how he got there
Sorry that this isn't funny, but I still feel the need to share.

My brother had a really good mate through school. One of those scarily clever people. A bit lazy, but people that smart tend to be, because they can basically breeze through school. Which he did.

Thing is, he didn't have the best home life. His parents never seemed to want to have kids and just saw him as an annoyance. Whenever they noticed him, they would constantly put him down - basically say he was useless and he would never amount to anything. As a result, he was criplingly shy, had a really bad stutter and had real difficulty coping in social situations.

Once he'd breezed through school, he got offered a place at uni. As did my brother. Since his uni was on the way to my brother's, and my parents were driving my brother there with his stuff, he asked for a lift. We were a little concerned that his stuff wouldn't fit in our already overloaded car, but didn't have to be - when we arrived at his house, he was sat on the kerb, with a bin bag with all the stuff his parents would let him take. Which wasn't much - a couple of changes of underwear, a toothbrush an a pad of paper - his parents claimed everything else was theirs, since they'd bought it for him.

We dropped him off at Uni and never really heard from him again. He wrote to my brother a couple of times (this was way before emails were the norm) then nothing.

A couple of years ago, I was on my way to meet a few mates for a drink in Liverpool. I stopped at a cashpoint to get some beer tokens and was asked for change when I looked at the homeless guy begging, I realised it was my brothers mate. I asked him how he got there and he said "give us a tenner and I'll tell you"

Turns out he just couldn't cope with Uni. His stutter meant that he could never participate in class, couldn't really afford the books and his shyness left him feeling very lonely and homesick. He returned to his parents in Widnes and quickly spiralled into a very poor state of mind - his parents, his failure at uni and living in Widnes all weighed him down and dragged him into using heroin.

One day he's being driven by a mate to swap some crack he'd cooked up for skag and they end up getting chased by the police, since the car was TWOC'd. Car ends up crashing and his "mate" legs it, leaving him in the car. Police and CPS pin stealing the car and the 6 rocks in the glovebox on him and he does a short stretch.

When he got out, his parents wouldn't let him in the house. The DSS put him on a list and he ends up in a hostel while he waits for a flat. One of the other hostel residents re-intorduced him to the joys of brown and that was him fucked. When he got his flat, he sold everything in it for smack and the council threw him out.

And there he was, probably the most naturally intelligent person I'd ever met - a baghead on the streets.

I gave him all the money I had on me and he toddled off on his way, to score no doubt. I like to think that he somehow pulled his life around and is doing alright, but I'm fairly sure he's dead somewhere right now. He was a nice lad, once you got past the shyness, but his familly fucked him up pretty badly.

Knowing him made me appreciate my mundane upbringing.
(ScousersPet, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 14:58, 2 replies)

Once again,
when clicking "I Like This" doesn't quite feel right, but I'll do it anyway.
(TheColonel, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 16:09, closed)

They fuck you up
your mum and dad

thing is its scarily easy to start that downward spiral all it takes is the "right" people and within a short space of time your living in the gutter.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 17:02, closed)