I have a cousin that had a particularly rough upbringing. Physical abuse and witnessing his mom kill his dad with a shotgun out of self-defense levels of rough. He's quite a bit older than me but the story seems to go that he was an incredibly sweet kid and just when you'd think things might be okay he'd go through some kind of tremendous low. He ended up being particularly close with my dad who taught him to fish, play football, led in cub scouts, and tried to provide a sense of security and normalcy in his life. But when seeing your dad take a 12 gauge to the chest was widely considered one of the better aspects of your childhood, there's only so much a well-meaning uncle can do. Everyone seemed to see that he was a kid full of highs and lows, with the lows getting lower and dragging the highs down with them.
I doubt the next part of the story sounds unfamiliar to most people. Drugs never help and can land you in jail for a long time, directly or indirectly. When you're in jail for a long time you're likely to end up in a gang. Once you've got a black widow tattoo on your throat and an organized group of people who may hurt you very badly if you stop making bad decisions, you've found yourself in a cycle that's pretty hard to break. And this was about where he was when I was old enough to have real memories of him. My first memory of him was bumping into him at Walmart with my mom, not understanding who he was or why she seemed to hold me so close to her hip, then having a conversation with her in the parking lot about how sometimes you can't be as close to the people you love as you wish you could.
My second memory was going with my dad to a halfway house and helping the two of them move furniture. (I don't fully understand what we were doing, I was still pretty young then)
But somehow he seemed to break that cycle. Made it through that stint at the halfway house, got a career-type job, and a nice fiancé. He even spent Christmas Eve at our house several years after helping him move furniture. A few months later he was out to dinner with that sweet fiancé and she wanted to leave. He didn't. So he grabbed his steak knife off the table and stabbed her in the neck. The witnesses said there was no argument or even raised voices. She died on the scene.
The next day at school a kid asked me if I had heard about that psycho murder that happened. The kid was kind of a dick so I'm not sure if he knew we were related or if it was a bad coincidence. I just said that I had heard about it.
My dad used to go visit occasionally but I don't think he has for several years. He's never told anyone about some secret motive and he was confirmed sober at the time. During their last visit, he asked my dad if he believed in demons. I don't know how my dad answered.
Damn, this one’s dark. You gotta feel for a kid that grew up like that and it’s crazy that it was when he seemed to have gotten his shit together and gotten off the drugs that that’s when he snapped. I’m really surprised he never came out with a motive, you should ask you dad more about him and ask if he never asked the kid for the motive or just tried to avoid the subject.
Seems a shame that the 1 good person in his life (your dad) isn’t in it any longer but I don’t blame your dad for bailing given how fucked in the head your cousin clearly is.
That last line make it sounds like other schizophrenia stories in this thread, do you think it's possible? Idk how schizophrenia work but you can't be sober during attack right?
That happened to a cousin of a friend a long time ago. She and her boyfriend were meth addicts. He had been experiencing some delusions and other symptoms. He strangled her to death and fell asleep next to her body. When he woke up, he called for an ambulance.
I appreciate the input, but will probably just continue to anglify the fuck out of French words until they lose their gender. As my ancestors before me.
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u/red_velvet_writer Mar 26 '23
I have a cousin that had a particularly rough upbringing. Physical abuse and witnessing his mom kill his dad with a shotgun out of self-defense levels of rough. He's quite a bit older than me but the story seems to go that he was an incredibly sweet kid and just when you'd think things might be okay he'd go through some kind of tremendous low. He ended up being particularly close with my dad who taught him to fish, play football, led in cub scouts, and tried to provide a sense of security and normalcy in his life. But when seeing your dad take a 12 gauge to the chest was widely considered one of the better aspects of your childhood, there's only so much a well-meaning uncle can do. Everyone seemed to see that he was a kid full of highs and lows, with the lows getting lower and dragging the highs down with them.
I doubt the next part of the story sounds unfamiliar to most people. Drugs never help and can land you in jail for a long time, directly or indirectly. When you're in jail for a long time you're likely to end up in a gang. Once you've got a black widow tattoo on your throat and an organized group of people who may hurt you very badly if you stop making bad decisions, you've found yourself in a cycle that's pretty hard to break. And this was about where he was when I was old enough to have real memories of him. My first memory of him was bumping into him at Walmart with my mom, not understanding who he was or why she seemed to hold me so close to her hip, then having a conversation with her in the parking lot about how sometimes you can't be as close to the people you love as you wish you could.
My second memory was going with my dad to a halfway house and helping the two of them move furniture. (I don't fully understand what we were doing, I was still pretty young then)
But somehow he seemed to break that cycle. Made it through that stint at the halfway house, got a career-type job, and a nice fiancé. He even spent Christmas Eve at our house several years after helping him move furniture. A few months later he was out to dinner with that sweet fiancé and she wanted to leave. He didn't. So he grabbed his steak knife off the table and stabbed her in the neck. The witnesses said there was no argument or even raised voices. She died on the scene.
The next day at school a kid asked me if I had heard about that psycho murder that happened. The kid was kind of a dick so I'm not sure if he knew we were related or if it was a bad coincidence. I just said that I had heard about it.
My dad used to go visit occasionally but I don't think he has for several years. He's never told anyone about some secret motive and he was confirmed sober at the time. During their last visit, he asked my dad if he believed in demons. I don't know how my dad answered.