J.D Vance's Tragic, Real-Life Story

This article includes mentions of drug addiction, domestic abuse, and violence.

When taking an in-depth look at Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance's background and upbringing, there's no denying the man has defied many odds. Regardless of how people feel about Vance, one has to admit that he managed to rise above his circumstances and achieve something near-impossible for many of those who grew up like he did — becoming the vice president of the United States. Some might have been more forgiving of Vance had he not pivoted on his stance toward President-Elect Donald Trump. The two politicians have a complicated relationship, with Vance once being one of Trump's loudest critics and even likening him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Now, the two will rule the halls of the White House together.

Vance's upbringing couldn't be more different from Trump's. While the latter was born into a dynasty drenched in money, Vance was born in the Rust Belt, marked by poverty and violence. To make matters worse, his father abandoned him and his mother when Vance was but a toddler, leaving them to fend for themselves. When his mother told him that she and his father were getting divorced and that young Vance had seen the last of his dad, he was heartbroken. "It was the saddest I had ever felt," he wrote in his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." "Of all the things I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures."

Vance's father abandoning his family was but the first in a series of tragic events he had to live through, and looking back, one can hardly believe that the boy who grew up in the Rust Belt now gets to call the Naval Observatory home.

After J.D. Vance's father walked out on his family, things took a turn for the worse. His mother, who worked as a nurse, turned to drugs to escape reality. It started with a simple headache, and Beverly Aikins decided to take some Vicodin for the pain. She experienced a sense of euphoria after taking the medication and, having access to prescription medication because of her job, soon turned to stronger drugs. When she eventually got caught, she was out of a job, and her nursing license was revoked, leaving her family even worse off than before. But Aikins now had a drug addiction, and with no access to prescription pills, she turned to heroin to get her fix. "My brain loved it," she told The New York Times.

Vance, meanwhile, had to grow up faster than any kid should have to, and he tried to help his mom get clean. "For years, I had made excuses for Mom," he wrote in his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." "I had tried to help manage her drug problem, read those stupid books about addiction, and accompanied her to N.A. meetings." This was all in vain, and Vance's mother would only turn her life around years later in 2015.

In his book, "Hillbilly Elegy," J.D. Vance doesn't mince words when discussing his chaotic childhood with his sister Lindsay Ratliff. He detailed one of the book's most harrowing experiences with NPR's "Fresh Air." Vance's mother had picked him up from his grandmother's house and planned to take him out for a treat to repent for her wrongdoings. However, the outing did not go as planned: Vance said something to upset his mother, who then threatened to kill them both. "She sped up the car on the highway. Went over — you know, it seemed at the time like she was driving over 100 mph. And she just kept on saying, I'm going to crash this car and kill us both," Vance recalled during the interview.

Terrified, he fled to the backseat. Beverly Aikins wasn't having it and brought the car to a halt. "[I thought she] was going to start hitting me. And so I ran. I ran out of the car. We were in a pretty rural part of the state. And I actually ran through a field to a person's house," Vance recalled. While speaking to Megyn Kelly for NBC, Vance revisited that awful day. He got emotional as he remembered how relieved he felt when the police arrested his mother because the realization that he'd survived the entire ordeal started to set in. But then he became aware of something far worse — he was all alone. "The relief of having survived another day was gone. Then I just wanted somebody to come and take me away," he recalled, saying his sister, Lindsay, ended up being his saving grace that day. "Violence and chaos were an ever present part of the world that I grew up in," Vance admitted on "Fresh Air."

After J.D. Vance's mother's arrest, 12-year-old Vance lied to the court about how bad her behavior really was, terrified he'd end up in the foster care system if he told the truth. Keeping quiet about the real state of his home life would allow him to stay with his grandmother and grandfather, and that was preferable, even though they didn't offer the most stable household either.

His grandmother and grandfather, Bonnie and James Vance, had a violent relationship as well. His grandfather abused alcohol, and his grandmother, when she got fed up with his antics, would resort to acting out against her husband — once serving him garbage instead of food and on one occasion attempting to set him on fire. These events occurred during Vance's mother's childhood, and growing up in a violent home is most likely what led Beverly Aikins to making the same mistakes with her own kids. By the time Vance went to live with his grandparents, however, their household was no longer as violent as it once was.

When Vance started hanging out with the wrong crowd and experimenting with drugs, however, his grandmother threatened to run his friends over with her car if he didn't stop hanging out with them. Young Vance was so used to violence, he didn't question that she might actually do it. "So I actually did stop hanging out with the kids she told me I couldn't hang out with. A lot of kids don't listen to that demand when their parents make it. But I was so terrified of mamaw that I listened and listened good," Vance shared on NPR's "Fresh Air."

Not only did J.D Vance's father abandon him when he was a toddler, he also eventually gave him up for adoption when he was six years old. Vance's mother had just gotten remarried to Bob Hamel, and Vance's biological father, Donald Bowman, let his ex-wife's new husband adopt his son. "After the adoption, he became kind of a phantom for the next six years. I had few memories of life with him," Vance recalls in his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." "I always felt loved when I spent time with him, which was why I found it so shocking that he 'didn't want me anymore,' as Mom and Mamaw told me. He had a new wife with two small children, and I'd been replaced." Vance and his father would reconcile years later, with the latter explaining that he never wanted to give up his son but rather tried to avoid a messy custody battle.

Knowing the intricacies of family and having been adopted himself, it was rather ironic that Vance called those without children (and adopted children) "childless cat ladies" during an interview with controversial former Fox News firebrand Tucker Carlson, accusing the Democrats of having created an "anti-family and anti-children" narrative (via BBC). Vance cited Vice President Kamala Harris as a prime example, even though she has two step-kids. "The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children," he argued. "How does it make any sense we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" Of course, backlash ensued, and Vance's comments even led to a viral spat between him and actress Jennifer Aniston.

J.D. Vance might be pro-family, but the vice president-elect actually has no contact with some of his siblings. "By some metrics, I probably had about a dozen stepsiblings," Vance admitted in "Hillbilly Elegy," explaining that chronicling his entire family tree to strangers never ceased to be an arduous task. "When you're a kid, you can't wave your hand, say, 'It's complicated," he wrote. "So, for a time, I dutifully answered, walking people through the tangled web of familial relationships that I'd grown accustomed to." Vance's mother had been married five times, and eventually, he started to question if the kids from his various step-fathers' other relationships actually counted as his siblings. One thing we know about Vance's half-sister Lindsay Ratliff is that she was the only sibling he truly knew and trusted. "Lindsay was (and remains) the person I was proudest to know," he wrote. Lindsay has reiterated her close bond with Vance during an interview with NBC News, saying, "I would die for that kid, and I know he would, too.

While hell may freeze over before Donald Trump ever admits to being at fault for his biggest controversies, J.D. Vance has owned up to some of his vices. In "Hillbilly Elegy," the politician confessed that growing up in a violent environment left its mark on him, and he struggles with anger management as a result. He recalls in the book how he often heard the fights between his mother and her various partners over the years. What upset him most was his mother's heartbreak when her relationships eventually ended. "When she lay sobbing in bed after another failed relationship, I felt a rage that could have driven me to kill," he recalls in his memoir.

Fast forward to the present, and Vance admits that anger is still a challenge. "Even at my best, I'm a delayed explosion," he confessed in his book. Vance's wife, Usha Vance, quickly learned how short her husband's fuse could be after a job interview he thought he botched. "I didn't get here by making excuses for failure!" he recalled yelling at her when she tried to console him. Vance's former Yale roommate believes that anger caused the politician to swear allegiance to Donald Trump. "Trump's style, his sort of wrecking-ball approach to norms and institutions, is really what JD is parroting here, and that comes from anger and grievance," Georgia Senator Josh McLaurin told "Politically Georgia" (via AJC). In his book, Vance said he's tried therapy, but his wife is the one who keeps him grounded when anger overwhelms him.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.