We live in a world where a woman(or man) can crush a man's(or woman's) soul, ruin their life, and there is nothing they can do about it except get penalized. Usually the men due to court favoritism. His future was already a prison. One of divorce, losing his possessions, his kid.
Society seems confused when a man has his soul ripped out and the husk that is left behind becomes host to something darker.
Men don't have support, they don't have backup unless they are really lucky to have a real friend who has a watchful eye.
Not justifying his actions, but for folks in his shoes there is almost never any kind of justice for them. You see these guys a lot in certain spots. Broken yet still in touch enough not to cause anyone harm.
I know. I've been there. It's a special kind of pain and luckily there were no kids. To have a life planned with someone vanish, to be easily replaced. That feeling an eternal drive, a type of raging inferno on the inside and all the whispers from the abyss justifying everything.
It's not the actions of someone in their right mind. I had a buddy save me. A man who raced me down the road in his own car as our speeds got far too high. A man who was ready to grapple me. Not because he cared about the others, but because he wanted to save me.
Worked out. I spent a few years living purely on rage after that and I used it as an energy source to get into the best shape of my life, accomplish a lot. But you can only contain rage for so long. Finally I peeked into the abyss and felt those cold slick tendrils caress the back of my mind. Slowly rolling down my neck and shoulders, promising resolution.
In what might have been the toughest moment of my life a well placed object brought me back to my mind and I broke down.
Afterwards the rage was gone and all these years later I cant harbor anger. If I get pissed it lasts seconds then I forgive folks and move on. My mind completely lost the ability to process that emotion. Maybe a defense mechanism, maybe a subconscious fear of its presence.
But the experience taught me to understand just how badly someone can break. By all means I was considered a very good person at the time it consumed me. Never hurt a fly, always dedicated to others.
But if the pain digs in just right and match up with your demons just right it can take arable to save you.
Today I've been in an amazing relationship for 5 years, I'm professionally successful, and accepted in any group I've partook in. Mostly because of my ability to disengage emotions, step back, and observe then guide.
Sad this man didn't have someone to stand against his demons with him. Sad a child lost both parents.
But I think folks attack these situations in a one sided manner and turn any who even bring up valid points into pariahs.
That's all for my random ramble. It's just reading his interview brought back the helpless feelings I remembered consuming me. In thise moments which lasted an eternity there was no yesterday, no tomorrow, just a pain you'd do anything to try and appease. It's like dying of a mental thirst, psychologically you feel yourself about to fade from existence. Reality shimmers, vision blurs, you can't perceive things as they are.
Trust me. It takes an immense amount of willpower to overcome that if you weren't emotionally healthy to begin with.
Even then you carry that scar forever, but you also carry sense of peace. Surviving that preps you to survive anything. It also gifts you with the wisdom to guide others out of that darkness if you can reach them in time.
Let's not hate. Let's just learn from this experience and keep an eye on one another. Saving someone's life might be as simple as taking a broken friend out for coffee every day for 2 weeks, distracting them from the demons as their psyche reorganizes.
You might never benefit from it. But I can promise you they will never forget it and tend to pay it forward.
Wounded recognize wounded. The healed know how to bandage the wounds.