Bad Times

[Funkamander]

Lately, times have been good. But, that got me to thinking.

Times weren't always so good. In fact, there's been so times that flat-out fucking sucked.

So let's share.

I'll start.


A dewey-eyed youth I was. Blissfully out of high school, lightly pressured to get a job. Just me and Dad, living at home. The stepfamily had just divorced off and moved out. This was not the bad. This was the good.

Poker every Friday night, or throughout the week. We brought out the old guns and went shooting a few times. Me and Pops was bondin'.

But he got kinda sick. No biggy, it was Winter. Brother comes home from college for Christmas. We have a good time. Dad gets a little worse.

January goes into February, Dad ain't doing so hot. He gets layed off work "until he's well enough to work". He's a construction foreman, it's important, he'll just take a couple weeks off in the recliner.

About a week into it, he decides the bed's best. Okay.

I've gone nocturnal, usually coming home from a friend's at about 4 am. I do come home one night, blazed, and decide it's been a couple days since I've heard Dad. In fact, it's really quiet. I go up to his shut door. It's silent. "Fuck it." I kick the door in. It opens, but only about 4 inches. Squeeze my head through and turn on the light.

Oh. Hey. It's your dead dad. Pale as a fucking ghost. Hmm. Is he warm? Maybe. Let's check!

Nope. Ice cold.

R.I.P. Clyde Christopher Boyce 1961 - 2006

Y'know Jim Henson? The creator of the Muppets? Turns out they died from the same thing. Neat.

[phareye]

thoughts are with you, blood.
i can't imagine what it would be like to lose your pops.
every time you're dealing a hand of cards or squeezing off a few rounds, you'll be honoring him.
good luck, bro.

[Funkamander]

Word. Couldn't stop thinking about it all day and night.

But I've leveled out. I know you gotta bad time. Share!

[phareye]

trying to help my sister kick smack.
thought i was doing the right thing.
turns out she just wanted to get out of my parent's house before they got back from vacation and found out she had totally trashed their house.
spent a week with her day and night before i realized it was a fucking scam.
there's nothing worse than trying to help a junkie who doesn't even want help.
she took off at the end of the second week. i ended up having her Baker Acted.
when she was picked up, it was on a street in tampa known for prostitution, in front of a seedy ass motel.
we were real close growing up, but since then i don't have much to do with her.
she's been "clean" off and on since then (this was in 2001), but currently is AWOL; hasn't seen her three year old son in a few weeks.
i've spent the time since then waiting for the call that says she OD'd or was murdered while hustlin' her ass.
there's love in my heart for her, but sometimes it's better to let people go.

[Funkamander]

Dayum!

I had a stepsister. She was a bitch mostly, but for a while we got stoned a bunch together. But yeah. I haven't been let down so big like that or anything. Fierce.

[Its a Plant]

Okay, for some reason I feel compelled to answer this, so bear with me as I pour my heart out, aight? And thank you to those that do :O)

This is actually a pretty recent occurrance, a little over two weeks ago to be precise. (there's some needed background info first though)

So my parents are divorced, have been for a while. Now my dad's remarried and has his own life now blah blah. He had a pretty successful electric company goin' for him, then a couple years ago he went bankrupt almost unexpectedly, to me at least. He had literally NO money. Then I believe an aunt of ours passed away, so he got some money from that, but that only prolonged what was to come.

My pops was always a bigger spender, and liked to have nice things. Got a hot ride, nice house, big screen, you know, a materialistic heaven for most. And even after he lost his business, he still spent like mad. Well, about four weeks ago we started to talk less and less frequently. Usually we at least speak on the phone daily, but it wasn't happening. I didn't really think anything of it because he said he was getting a new management job in st. louis, so I didn't want to bother him. Then Thursday the 30th of March, I head out to my grandpa's house, what my dad was watching my my gramps while he's in Florida. so he waters flowers, feeds the dog, cleans the boat, so on. Well pops had an old cooler full of old tools that he was giving to me. Like these are some nice tools, a saw, cordless power drill, and a few others I can't remember now. That's not important. Also he gave me a few family possessions like my great grandpa's pocket watch. Now for whatever reason I didn't think anything of this odd gift, because my dad just told me he was cleaning out the garage and came across these.

Now flash forward to the following Fri, the 7th of April. For a couple days I hadn't been able to even get my dad's phone to ring. It was completely off. I found that odd, so I kept trying and trying, even while working all day. When I got off at 3:30pm, I decided that since I couldn't get my dad at his house or his cell, I would go to my grampa's whos house he was watching just to check. I pull up and it's locked up and he's not there, but I go in anyways by slipping through the doggy door, lol. Limber me, oh yes. I walk in the 3 car garage and see his huge nissan armada in one space and my grandpa's lincoln in the other. Then there is this huge hose coming out the back window. So my dad wasn't there either, so I went home.

Now after a weekend of soccer up in Chicago, I come home to my mom dropping some serious news. She told my sister and I that my dad tried to take his own life that last Wednesday, the 5th, and that by the divine intervention of God, my stepmom followed him that day to my grampa's house and was able to stop him from going through with it. She later said that she just thought he was acting really anxious, and she thought something was up. How she knew that anything was indeed wrong is way beyond me.

I immediatly asked how, and she told me he tried to posion himself by doin' the ole' sitting in a running car in the garage trick. I guess he popped 50 tylenol PM's, a bottle of vikes, and 2 other unknown prescription bottles and went out in my gramps lincoln and waited for the end.

That hose that I saw which I had thought was a vaccuming hose was what he used to redirect the fumes into the car. How I didn't originally pick up on that, I don't know, and am kind of ashamed.

I went back to my granpas the next day and found everything still the way it was originally. There was a bible in the passenger seat, with 3 pictures of family with the pill bottles strewn about. That visual that I saw just tore me up. To see my dad, the man I never once thought would come to this, try and do. I think dying like that would be the worst way to go, so utterly sad and alone.

Well it's what, the 22nd now of April, and I haven't talked to him. He has been shut up in his house, not even allowed to watch the news. They have him on antidepressants, because there is an unknown history of mental illness on his side of the family. His mom was the same way.

I guess what HAD to have drove him to what he tried to do was that he ran out of money, mainly the money he had from my deceased aunt. He had everything planned out, too, well almost. He sent my mom, sister, and me letters mainly as orders on what to do with the money situation. He had set out 2 $100,000 life insurance policies on us, and that was back at the beginning of 2006. So he had been planning his demise for quite some time. That really makes me wonder if I ever knew my dad at all.

Now I go back and read his letter and it's easily a spooky thing. He repeats a number of times "I'll be watching" and it's just so sad to think I was THIS close to losing my dad.

His did, however, make a mistake. If he did kill himself, no insurance company on the planet would pay out a suicide. Life insurance doesn't work like that, and my dad knows that. At least the dad I used to know.

So now I would probably count this as a bad time, but things can only get better from what I can see.:thumbsup:

Sorry for the uber long post, I just had to kind of vent some of that. Thanks and God bless. :stoned:

[ilovebecky]

Im goin' through some bad times myself...
Well first of all Im 17 years old and my parents got divorced about a year ago. My mom wont let my dad come over the house any more so that kinda sucks cuz he is the only one in my family that i actually like. I barely ever get to see him.
My older brother is 23 and he was already an alcoholic but the divorce really upset him and he is only getting worse. He always smashes shit and breaks windows. Lately he has admitted to being buelemic(sp?) and we believe him because he has been puking blood all around the house. He is also on a lot of pills. So basically my house is pretty much destroyed and its fucking disgusting and depressing to have to live here. He gets really violent too.
On fucking CHRISTMAS! he mixed alcohol with i think klonopins and he flipped out for no reason at all. All of a sudden he started running around like "Who the fuck called the cops? Why the fuck would you do that?!" Me. my mother, and other brother had to wrestle him and hold him down while the cops actually did come because he was out of control. The worst part was my little brother had to watch this. I begged my aunt to take him out of the house but she wouldnt.
Im easily depressed by all of this and my mom trys to help me all the time. She tells me that im gonna end up like my older brother if i dont talk to someone about my depression. Im never gonna end up like that dick head. We are having an intervention supposedly soon but he never gets help...Im pretty much just waiting for him to kill himself by now...