23 Attempted Murder Victims Confess How The Terror Of Almost Dying Changed Their Lives Forever
"I didn't really get over it... It's a fucking horrible thought to carry, when you know that someone wanted to you dead."
By Eric Redding
1. “I Rarely Take Any Risks”
My father tried to kill me when I was a kid and about 15 years later I was robbed at gun point twice, working as a manager of a retail store. I’m hyper vigilant and paranoid of most strangers when I’m by myself but otherwise incredibly grateful to be alive. I don’t ever put myself in compromising situations and I rarely take any type of risks. I think the biggest impact it had was it motivated me to get out of the ghetto situations my family was used to and I was probably destined for. I put myself through college after that and now I’d consider myself middle class and invisible, no longer a target.
2. Moved Overseas
If I’m in public, I can’t be in the dark. If I’m in my (locked) car, or a hotel room, I’m somewhat OK, but extremely on edge.
About 16 years ago, me and a friend were out to get some junk food for a LAN party (A group of people gathered together to play multiplayer games) and we encountered a few people demanding our wallets or else they’d try something. We handed the wallets over, they decided we didn’t have enough.
We tried to run from them. This didn’t work. They pulled out their knives and stabbed us. My friend didn’t survive.
I’d rather not go into the long version of events, but it took a long time for me to get over it. I moved overseas, and that helped a lot. It felt like I was leaving the whole experience behind.
3. A Friend With A Knife
My best friend got pretty drunk one evening and decided to take out his angst on the world with me. He got very argumentative and tried to pick a fight in his living room and nothing anyone could say would calm him. After much screaming and shouting on his part he ran into the kitchen and grabbed a large kitchen knife. His girlfriend followed him back in from the kitchen and told him to put it down so he span round and threw it at her head, missing her by only a few inches. He then picked the knife back up and stood in the middle of the room with his back to me. I stood behind him, told him he needed to calm down but he just span round and lashed the knife at me as he did.
At first I wasn’t aware anything had actually happened, but then I could feel a trickling wet feeling on my arm and looked down to see all the bones of my forearm showing where he had pretty much cut through everything. The slash had gone right across my right forearm and then bounced over to my left where a smaller cut was but the smaller cut was right across my wrist. I was bleeding out quite badly as you can imagine and passed out shortly afterwards. Came to in the hospital with the staff telling me I was lucky to be alive and the police looking at filing charges of attempted murder.
I now have a rather large scar across my right arm and a small one on the left and what really pisses me off is that little one on the left. People look at the large scar and think that it must be some kind of accident that caused that but when people see the small one it screams suicide attempt to them given where it is.
4. “It’s Ruined So Many Aspects Of My Life”
I was raped, beaten and left for dead. I was a little boy, aged four.
I had my face smashed in on the edge of a toilet bowl in a public toilet, in a park, less than 300 metres from my home. The damage was so severe that I still missing five teeth – 38 years later.
I remember having my head pushed into the toilet bowl so that I couldn’t breathe. I remember him grabbing the back of my head by the hair, and telling me that I could live now, and not tell a soul… or die now, right here and right now.
All while the pain made me feel like I was being ripped apart from the inside, out.
I screamed for my life – and had my face smashed relentlessly against a toilet bowl because of it. And the rape didn’t stop.
I was beaten so badly, my mother barely recognised me. I told her I had been hit by a car and fell off my bicycle – because I had been playing in a part of the park over the road that couldn’t be seen from the house – which was the ‘golden rule’… “Never, ever play where we can’t see you.” I just didn’t want my mother to be angry because she told me over and over that this was a ‘Golden Rule’ – but I broke that rule, and this is what happened.
It’s ruined so many aspects of my life so far… including my marriage, which is now over… But I have two amazing children, who I know I am over-protective of…
But I am not a victim, I am a survivor. and my children have one of the toughest fathers in the world – someone who knows the absolutes of right from wrong, and someone who will give his life to prevent what happened to me, from happening to them.
So yes… I got over it, which is why I can talk about it now, 38 years later…
But no, I didn’t really get over it… It’s a fucking horrible thought to carry, when you know that someone wanted to you dead.
5. “I Was Angry For A Long Time”
I was jumped and stabbed twice (once in the head) when I was a teenager. It really affected me for a while but I got over it, for the most part, eventually. I tired really hard to make it seem like it didn’t affect me, but in reality the lack of support I got from anyone made me a lot more distrustful of ppl and withdrawn.
I was really angry for a long time about the whole situation. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone and was paranoid in public. I always carried a weapon after that.
Years later I realized I had symptoms of ptsd. I had always thought that was only something soldiers get. On the bright side, it gave me a better perspective on my own, and others mortality. I thought I was damn invincible before that.
6. “It’s Immensely Scary To Think About”
I like to think I do, but I don’t think I’ll ever really get over it, something that would seem so simple like thinking “Wow, if that thing didn’t happen i would be dead long ago” is hard to get over with.
What happened to me was pretty simple honestly, this happened while i was in high-school. I was heading to the bus stop with a buddy, and we usually took this really shady alley that lead to some equally shady stairs, that went straight to the nearest bus-stop, basically the most stupid shortcut we could pick.
So, this one day these stairs that led to the bus-stop were… well… occupied, there was like 12 people, men and women, drinking, smoking pot, and being loud. We looked at each other, my buddy shrugged, and kept going. I was incredibly scared, but i followed him.
Somehow these people didn’t even mind us, we were just squeezing through when, suddenly, one of the guys, stoned as hell, grabs my ass for no reason. I shove him off, and tell him to fuck himself, and surely, next thing i know, this other dude I didn’t even see shoved me back. I shove him off too, and in like a fraction of a second, I’m at gunpoint to the back of my head. For some reason I thought the best thing to do would be to, again, shove him away from me. But he pulled the trigger just as i did.
So, I don’t know if he didn’t load his gun, or didn’t have any ammo with him to begin with, all I could hear was two clicks, and nothing happened. I kind of avoided him again, only to get hit in the head with something and start bleeding as I’ve never bled before.
Sure, it wasn’t that big of a deal, I just had to get my head stitched and whatevs, but whenever I think that if he had actually loaded that damn gun in the first place, I would be dead, long ago. It’s immensely scary to think about it. I was so close to getting murdered for something so stupid, and I lucked out and just got a fountain of blood on my head. Silver linings, you know?
7. Mock Execution At Age 10
When I was 10 I was playing on my computer when my big brother comes walking in. I hear a weird clicking noise (which I figured out later was the slide for loading) and then there is something pressing against the back of my head. I didn’t know what to do and I wish I had the balls now to have told him to fuck off. But I didn’t. Once I realized what was against my head I froze. Then I heard the click. For a second I thought that was all I was going to hear. I knew it was a gun. I knew it was a trigger pulled. And I was pretty sure I was dead. And finally I realized I was still alive. I screamed my head off. Cried like a baby and ran and told my parents. It’s amazing how little it meant to them. Forgot about it in weeks. And I was convinced to forgive him as well. Over the years there has been many other reasons to not want to be a part of his life and my parents think I’m an asshole for not wanting anything to do with him. I’m 31 now. It is still one of my most vivid memories.
8. “I Win, Motherfucker”
I was held up with a gun to my head for over an hour. It’s been 2 years and I still freeze in fear at the thought of it.
To the man who made me re-evaluate life and death, fuck you and thank you. You are the reason I can’t sleep at night, yet you are also the reason I’ve decided to major in traumatology and grievance counseling.
I win, motherfucker.
This all happened at about 10:30 in the morning, I was woken up by the smell of smoke. I went outside to see that the shed was on fire (the pool pump caught fire and set the shed alight). The fire burned out the phone lines so I ran next door to get help, unfortunately I ran straight into an armed robbery.
I was held up with a gun to my temple. I was terrified because I didn’t want my family to come home to no house and no daughter. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move, it was so scary.
Thankfully someone had called the fire brigade but because of the attention surrounding my house the man kept me in the bathroom to avoid detection. I managed to climb out the window when he left the bathroom to speak with the others.
I have no idea where that man is but I hope he never gets the opportunity to hurt anyone else.
9. Shot By A Mugger
I got shot in a parking lot by a kid demanding the keys to my car. He put the gun in my face and I just saw red. I grabbed the gun, got shot in the process, then proceeded to beat the living hell out of the kid. At one point, I made the conscious decision to end his life. I didn’t stop until I was sure he was dead. He survived.
Being attacked affected me, there’s no doubt about that… but the thing that keeps me up at night is this memory of putting all of my energy into ending another human being’s life. It’s so fucked up.
10. Almost Burned To Death With His Entire Family
This all took place in the mid 90’s when I was about 12. My dad is a Pastor, and we used to live next door to the church in a small town of about a hundred people in the middle of a farming community. One night, I spent the night at my friend’s house which was on the same block, about two houses away. I have no idea how, but I ended up sleeping all the way through the night, and when I woke up I was told something about a fire and that we were going to meet my parents at a breakfast for the firefighters. When we drove by the church, the back side of it was burned black through to the frame and there was smoke damage everywhere, not to mention water damage from the firefighting. Again, this was only a couple hundred feet from where my friend lived so I have no idea how I slept through all of it.
There was an investigation as to the cause of the fire, but since it was such a small community with limited resources, the cause was never fully determined. It was just assumed that the fire started in my Dad’s office because of his computer and other electronics in there. My grandfather was a firefighter for his whole career and he stopped by and looked at the damage, and in his opinion, he said that there was no way that an electrical short could have caused the kind of fire damage that the building endured. Months go by, things are returning to normal as the church is being rebuilt, and finally it’s finished and we start having services in the church again. One day, one of the youth gets up front because he says he has something to say. My spidey-sense is tingling because this isn’t normal, his whole family is up there with him and he can’t look anyone in the eye. He confesses to burning the church, and my jaw just drops. I can’t imagine any other time in my life where I’ve been as horrifically shocked as I was at that moment. He turns himself into the police, makes his statement, and then does community service at the church. He didn’t go to jail because he was a juvenile. I can’t remember if he had any kind of detention or not.
Now the scary part. I didn’t find out about this until much later, probably when I was 16 or 17 and we had moved away from there. My dad got a call from the police and they said he needed to come in to read the statement that was given by the guy who burned the church. He declined and said that he had already talked to him, and he was ok with it. The police insisted, and told him there was something in the report that he didn’t know. My dad went down to the police station, read the report, and found out that the night the church was burned something else had happened. In the middle of the night, while I was over at my friend’s house, our family dog started acting weird and insisted to be let outside. My dad got up and let her out and didn’t bother waiting for her to want to come back in. After that, both of my parents said my dog was growling and making sounds that they had never heard her make before, like she was trying to keep something out of the yard. Sure enough, on the police report the guy who burned the church said that his intentions were to set my family’s house on fire and kill all of us, but he couldn’t get in the yard because he was scared of our dog (she was a husky-shepherd mix). Another important detail- our house was covered in this foam insulation that would have engulfed the whole house in flames in no time.
Since I wasn’t told about it until later in life, it took awhile for it to sink in. Even though I wasn’t home at the time, there’s still a police report out there that says that someone tried to kill me. I don’t know if you ever really get over something like that, but you use it to help you remember that life is precious and to take advantage of every day.
11. Beaten In The Streets
Not sure that it was attempted murder as such, but I was beaten in the street badly enough that I could have ended up much worse.
Three friends and I had been out drinking, and after several pints of Guinness we were making our merry way in the wee hours to wherever we fancied next. Two of us rounded a corner and were met by four very confrontational chaps.
“Looking for a fight?”
“Keep walking or you’re fucked.” That sort of thing. Of course we weren’t up for a fight, yes sir I’ll keep myself to myself, I don’t have any problem with you. We were allowed to pass. My other two friends hadn’t turned the corner yet and were completely unaware that this was happening. One of them decided that he was a Transformer and, wielding a traffic cone like a shotgun, sprinted around the corner to ambush me with a bellow of “Attack Mode!”. One of the thugs didn’t take kindly to this mecha-threat.
“ATTACK MODE!?”
“…apparently.” Shit kicked off. One of them went for one of my other friends. I stepped between them.
I woke up a few meters away in the middle of the road. My fourth friend, who had somehow avoided having the shit kicked out of him, held a scarf to my face while I gratefully filled it with blood. I was in and out of consciousness at this point, but I remember being on my back looking back, seeing the next scene play out upside-down.
These chaps had been causing trouble all night and were already on the lookout. I saw the police car speed around the corner and come to a stop near us.
I woke up again in the police station. The friend that I had badly attempted to rescue was stressing the importance of getting me to a hospital because my teeth were screwed. When the officer asked, “Are you a dentist, like?” he fished one of my teeth out of my mouth and placed it on the desk. To Accident & Emergency we went.
Indifference with a hint of disgust was how I was treated at the hospital.
“Does this hurt?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“Does this hurt?”
“Yes, it still hurts. I think I’m going to throw up.” A small sick bowl is thrust into my hand.
“Bathroom is over there if you want to clean yourself up.”
My face was fucked. The side of my face was like a severe bee sting reaction and I had a subconjunctival haemorrhage. Blood was all over my face and down my shirt and jeans. As it turns out, a bath full of salty water will soak blood out of fabrics if given enough time. The police took statements and we were taken home.
I’m told that I was punched to the ground when I intervened. While I tried to stand back up, I was kicked in the face. I don’t remember any of that happening, and I’m glad I don’t. Traffic Cone Attack Mode Optimus Prime earned himself a broken nose for his contribution.
I ended up having surgery. My entire right cheek was broken but because of the swelling, it was too difficult to detect. It had already started to heal, so they had to re-break it. I kept most of my teeth thanks to my braces (hurrah for shite pubescent teeth). I had a nerve die in one tooth and I endured the worst pain I have ever felt, even considering my recently shattered (twice!) face, so there was several weeks of root canal surgery following that.
The attackers were taken to court and we were summoned. I can only assume that they pleaded guilty because we didn’t make it past the waiting room. I do not know what sentences they received, if any.
I am over it for the most part. It’s easy to dwell on it and imagine “what if?” and fantasize about having been sober and getting the upper hand and breaking their arms. I fucking hate the people that did this to me but at the same time, I would feel nothing if they died. I suppose it’s easier knowing that I wasn’t personally a target, just someone who happened across four hopped up, sexually frustrated neanderthals. I was on edge for a few weeks afterwards, perhaps a couple of months, but it’s fine now. The window at my new job actually overlooks the corner where it happened. I rarely think about it.
I was awarded compensation from my injuries. Being a student at the time, I was happy to put that towards a new laptop. I gained a story and a tool to create music and videos with, while they earned Hogmanay in a police cell. I think that means I win.
I had drunkenly pinched a nice Guinness glass from the last pub we visited. It somehow survived the whole ordeal in my jacket pocket.
12. An Attempted Murder/Suicide
My best friend’s older brother committed suicide on New Year’s Day and tried to take me with him. I was waiting for my parents to pick me up and my friend had left with his parents to go snowboarding. I was young and naive and let him get me in a vulnerable situation by saying he wanted to take pictures for our photography class (we were in the same class and had an abstract photo project). He put duct tape on my hands and left the room saying he was going to get his camera. I felt like something was wrong luckily and started loosening the duct tape on my hands. This probably saved my life. Instead of coming back with a camera, he came back with a razor blade and a gun. He set the blade on the table and held the gun to my head and screamed over and over that he was going to “FUCKING KILL ME”.
I remember him saying “I am going to kill you do you understand?” I was able to free my hands and quickly grabbed the gun and turned it away from me. He still had ahold of it and we wrestled for a bit. He kept saying that he was just kidding and to give let him have the fun. We struggled more then when we had moved to the top of the stairs the gun went off. I think that gave me the adrenaline jolt I needed and I yanked the pistol from his hands and ran/fell down the stairs and out the front door. I will always regret this next part and wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t fell but I slipped and fell on the snowy walkway and dropped the gun… He was right behind me coming out of the front door so I just kept running down the street and hauled ass about 3-4 houses down.
I looked back and didn’t see him so I ran to a house, banged on the door and when someone answered I told them to call the cops in between gasps of air (I think I was hyperventilating). My best friends brother ended up picking up the gun, going inside and shooting himself at the bottom of the stairs. I am fine and was fine afterward besides being obviously shook up and sad for my friend and his family. I was about 16 and just didn’t understand why he did it. Long term it made me kinda paranoid/careful around others and about trusting people I don’t know. I am always very conscious and watching what people are doing when I am alone with them, especially if I don’t know them well. Not necessarily a bad thing but I learned you can not trust anyone completely. He was a nice guy, a loner at school but nice. I had known and hung out with him and his family for about 3 years by then and never got any weird vibes from the guy.
13. She Was Standing Next To My Bed With A Knife
My roommate in college had a total breakdown. She tried to jump off the roof of our tallest dorm, but was too short to scale the fence (our dorms had rooftop decks). She ended up in the mental health ward where she escaped and found her way to the roof. She was found just in time. She also went through periods were she blamed her bed, classes, the lights in our room, and then finally me for her mental problems. She tried to destroy everything that she thought was responsible, so when I got added to the list I knew she might try something. I woke up one night to find her standing over me with a knife. Something like this.
I asked her for the knife and she gave it to me. I then told her to go to bed and we’d talk about it in the morning. I hid the knife in my things and went back to sleep. In hind sight that probably wasn’t the smartest thing. She never tried anything again and a few weeks later dropped out of school and returned home. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t woken up. It affected my life at the time. It was an incredibly stressful situation. There have been no lingering affects. I still have the knife, kept it as a reminder.
14. “To This Day I Don’t Trust People In My Home”
No. I haven’t gotten over it. This isn’t the first life threatening situation I was in, but this is the only attempted murder, where it was pre-meditated.
To this day I have trouble trusting people in my home, and trouble falling asleep in any setting that isn’t my own bed, where I feel safe.
A friend tried to kill me with a knife. We were/are both experienced martial artists, and he got a knife while I was sleeping. He made a lot of noise in the kitchen and it woke me up. He came to my room and I was sitting up in my bed already, completely oblivious. He lunged at me and he nicked my chest, but eventually he lost and was in the hospital with a broken rib.
He did this because I got with a girl I liked. I introduced him to her at some point, and he got upset when later on we started dating. A year later, after the longest time being bros, he tried to fucking kill me.
This, along with other things, has attributed to some horrible PTSD. So, no, not over it.
15. Now It’s Like It Happened To Someone Else
Over it.
It happened a couple times in my teenage years, thanks to my mom’s terrible taste in significant others. But I must clarify that things never got out of hand–as in, I knew something was about to happen, and figured out quickly enough that I was about to be stabbed or shot or burned alive in order to escape the situations. Had the guy actually been able to attempt those murders–well, either I would have died or the experience likely would have scarred me for life, depending on what actually happened I suppose.
What has affected me more and what I remember more vividly are the endless nights that I sat at the top of the stairs with a knife in my hand, waiting, instead of sleeping or doing my homework because of my fear that he’d be coming back.
But today, I feel like that was someone else’s life. When I replay it in my head, it’s like a movie about some teenage girl, not me. I moved abroad, happily married an amazing dude, and my life is pretty normal.
Plus, I consider myself a fairly perceptive person now and a good judge of character. I can usually figure out rather quickly whether or not someone has ill intentions. I spent most of my childhood on edge and desperately reading the body language and faces of people around me because I was constantly surrounded by volatile people. It’s a shame you can’t put that on a resume.
16. The Story Of The Axe
Mental illness and douchebaggery of the first degree.
All in all, my brother has tried to kill me three times (lots of fights, but three stand out as clear attempts on my life).
I’ll relay the story of the axe, because that was probably the closest call.
Five days before our 18th birthday. Big celebrations coming up and whatnot. House is getting cleaned up – including our rooms.
This doesn’t suit him. His room is beyond belief. Fungus growing on the walls, trash everywhere, rotten food, lots of empty 2L Cola bottles. If you can name it – he’s eaten some of it and left the rest. Somewhere.
And while my room would certainly intimidate even the most hardy neckbeards, I had cleaned it the day before.
So I’m spending a nice summer day like any teenager should. Browsing the internet/playing games/watching movies/porn/reading books/more porn – the usual.
He thinks this is woefully unfair, and instead of doing anything about his room, he decides to take on the responsibility of making me clean my room. Cue the usual shouting through my locked door.
I, naturally, respond like any well-adjusted teenager and tell him to go fellate a rusty lawnmower.
More shouting, obscenities, the usual. Then he starts hammering on my door.
I go to brace the door (this is the third door I’ve had, one has to admire his efficiency at destroying them). hand on the key to prevent him from picking it open.
More shouting from both of us, he starts kicking the door, punching it (no idea why) and the already badly damaged door frame doesn’t like it, but it holds on. Barely. New tactics are in order.
Buckle up, this is where it gets weird.
He gets an axe from the workbench.
An axe hitting a cardboard door makes a very distinct sound.
I quickly realize that this door is about as effective as a wet paper bag and I bolt for the window. Luckily it was open in the sweltering 20-something degree summer weather (Danish summers are awesome).
He runs out the basement door, trying to cut me off from escape. Running was never his thing, on account of him being at least 50kg overweight at this point. I escape in nothing but my boxers (lazy day on summer break – pants are optional).
After a quick sprint it becomes obvious to even him that he can’t catch me.
I run until I find an old guy raking leaves outside, and in between gasps for air and violent shaking (adrenaline is a hell of a drug), I stammer out my predicament and ask to borrow his phone. I call our mom at work and explain.
Afterwards I keep a safe distance to the house (20-30 houses away), while the cavalry arrives.
In the meantime, that axe still has use, and my belongings are the new target.
When our mom arrives, he’s sitting outside in a lawn chair (guarding the entrance).
After a lot of shouting I leave to catch my breath. She convinces him to go to the mental hospital (she talked to his shrink on the way home, as I recall).
I go in to survey the damage. And get some fucking pants.
Everything is ruined. The door is in a hundred pieces all over the place. My PC monitor (that I bought after he punched the old one to death) is destroyed, my laptop is almost cloven in half. My PC is on the floor, somehow without any axe marks on it – only lost the front audio jacks. But most importantly, my phone is intact. I grab it and start documenting the damage.
Five days later at our 18th birthday (my mom talked me into coming, for her sake) everyone is asking why I’m so openly hostile. No one is talking about what had happened just a few days prior, nor the fact that this isn’t the first time. Just a lot of stupid comments.
“But he’s your brother!” “He didn’t mean it that way.”
Fun times.
17. Wary Of Strangers, No Longer Drinks
Nope, never gotten over it. Whether it was attempted murder or not is a matter for some debate, but I don’t go out on my own at night anymore. And I’m always wary of strangers, especially at night. I don’t drink anymore either, and now I always keep myself fit enough to run from something. And I still have the odd nightmare about it too.
Might as well say what happened:
I was sixteen years old, getting the last late-bus home from a party. We reach my stop, and I’m the only one getting off. There’s a car park next to the bus stop, and my mum is meant to be picking me up from there and taking me home.
As soon as I got off, I clocked a guy lying on a bench nearby – on his own – with a bottle of beer. It’s freezing cold, town’s deserted, and it’s coming on midnight. He’s the only person around. He sees me and sits up. Alarm bells start to ring, but I turn away and look out over the car-park for my mum’s car. The bus drives off, silence falls.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?!’ shouts the guy on the bench.
I’ve never seen him before, but there’s nobody else here… he’s obviously talking to me. I try to ignore him and start walking across the car-park, thinking maybe my mum’s parked down the other end. It was dark and there were plenty of cars around, but no people.
The guy shouts at me again, and without looking around, I hear him get up and start following me. I quickly realise my mum isn’t there yet, and there’s nobody else here. It’s just me and this guy. So I walk out of the car-park, and into the adjacent supermarket car-park. It’s huge, badly lit, and completely empty.
It’s a long walk home, but I’m not staying here with this guy. The guy comes after me, and he’s looking for a fight. ‘Come on,’ he shouts, ‘just you and me, one on one, no police, let’s have this out ya little cunt!’ Fuck’s sake…
Now, I’ve never been in a fight in my life, I’m skinny and sixteen, cross-country build. I’m also aware that my shoes are falling apart (I thought it was cool back then to wear out my converses till the soles fell off) and I have all my most valuable possessions in my pockets (Ipod, phone, wallet, keys etc.) I know I’m a quick runner, but the guy is tall, and I’ve only had one glance at him. He could be built like a rock for all I know, and he’s holding a bottle. I’m also still slightly drunk.
I can hear his footsteps about ten feet behind me, but I don’t want to turn round. We’re walking through this massive empty car-park, but I’m hoping I’ll find help if I just keep walking. He wants me to fight him. I’m trying to keep calm, but I know if I turn around I’m getting bottled. I want to run, but I don’t know how fast he is. He wants me to make the first move, but I keep walking, just praying for someone to turn up and help.
There’s a laugh behind me, and more footsteps. Suddenly there’s two of them. Shit. My hearing is suddenle super-human, and adrenaline is flooding me. Fight or flight is kicking in. I walk a little quicker, still don’t turn round.
Then I hear more footsteps coming from the side. Out of the corner of my eye I see another guy creeping up. Suddenly I’m sobering up really really fast. I glance at him, and he’s holding a fucking knife. I grew up in a small town, with little-to-no crime. This is un-heard of here. Nobody here even owns a knife like that, let alone wields it! The guy with the knife obviously knows my pursuers. I can feel them co-ordinating their attack behind me. Ohshittingfuckingshit!
It’s all turned Jurassic park on me, velociraptors creeping up on me from out of the darkness. You think there’s only one, but then suddenly there’s a whole pack. And they’re all waiting for you to do something. I speed up but still don’t make my move. Part me is still hoping for the police or something to turn up, but deep down I know I’m in the shit. There’s no-one coming to help.
Only when I hear a fourth and fifth voice somewhere behind me do I go. I spring out the traps like a fucking greyhound. It’s fight or flight time now. The guy with the knife lunges in from the side, and the two at my back fly after me. I dodge the knife guy and pelt across the car-park. The chase is on.
I remember playing ‘it’ (or ‘tag’ to you yanks), and being chased in the school-yard, the distinct feeling of having someone right on your back, keeping pace with you, and you’re weaving in and out just to stay out of reach. Well that was what this was like. I had two fully grown men right on my tail, both at least as fast as me. Further back, somebody’s shouting ‘fucking cut him! fucking cut the little cunt!’ ohmygodohmygodholyfuck!
We reached the edge of the car-park, and fly round a corner into the main road. There’s still oh-so-many footsteps right behind me. I was running so blindly I nearly ran out in front of a car.
It’s turned into an endurance race now, a question of who can run hardest for the longest. My shoes are falling apart – I can feel the pavement through the soles – and my stupid fucking baggy trousers are weighing me down. They don’t stop chasing me for two miles. Two fucking miles! They must have been the fittest fucking thugs on the planet. I just couldn’t believe they were still going. I look back, and the guy with the knife is still coming. He’s up front but he’s not the only one. ‘What the fuck?!’ I think and carry on, terrified.
Anyway, they literally ran me out of town. I had to run that far. I called my mum and she floored it all the way to come and get me. I still don’t know who any of them were, or where they all came from.
18. Forgave Him
We all have this crazy big guy in high school. The one who is fat but strong. Me and the big guy had an argument and for some reason I had to say to him: you’re fat. He flipped right then and there. He threw me to the ground and strangled me. It was near some classrooms at the end of the day so nobody but a few other classmates were around. They tried pulling him off only after 15 seconds for they did not see I was in trouble. It took them another 15 seconds to get him off me. I’m sure he would have killed me if it was not for my mates. They sad I had already turned blue. I felt so humble afterwards. I am a big guy too. I think he got bullied a lot, maybe even to that day. I wasn’t part of it but I certainly was the final straw. I forgave him though. I am a peaceful man. Everybody makes mistakes in high school. He just made a bigger one.
19. Nearly Killed By A Plotting Marine
I sleep fine. But I’ve never “gotten over” it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was a party at a biker’s house, just before the 1st Gulf War. The party wasn’t a going away party for two marine reservists who had just been activated, but it turned into that.
In the course of the evening, I said something to make one of the Marines angry. What I said was that it’s not a given that any Marine can out fight any other service member on an individual basis. The Seabees are pretty tough, Air Force special forces are nothing to laugh at either, especially if you are a USMC reservist weapons technician. Since this apparently insulted the honor of the corps, on the eve of their deployment, I had committed a capital crime. So the two of them decided, with the collusion of of one of the bikers, to kill me. They were going to blame it on one of the other bikers. There were drugs, moonshine, and a stolen bike involved in their plan. None of that had anything to do with me.
Luckily for me, I had a friend from England who overheard the plan outside of the bathroom (a tree in woods out back) who grabbed me and GMTFO of there in a hurry.
Was it serious? Sadly yeah. The Bikers were eventually all either killed or died in that lifestyle. They were violent people. And things just as bad had happened around them before this and after. Am I still mad about it? Sure. Those guys were assholes. The Biker got killed eventually. One “Marine” actually refused to serve and went AWOL for the entire Gulf War. I don’t know what they did to him when they caught him. The other was a REMF who came back and became a beer brewer, he still thinks of himself as a force multiplier though. He’s a tool.
How it affected my life? The Englishman didn’t tell me. I didn’t know at the time. He just said we “have to go right the fuck now.” He told me later when we were organizing the welcome home party for “the force multiplier”. I was working pretty hard. And he said he couldn’t watch that and not tell me. How would you feel if someone set you up to get killed by a bunch of asshole bikers?
Up until I found out I had been a typical go get ’em red blooded supporter of the service in general and the Marine Corps specifically. I didn’t turn against the entire military at that point. but I realized that it’s made up people. Just people. Once you reach that point, it’s hard to go back to the normal Hoo-rah. And Patriotism and the military are connected. That broke the connection, or weakened it enough that it would break. Eventually after a number of other misadventures, I left the country and never looked back.
20. A Schizophrenic Roommate
My roommate back in the day was an undiagnosed schizophrenic person. After smoking dope for a good 10 day straight he started to be increasingly paranoid and delusional. Started to talk about how jews where ruling the world but if you channeled your inner jew you would get money and fame, followed by talking 10 minutes straight about one piece (an anime) and then saying how lord of the ring mythos indicate that only christian men should have the right to have women. I politely asked him if needed help. Fatal mistake as he looked at me, removed his shirt and said that I was stealing his coat (I was wearing my coat inside the house the whole time). He then suddenly tackled me and then turned around like a wild animal, his hand reached for the kitchen knives (they were held to the wall on a magnetic strip). He managed to grab one but before he could do anything I just jumped on him and punched him in the balls and then punched him a good 6-7 time has hard as I could in the face. I then ran outside and called the cops. They found him naked sitting on a chair in the kitchen talking to the window and brought him to the hospital. I did not do any complain, that way he did not have a criminal file on him for a mental illness, managed to contact his family, explained the situation, they are taking care of him now.
How did that affect me? Well I have learned many lessons out of this, first never trust the police to be able to be professional people, I was lucky there was three cops on the crime scene and only one of them was a cunt. He said, and I am not joking word for word: “Maybe he was gay and he tried to harm you because he could not be with you, we had a case like that 2 weeks ago not far from here!”
Second, I have now developed an intense fear of mentally ill people. You know that crazy homeless guy that talk to himself, that one that everyone try extra hard to ignore? I don’t ignore him, I look at every motion he make and I am always ready to fight back.
21. Jumped Him And Slit His Throat
My cousin’s ex-boyfriend was stalking her after she dumped him. I moved to the same are in which she lived because of a change in my job. She invited me to stay with her until I got settled into my own place. Not long afterwards, her crazy ex-boyfriend (assuming I was the new boyfriend) jumped me from behind as I came home one night and slit my throat.
To make a long story short, I left him a quadriplegic, and he spent the rest of his life suing me over and over.
Did if affect my life? Hell yeah. Pretty much left me broke and in debt up to my eyes. Beyond that, I don’t like strangers touching me. I really don’t like strangers touching me. I’ll warn somebody a couple times to keep their hands off me and then I get angry about it. Also, I can’t tolerate people behind me. At restaurants and such I’m only comfortable if I can sit with my back to a wall. I don’t like crowds. I’m pretty much always hyper-aware, constantly checking my surroundings, looking for people that could be a threat.
I’ve been told by my ex-wife (an RN), my cousin (a neurologist), and my uncle (a psychiatrist) as well as several well-informed if unqualified laymen that I almost certainly have PTSD and that I should see a therapist about this. I’m pretty apathetic about that, all the therapy in the world doesn’t change the fact that there are fucked up people out there that do crazy shit that can turn your world upside down in an instant. Frankly, I’d rather by hyper-aware and on the alert for that shit than well-adjusted and oblivious to it.
22. Ongoing And Intense PTSD
Ended up with PTSD. I think about death all the time.. certain things like cars driving slowly by, criminal looking people, fireworks and violent scenes sometimes can cause me to have a panic attack. It’s hard to tell some people you have PTSD cause it makes you feel abnormal and crazy. One of my best friends and I were shot at around 12 times from 10 feet away. He died in the shooting and 3 others were shot as well prior to them coming up to us.
23. The Entire Apartment Is Armed
Not yet. It’s been over ten years and the progress is slow. However while I was still debating about tracking the dude down and “returning the favor” three years ago, nowadays I don’t really think about it anymore. May have something to do with being in a stable relationship which has sapped most of the anger in me…
Still, can’t say what I’ll do if I see the guy in the street by chance. I hope that doesn’t happen. And I suppose he’s already very much dead since his life was NOT going in a good direction when I encountered him. Oh well.
These days I just arm our apartment. All the kitchen knives are handy on a magnet on the wall, I have a hatchet and a few knives in the hobby room, a few knives in the bedroom in my bedside drawer, two different length bokkens by the door. I’d really like to have a gun but that won’t be feasible when we get kids in a a few years or so. I’ll never be able to trust children enough to leave a loaded or even assembled weapon somewhere where they can get to it without supervision. Knowing how fucking sneaky I was with everything when I was small, no way. And it won’t be the optimal situation to grab a gun from a locked weapons cabinet, reassemble it and load it when someone is coming through the door with an axe…
Of course all these counter measures are simply ridiculous since I live in one of the safest nations AND cities on the globe. But I can’t sleep if they are not there. The scars will heal and maybe I’ll let go of the weapons as well as time goes by.
