What’s the most hurtful thing your family has ever done to you?

Escalation and External Violence

After that night out with the boys, I knew I had to make my parents’ life a living hell. I started out small.

The next week I went by my parents’ house late at night after they were asleep and spray painted symbols on the driveway and the garage door. My friend from the group came with me; he was on the lookout.

By the time I was done, there were symbols all over the outside of the house. I wanted them to wake up the next morning and be reminded of what they’d lost.

I wanted them to feel the same pain I felt every time they forced me to sit through one of those endless services. I wanted them to feel the same anger that built up inside me every time they told me I had to be something I wasn’t.

I knew it hurt them. I could see it in their eyes when my mom Facetimed me crying, but I didn’t stop.

Every time they’d clean them off, me and my friends would be there again to trash their house and spray paint messages on the windows. The calls didn’t stop either.

My mom continued to beg me to stop and even said I could come back home. She still thought she could fix me and that I’d come home if she just said the right thing. But I wasn’t coming back, not ever.

After a few weeks, I got bolder. One night I slashed the tires on our family car. That was the only car my family owned, and my dad used it daily to go to work.

I lingered around in the bushes until the morning when my dad came outside to find his minivan with four flats. He called for my mother inside the house, and it felt good watching them panic.

Knowing they were stranded, they couldn’t run from what they’d done to me anymore. They couldn’t just pretend everything was fine. My dad didn’t call me this time, but I could tell he was furious.

He stormed into the house. I crouched just outside the living room window. From where I sat, I could hear my father’s voice.

He was venting not just about vandalism, but also about me. It was as though I had become a stranger to him. He said I was someone he didn’t recognize anymore.

It was clear that he believed I was too far gone and I was no longer the son he had tried to raise. And then there was my mother. I could hear the desperation in her voice.

She hadn’t given up on me yet. I could tell she believed I wasn’t beyond saving. She said that this was some terrible phase and with enough time I would return to the boy she remembered.

When my dad wanted to call the police, she refused to involve any authorities, even though I had given her every reason to do so. My mom eventually convinced my dad not to call the cops.

I let off a couple of weeks after that to make it seem like I had given up, but I wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot.

A few nights later, I was sitting around the dingy basement of my buddy’s place. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of stale beer. I could feel the eyes of the group on me.

I took a drag of a cigarette, leaned back, and tried my best to sound cool.

“I slashed their tires and I spray painted the house again,” I told them. “You should have seen my dad’s face the next morning. He didn’t even know what hit him. It was perfect.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then one of the guys, Cal, one of the older ones in the group, gave me this slow nod.

“Attaboy,” he said, clapping me on the back. “You’re really coming into your own, man. Didn’t think you had it in you at first, but you’re proving us wrong.”

The others started nodding and murmuring in approval. The feeling of being accepted was becoming addicting. To hear them say they were proud of me gave me a rush that I hadn’t felt in years.

But then Cal leaned in a little closer and said that I’d been doing some real good work with my family, but there was more out there that I could be doing. He was referring to a new family that recently moved into their neighborhood.

They were the only dark people in the neighborhood, and Cal hated it. He told me they thought they were better than us and that they were making their house value drop.

He asked me if I wanted to join him in paying them a visit soon. I knew what this meant: he was going to off them. I couldn’t disagree with him.

This was the first time they seemed proud of me, and if I refused, they would probably kick me out. I couldn’t go back to my parents’ house, and I knew that this was the only option.

Cal told me that I was one of them now and said I proved myself. He asked me if I was ready for the next steps.

Without hesitation, I nodded. The rest of the group exchanged glances and grinned like they knew something I didn’t. I wasn’t scared; I was excited.

The night we went after the new family’s house was dark. I rode in the back seat with Cal and the others. My heart was pounding, not with nerves, but with anticipation.

The plan was laid out. I’d heard the others talk about it before, about how they’d burned down houses, left families with nothing, and slipped away like ghosts.

When we got there, the house was quiet. We moved like shadows and crept around the back. I watched as Cal poured the gasoline in a careful line along the base of the house.

It was almost methodical, like he’d done it a hundred times before. My job was simple: light the match.

As I stood there, staring at the house and the windows where a family was probably sleeping, I struck the match. The fire caught in an instant, roaring to life.

We left before the flames got too big. By the time the fire trucks came, we were long gone.

I could already picture the chaos we left behind. The family stumbling out into the street, watching everything they had burned to the ground.

As we drove away, I felt a huge adrenaline rush. It was like all the anger I’d been carrying—all the resentment toward my parents, toward everything they represented—had found an outlet. Taking it out on that family, seeing their lives crumble, it was satisfying in a way I didn’t think was possible.