mental illness/ suicide

[GeddyWrox]

Yeah, I actually think letting it happen could have been the absolute correct call, even in the moment. Kid wasn't going to be hurt seriously, and by letting the guy show his true nature, you very possibly could have avoided something much, much more serious. Putting myself in that situation, I could easily see myself allowing it to play out as well. I may have not fully threatened to end the guys life, but you know, tomato-tomahto. LOL. I definitely would have confronted him and told him to get his sorry ass out.

[IMADreamer]

Damn AW I gotta say you handled that situation with [expletive] stick as good as possible. I don't have kids, so I can't say much but I know I'm super protective of my nieces and nephew. So I imagine that instinct with your own child is unimaginably strong. As for your MIL, you probably just have to cut ties. She sounds a lot like my MIL whom I've only met twice because she is just a toxic terrible person who makes everyone around her miserable and worse off. My wife hasn't talked to her since before we were married and I really don't think she misses her. Sometimes you just have to cut people off.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I deleted my post because I didn't like how critical it sounded even though it really comes from a place of something I struggle with myself.

Back to the hypervigilance thing, my instinct is to let it play out and make sure that person knows that they're a piece of [expletive], but confrontation in front of my (in my case step) kid or partner doesn't necessarily make anyone feel safe and secure and it shouldn't. The wrong guy in a parking lot that I think needs to know something has a gun and some mental instability.

Anyway, that whole situation really resonated with me and then my original post felt like a lighter version of me, in this case sort of ironically, correcting someone.

In general, especially with [expletive] and psychopaths it seems really pointless and really tough to get your message across and then on top of that I give up the high ground.

My sisters and I didn't speak to my father for about the last decade of his life. He died suddenly with no resolution, but he was never going to fundamentally change who he was. A couple of us went to his funeral and while I think about our lack of a relationship often, I don't really regret it. My life was better with it that way.

I appreciate your perspective and thoughts and certainly don’t mind criticism even if it wasn’t your intention.