but no one has ever asked me.
When talk of invasion started to circulate, I made a decision that would change my life. I had reasoned that if the Americans were going to invade it would be good to know when before it happened and that meant joining the army.
So, at 14, I joined the militia. I figured if it was going to happen I should know beforehand. I can only attribute this line of thinking to all of those espionage novels that I had consumed.
It would be 30 years later before I would understand the term “child soldier”. At the time, it was the same as seeing the smoke and choosing to take the stairs as opposed to taking the window.
The man who oversaw my unit would go on to become my stepfather a few years later. He never had any real affection for my brother and me, we never expected it, but it would have been nice.
My mother was his ticket to a new life in Canada. That may not have been the intent, but it turned out to be the case for him and all his family.
On a cool night in October 1983, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, his partner Jacqueline Creft, and a few others were gone from the earth, and in their absence, chaos reigned.
The sky was lit up orange by paraflares. It was both beautiful and eerie. We were mobilized to forts, I was on Fort George, and Bishop’s mother’s house was at the foot of the fort, it was in ruins.
Was I afraid? I have no recollection. I am however certain that at this point my earlier reasoning around enlisting, while proving to be true, was also proving to be terrifying.
They gathered us all inside, I’m not sure why to this day, it may have been to spare us the effects of seeing the orange sky and the AWAC circling above.
So, this is where the story gets… weird, for lack of a better word. Inside the fort they put on a movie, of all movies it was Rambo: First Blood, as I write this it dawns upon me that whoever chose that movie wasn’t trying to bolster courage in us by showing a film about a US Green Beret.
I remember watching the film transfixed, then at some point, I can only assume that I fell asleep. I’ll never know exactly what happened. I can only assume that my mind blocked things out for me to persist.
Nevertheless, the next time I opened my eyes I was coming out of sleep to find myself fully dressed, outside leaning against a short wall. Above me, forty feet in the air was a terrifying sight. I was staring up at the underbelly of an F14 Tomcat fighter jet, it hovered above, I don’t know where my mind went T this day.
I sat there unable to move or think for what seemed like forever. Then I heard blades quietly beating the air, I looked up and over the wall in time to see a helicopter gunship fly by heading out towards the airport. There were soldiers visible, one manned the gun
Off in the distance, paratroopers could be seen exiting aircraft like ants. Parachutes opened. They had landed.
I was terrified and confused, first the Tomcat, then the gunship… today I wonder if I was invisible. Nothing from the end of that movie makes sense.
I was wearing the uniform issued to me, I was cradling an AK-47 assault rifle and I was tall. How could they, the Americans not see me? Why did I wake up alone? Why did everyone leave me behind?
These questions plagued me. But not right away. I sat there for a time, I don’t know how long, and then I decided to head home. I didn’t know where else to go.
As I stood up, I realized that not only was I alone, but everyone had also abandoned their weapons. The AK47 had a smaller version called the AKS, or AK47S, I got rid of my AK and picked up a discarded S, found a backpack, and placed the shorter weapon in the bag. I also found a Makarov semi-auto handgun, depositing it in the bag I gingerly proceeded to make my way home.
It would take me a while as I had to walk and avoid eyes. Somehow, I made it home without anyone seeing me and I would end up placing the AKS in the ceiling of our home, I recall burying something, but I can’t recall what it was right now.
As I write this again none of it makes sense, the sun was up so it would have probably been morning, but why had no one seen me? Only God or one of His Angels will be able to answer this one.
In the days following, life resumed, I remember walking to town looking for my family. I don’t remember where my mother was. She was on the radio when the invasion occurred, looking back it’s hard to not question her judgment, it’s hard to not also wonder how I was able to move on.
It would be decades before I would revisit these events. The first time I wrote about it was at university in 2003. The professor probably didn’t believe me.
It wouldn’t be until the case of Omar Khadr that I would realize that I had been a child soldier.
Gross memory lapses are the only signs that I can point to. I’m left to ask people who knew me then to share with me who I was.
I was always a timid child but the events in Grenada would have had to cause some tar in the fabric of my personality. I just don’t know what it was.
Decades later, when I could finally focus enough to attend university, they would go on to diagnose me with ADHD, it never dawned on me to talk about any of the events written in this piece.
I rejected the diagnosis as I came to understand my traumatic experiences and my anxiety. Instead, I’ve struggled and strived to do what is not natural for those who cannot focus.
I would often speak in tangents, unable to focus on what I was saying in a lengthy conversation. As a child, I barely spoke I was told. All I did was think, today it is that singular act that enables me to navigate life as I do.
My relationships all suffered; I would try to connect but attachment was unsustainable. If someone wasn’t right in front of me, I would forget that they existed.
I could not sit and think, only that which was in front of me was real. I’ve walked away from so many ropes because of this. Looking back, I had lost the capacity to be present. I had lost the capacity to experience and access memories. Nothing was being written on my hard drive.
I found out recently that my uncle picked up my brother and me from the airport after we arrived back in Canada. My mother was unable to return due to her political actions and I ended up living with Beverly, I called her my godmother, she cared more than most.
I went to high school, but I have no clue as to how I did. Back in Canada, the beatings stopped, and people were kinder to me.
I lived life oblivious to the hell I had just escaped from. Girls started to pay attention to me, I was timid but somehow, I would meet people.
The story gets fuzzy here because I recall that I lived with my mother after a while. She arrived in Canada with her new husband, my former commanding officer.
They would end up having a child, another brother named Andre, I thought he was cute, and I enjoyed playing with him. My mother was patient with him.
Years later she would confess to me two things which would both crush my heart and provide essential context for my existence.
The first admission is that she didn’t like me after we reconnected from my grandmother raising me and the second admission came much later, in 2007.
We were seated at her home in Toronto, I was separated at the time and took the trip to visit family and friends.
We were having dinner, the two of us, and suddenly, my mother stopped during her meal to tell me that when I was a child, she didn’t like talking to me and would get impatient, tune me out, and do something else which I cannot for the life of me remember.
I just sat there stunned, and she went right back to eating. We never discussed it…and I never broached the subject again. It was as if a door had opened to a magical world and would only ever open once.
The reason her admission was so profound is that for decades prior I struggled with forgetting what I was saying while in conversation.
I was so focused on looking for signs that would indicate what a person was thinking or feeling that I would forget what I was saying. I needed to disengage before rejection came because it was just too painful. So, I would look for any sign, any clue.
This behavior, like all the others also had its upside, I learned to detect nuance, I learned to detect disinterest, I learned to detect deception and I learned to detect truth.
This would serve me in various employment settings.
I recall once meeting with a minister weekly, Guy Hammond, we would discuss my insecurity around speech, and I was transparent with him. It would later crush my heart to learn that he had repeated to others that he disliked speaking to me because of my pattern of speech. He had always told me it was okay, and that he enjoyed our conversations.
This leads to the next major event in my life. I spent twenty years in a cult. They were considered the fastest-growing campus ministry in the world at one point. They provided my formal introduction to Christianity.
This relationship would be among the most traumatic ones that I would have. Repeated brokenness, hopelessness, and depression were constants. It would be decades before I would find the faith to leave.
Coercive giving, forced relationships, unbiblical principles, controlling leadership, forcing people to write out and share every sin they had ever committed only to have that very list used against you later on.
When I left this group, I believed and feared that I was going to hell. I would later come to find out that many had committed suicide and even more gave up on believing in God after leaving.
I didn’t know that being forced to give 25 times my weekly giving, being called prideful for every question posed, being labeled, and having your personal life exposed for the sake of protecting the organization was not biblical.
The upside? I learned to read and study my bible carefully. I learned to distinguish what was Godly from what was not. I learned that God never forced us to do anything. I learned that though I am sinful, I am worthy of love and patience.
I learned that love is patient, that God looks at the heart, and that I am not easily intimidated. I learned that when ungodly men encounter the truth of the bible they resort to intimidation. I learned a lot through my 20 years of suffering. Was it all bad? No, but would I want to experience it again? No.
They crossed so many lines that to this day I don’t engage anyone from that group. The only positive thing to come from my association with them is my two children. That and my understanding of how their lack of faith moved them to control people rather than trusting them to choose what they wanted.
God never forces anyone to love Him or to remain where they do not want to be. The International Church of Christ
They had a schism that rocked the core and caused many to leave. Most who remained have lost whatever heart for God that they had.
I have grown weary of writing this, let me deviate for a moment.
The consequence of all the trauma was that I could not attach. I didn’t know how to. My mind was in a continual loop.
It would be 54 years before I would learn just how bad it had been. I had sought connection most of my life, but my mind continually disconnected from it.
I have known more people, especially women than I care to count. I have had more endings than I can keep track of. I’ve grown weary of endings.
For now, I will end this on this note. I have spent my life seeking, I’ve stopped seeking. This doesn’t take into account who I have been as a consequence of what I’ve experienced.
I’ll probably find the energy to write that at another time. For now, I’m just working on changing and taking responsibility for the man that I am.
That’s all that I can do, I am not sorry about anything that I’ve been through. Truth is I don’t remember most of it. I believe that God has shielded my mind from most of it.
My regrets are all around who I became as a result of what I went through, not what I endured.
I wrote this to remember, and to share with the most important people in my life. If you’re reading this, I hope that it illuminates, but don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t.
The rest of the story is being lived, maybe one day it’ll be written, I’ll keep you informed.
Cheers,