We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

By R.A. Rayne

I have rewritten this opening a half dozen times now. I knew when I sat down to write this article it would be rough, but I never realized how freeing it would be.

Call it luck, divine intervention, or just perfect timing, but this past week Destro Is My Spirit Animal gave us a chance to look at ourselves instead of the world of G.I. Joe. Recently, Mark Fogarty posted a YouTube video on his Destro Is My Spirit Animal channel, where he candidly discussed his experience with R.I.M. Therapy and the struggles that led him to discover that Destro is his spirit animal. After that episode aired, he was contacted by death metal musician and Cold Slither frontman Gus Rios (aka. Zartan).

During their conversation, Gus and Mark came up with the idea to put together a special Destro Is My Spirit Animal livestream to openly discuss their battles with mental health, show others that they/we are not alone, and give the G.I. Joe community a chance to join the conversation. Joining them was Michael Vandenberg (Destro Designs). Together, the three of them opened up about their various mental health issues, treatments, and unfiltered confessions about the childhood traumas that led to the demons that they still battle today.

Their candor opened the door for a community that isn’t known for sharing feelings to come together in a way that felt deeper than our love for G.I. Joe. For two and a half hours, fans were given a rare chance. We were encouraged, supported, and, for many of us, given the chance to see that we aren’t going through this struggle alone. It’s not often you find a supportive, honest, and informative conversation like this online. Most of the time, the community can be superficial, unsupportive, or downright cruel. Many times, when we log off, we feel alone or beaten down, especially after posting something we were excited to share with the community.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can say that it was an enlightening experience for me. I’ve been aware of my own mental health issues for decades, but it wasn’t until about a year ago that I truly had to face them and the consequences that came with them.

While I don’t want to go into the details, I will say that a lot of my mental health issues have to do with abandonment issues, depression, self-loathing, and acceptance. Logically, I know and understand where these issues came from. I have even started understanding the triggers that cause me to emotionally spiral out of control, but like a Vulcan experiencing pon farr, there is no suppressing my emotions. When this happens, knowing it ISN’T half the battle. It’s a casualty of war.

Cutsy puns aside, my childhood trauma left an indelible scar that will be mended. As a child, my life seemed like a Norman Rockwell Christmas card. You would have thought my mom and dad were plucked right out of some cheesy sitcom like Family Ties. They were the perfect parents. My dad worked, coached, and was a pillar in the community. My mom was a stay-at-home mom who was on the PTA, helped with the church bake sale, and was supportive. But, like the song from The Grass Roots, “All good things come to an end.”

And when they came to an end. It felt like a nuclear bomb had gone off. In my book Angel Dust, I describe the hyper-realistic version of the event. I called it the Great Implosion. My family completely fell apart. My father went from Cliff Huxtable to Freddy Krueger. My mom went from Donna Reed to Joan Crawford. I went from having a father who was my superhero to having Darth Vader, Megatron, Cobra Commander, and the creepy old guy who hurt Arnold and his friend on Diff’rent Strokes all wrapped up into one. I was abused, abandoned, and made to feel like I had no one there for me. While my abuse may not have come directly from my parents, it resulted from them.

My mom, God love her, did the best she could. She went from a woman who was financially dependent on someone to having to beg, borrow, and steal just to keep a roof over her and her four children. She went from what she thought was a happy, loving marriage to a nightmare no one should ever have to endure. She went from a reasonably intelligent woman to a lost bipolar woman who didn’t know who to trust or what to believe. And for all that, until recently I’ve compartmentalized her part in all of this.

See, as a parent, we have one job. It’s not an easy one. It’s not a thankless one, but it is the most important thing you can do. And that is to protect our children at all costs. You can provide for them, care for them, love them, and make sure they have everything they could ever want, but if you do not protect them… Then you have failed.

As I said, I had the perfect life growing up. I had every Star Wars figure I could want, every G.I. Joe, and could do just about anything I wanted. BUT, and it’s a big one, so much of my early life slipped through the cracks. I don’t know if it was because my mom was trying to care for my younger siblings, or because she blindly trusted people she thought would never hurt me, but I was left to defend myself even though I didn’t know what that meant or what to do. Honestly, it really doesn’t matter what it is. What does matter is that after the Great Implosion, it got worse.

Entering my teens with a father who was locked away and a mother struggling to make ends meet led me to become angry, rebellious, and lost. I was failing school, drinking, getting into trouble, and doing anything and everything that I could get away with.

Let me pause right here for a moment… It’s taken me decades to realize that none of what I did was because I was a bad kid, despite popular belief. I was starved for attention and crying out for help, and everything that happened to me as a child has left me a psychological wreck with trust issues, depression, a craving for others’ attention and approval, a tendency to self-sabotage, and a deep hatred of myself. The only thing that keeps me from ending it all is that I would never want my wife or daughter to find me.

So that’s me. I am as batshit crazy and as incoherent as this article.

I do a great job at pretending to be the things I’m not, or that I wish I could be. I act, write, and create not because I am good at it. I do it to escape, to entertain, and… because I hope one day it will help me see myself as worthy as the characters I create.

Growing up, my mom sometimes told me that “She has to love me… but she sure as hell doesn’t like me.” As I’m writing this, I have just realized I think that’s how I see myself. And you know what… that’s wrong.

It’s weird to think that I’ve been in therapy this year, and while I’ve learned a lot about myself, my triggers, and my trauma, it wasn’t until now, and this episode of Destro Is My Spirit Animal, that I was actually able to feel okay about liking myself. I want to thank Mark, Michael, and especially Gus for showing me not only that I’m not alone, but also that it’s okay to like myself. And I want to thank you for giving me a chance to unpack some of my baggage.

I want everyone who reads this to know that you are not alone, and no matter what trauma or mental health issues you have, I am here for you. If you ever need to talk, just DM or email me, and I will be there for you. As Gus told me. You matter, and it is okay to love yourself.

We can get through this together.