Biggest Mistake I Ever Made Was Not Committing Murder
So I just got done with my 36th birthday, and as -- I suppose -- is common, birthdays are one of those points in time when one looks back and thinks about their life. What's different this year, compared to all previous years, is that now I'm in therapy. So, even moreso than all other previous years, I think about things, and specifically the sort of things that go back a long ways and had a big effect on me a long time ago. And as I've gone over my life, I keep coming back to one thing. "If you could change one thing, what would it be?" And I find that, if there were only one thing I could change, one single thing I would have done differently, I should have committed murder.
Let me open that up for you.
When I was fifteen, my father killed my mother. This was preceded by, well, about fifteen years of growing up under a violent and physically abusive father. Fifteen years of watching my mother chased out of the house with an axe, him yelling that he's going to kill her for whatever the offense was that day. Living under a constant fear of death -- not for myself so much, I just received beatings but not so much death threats, but for my mother. Every day is a day that your -- a child's -- most important person could die. There was no safety, not even in your own home. And in that regard, there are some similarities to growing up in a war zone. I'm not saying it was "as bad as" -- there was always food and electricity and all the comforts of the modern world. But in the aspect of personal safety, growing up in a household where death threats were just a normal part of the daily routine, there are some similarities to being in the middle of a war. For fifteen years.
So after fifteen years, you start to sort of think, "well, it's not going to happen for real". You start convincing yourself that, "It's just talk." You start to develop a sort of a feeling of security in the insecurity persisting and not blowing up in your face. And then, it does. And you're left without a mother *and* a father, put in a foster family for a year, can't get along, and finally moving out to live on your own. And at the age of sixteen, your only support network is a social worker. Then after high school you move to a different city for university, and since, at nineteen, you're technically an adult on paper, you lose contact with even the social worker.
At nineteen years old, you've lost both parents, you have no close relatives, you've lost contact with high school friends because you moved to a different city, you don't even have any contact with the authorities. You have zero contact with any adults. On top of that, you have a ton of trust issues from an insecure home, so you have trouble approaching people and making new friends. So you have nobody to give you advice with bureaucratic jungles, nobody to lend you a bit of money if your washing machine breaks down, nobody to lean on emotionally when you have trouble your studies, or with your future direction, or with anything really.
You can't read text longer than a sheet of paper because your ability to concentrate is basically nonexistent because of what you now understand was probably post-traumatic stress disorder. You have similar problems producing text or doing any sort of independent work. You have trouble motivating yourself for any kind of long term projects because you're not sure you can even survive to the end of the month. And you're in university.
What could possibly go wrong?
Your life remains kind of on hold, treading water as you try to do things, but can't complete anything. You try to crawl forward, and you do get some things done, but it feels like you're managing an inch a year and the goal is a mile away. This continues for fourteen more years without reaching any significant goals.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have no personal responsibility in how things turned out. I could have, at least in theory, done a lot of things to improve my situation that I ended up never doing. I'm not writing this to say, "I'm fucked up but it's not my fault, it's everybody else's fault."
I'm writing this to show what kind of pretty bad place one alternative is.
Then let's look at the other alternative. If I *had* committed murder, ideally before I turned fifteen because that's when criminal liability starts in this country, then --
1) My mother would have lived. Granted, she might have died in a car accident or gotten cancer the next year anyway, but let's assume a fairly average set of circumstances. I would have had a home -- instead of just an apartment where I slept alone -- through my high school years. After moving off to university, I would have had someone to visit at school holidays, someone to call every week, someone who would have noticed how messed up I was and pressured me to go to mental health services, someone who would have helped me with all the bureaucracy and what my rights as a citizen were. I would have had smaller mental trauma to deal with, and I would have ended up in therapy sooner.
2) My father would have died. The element that created fear (and in some ways, still does) would have been eliminated from my life. I would, from that point onward, felt the sort of safety in the world that even still, today, eludes me. I would have, from age 13-14-15, whenever I committed murder, onward have felt much safer than I have ever felt in my life, to date. Additionally, I would have felt a sense of justice in the world, that bad things happen to bad people instead of to good people. I would have had less fear, more safety, more sense of justice, more faith in society and less cynicism.
3) I would have had to deal with the consequences of taking a life, both legal and psychological. Had I done it before age 15, I'm given to understand that I wouldn't have been criminally liable. Now, I might have been taken away from my mother and been put in an institution of some kind maybe, but I probably would have been able to stay in contact with her and reunite with her when I eventually got out anyway. Let's go with the worst case scenario and consider what if I did it after my 15th birthday. The maximum sentence in this country is 15 years, so absolute worst case scenario, I would've been out for at least 6 years by now. You can do high school in prison, so I could have been in university for six years by now, with a much healthier mind than I have now. And I could have prepared for university by studying in advance, with full board provided so I didn't have to be distracted with work to support myself. Even in the worst case scenario, I would be willing to bet that I would have graduated by now if I had committed murder. And things get even better when you consider that I probably wouldn't have gotten the maximum sentence.
4) But then there is the psychological aspect. How would I have dealt with having committed murder? It's impossible to tell without trying, of course. But the criminal justice system in this country is aimed at rehabilitating more than punishing, so at least in theory the authorities would be trying to provide some kind of psychiatric help. It would probably also be helpful that I would mostly feel that I did it for the right reasons, to save the life of a good person. Although I would probably wrestle quite a lot with second-guessing myself. Was it necessary? Or did I overreact? Would it have turned out okay if I hadn't done anything? I now know it wouldn't have, but the me who chose a different path couldn't know. I have no hard facts here so I have to go with my gut feeling and say that I would deal better with having killed a bad person than I do deal with having allowed a good person to die.
5) There's also the social aspect. Making friends could be difficult after having been to jail for murder. Of course, I could always change my name and never bring up the incident myself, which would make it fairly tough (but not impossible) for any regular person to find out what happened. I would say that it would probably not be a factor in 90% or more of potential friendships. But the real problem is with employment, since some employers want to check your criminal record. I don't think every workplace can or does check your criminal record though, so there would have to be options still. I'd have to live with not being able to get to certain kinds of jobs though. I think that's a fair price to pay for having a parent.
Taking into account all of the above, I think it can be argued that it is possible my life would be better if I had committed murder as a 14-15 year old. The main cons are jail time (if done at 15) -- but I feel like I've been in a mental jail anyway for longer than a maximum sentence would have been -- and having to carry the psychological responsibility for the crime. But in return, I would have progressed further in my life, would have a parent, a support network and better mental health overall. I'd be a more functional human being. I'd have committed a pretty severe crime, but I think it's very likely that I'd have a much better life in all the years after that.
And that is why the biggest mistake I ever made was not committing murder.
Let me open that up for you.
When I was fifteen, my father killed my mother. This was preceded by, well, about fifteen years of growing up under a violent and physically abusive father. Fifteen years of watching my mother chased out of the house with an axe, him yelling that he's going to kill her for whatever the offense was that day. Living under a constant fear of death -- not for myself so much, I just received beatings but not so much death threats, but for my mother. Every day is a day that your -- a child's -- most important person could die. There was no safety, not even in your own home. And in that regard, there are some similarities to growing up in a war zone. I'm not saying it was "as bad as" -- there was always food and electricity and all the comforts of the modern world. But in the aspect of personal safety, growing up in a household where death threats were just a normal part of the daily routine, there are some similarities to being in the middle of a war. For fifteen years.
So after fifteen years, you start to sort of think, "well, it's not going to happen for real". You start convincing yourself that, "It's just talk." You start to develop a sort of a feeling of security in the insecurity persisting and not blowing up in your face. And then, it does. And you're left without a mother *and* a father, put in a foster family for a year, can't get along, and finally moving out to live on your own. And at the age of sixteen, your only support network is a social worker. Then after high school you move to a different city for university, and since, at nineteen, you're technically an adult on paper, you lose contact with even the social worker.
At nineteen years old, you've lost both parents, you have no close relatives, you've lost contact with high school friends because you moved to a different city, you don't even have any contact with the authorities. You have zero contact with any adults. On top of that, you have a ton of trust issues from an insecure home, so you have trouble approaching people and making new friends. So you have nobody to give you advice with bureaucratic jungles, nobody to lend you a bit of money if your washing machine breaks down, nobody to lean on emotionally when you have trouble your studies, or with your future direction, or with anything really.
You can't read text longer than a sheet of paper because your ability to concentrate is basically nonexistent because of what you now understand was probably post-traumatic stress disorder. You have similar problems producing text or doing any sort of independent work. You have trouble motivating yourself for any kind of long term projects because you're not sure you can even survive to the end of the month. And you're in university.
What could possibly go wrong?
Your life remains kind of on hold, treading water as you try to do things, but can't complete anything. You try to crawl forward, and you do get some things done, but it feels like you're managing an inch a year and the goal is a mile away. This continues for fourteen more years without reaching any significant goals.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have no personal responsibility in how things turned out. I could have, at least in theory, done a lot of things to improve my situation that I ended up never doing. I'm not writing this to say, "I'm fucked up but it's not my fault, it's everybody else's fault."
I'm writing this to show what kind of pretty bad place one alternative is.
Then let's look at the other alternative. If I *had* committed murder, ideally before I turned fifteen because that's when criminal liability starts in this country, then --
1) My mother would have lived. Granted, she might have died in a car accident or gotten cancer the next year anyway, but let's assume a fairly average set of circumstances. I would have had a home -- instead of just an apartment where I slept alone -- through my high school years. After moving off to university, I would have had someone to visit at school holidays, someone to call every week, someone who would have noticed how messed up I was and pressured me to go to mental health services, someone who would have helped me with all the bureaucracy and what my rights as a citizen were. I would have had smaller mental trauma to deal with, and I would have ended up in therapy sooner.
2) My father would have died. The element that created fear (and in some ways, still does) would have been eliminated from my life. I would, from that point onward, felt the sort of safety in the world that even still, today, eludes me. I would have, from age 13-14-15, whenever I committed murder, onward have felt much safer than I have ever felt in my life, to date. Additionally, I would have felt a sense of justice in the world, that bad things happen to bad people instead of to good people. I would have had less fear, more safety, more sense of justice, more faith in society and less cynicism.
3) I would have had to deal with the consequences of taking a life, both legal and psychological. Had I done it before age 15, I'm given to understand that I wouldn't have been criminally liable. Now, I might have been taken away from my mother and been put in an institution of some kind maybe, but I probably would have been able to stay in contact with her and reunite with her when I eventually got out anyway. Let's go with the worst case scenario and consider what if I did it after my 15th birthday. The maximum sentence in this country is 15 years, so absolute worst case scenario, I would've been out for at least 6 years by now. You can do high school in prison, so I could have been in university for six years by now, with a much healthier mind than I have now. And I could have prepared for university by studying in advance, with full board provided so I didn't have to be distracted with work to support myself. Even in the worst case scenario, I would be willing to bet that I would have graduated by now if I had committed murder. And things get even better when you consider that I probably wouldn't have gotten the maximum sentence.
4) But then there is the psychological aspect. How would I have dealt with having committed murder? It's impossible to tell without trying, of course. But the criminal justice system in this country is aimed at rehabilitating more than punishing, so at least in theory the authorities would be trying to provide some kind of psychiatric help. It would probably also be helpful that I would mostly feel that I did it for the right reasons, to save the life of a good person. Although I would probably wrestle quite a lot with second-guessing myself. Was it necessary? Or did I overreact? Would it have turned out okay if I hadn't done anything? I now know it wouldn't have, but the me who chose a different path couldn't know. I have no hard facts here so I have to go with my gut feeling and say that I would deal better with having killed a bad person than I do deal with having allowed a good person to die.
5) There's also the social aspect. Making friends could be difficult after having been to jail for murder. Of course, I could always change my name and never bring up the incident myself, which would make it fairly tough (but not impossible) for any regular person to find out what happened. I would say that it would probably not be a factor in 90% or more of potential friendships. But the real problem is with employment, since some employers want to check your criminal record. I don't think every workplace can or does check your criminal record though, so there would have to be options still. I'd have to live with not being able to get to certain kinds of jobs though. I think that's a fair price to pay for having a parent.
Taking into account all of the above, I think it can be argued that it is possible my life would be better if I had committed murder as a 14-15 year old. The main cons are jail time (if done at 15) -- but I feel like I've been in a mental jail anyway for longer than a maximum sentence would have been -- and having to carry the psychological responsibility for the crime. But in return, I would have progressed further in my life, would have a parent, a support network and better mental health overall. I'd be a more functional human being. I'd have committed a pretty severe crime, but I think it's very likely that I'd have a much better life in all the years after that.
And that is why the biggest mistake I ever made was not committing murder.