• @theangryseal
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    2 days ago

    Sounds like you and me grew up in very similar environments. I was all over the place until I got my first computer with internet, I didn’t leave my room much after that.

    The gangsters I grew up around were dumb white hillbillies with guns.

    What the other commenter said about survivor bias is true though. Nearly everyone I grew up with is dead now but me and my brother. The only real difference I can think of is that my mom came looking for us if we were gone too long. If we didn’t get back when we said, my mom was on a warpath stopping at every place we frequented and screaming bloody murder. We were only brave enough to hide from her when we were drunk or high and we knew the consequences for that would be a lot bigger than hanging out somewhere later than we were supposed to.

    That woman had such bad anxiety, I don’t know how she survived us kids. I really don’t.

    We survived because she protected us though.

    One night my brother and I snuck off to a party in the next town over. My mom showed up and dragged us both away and beat the hell out of us. A few hours after she did, some rival hooligans fired shots at the boys from our neighborhood, killed one of them and wounded another.

    I might be alive to make this comment because my mom came looking for us that night. Christmas Eve, 2000.