Big_Nothing
Well-known member
Firstly, for context I live in Vietnam, I write this to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or injury.
A month ago I went to the house of someone who used to be a 'friend' in an attempt to de-escalate an ongoing dispute this person had with an actual friend of mine, who had become the mans neighbour. The conversation did not go well and he attacked me with a cleaver, leaving a scar on my head around my hairline and a sliced tendon on the middle finger of my right hand. I still don't have anything approaching full use of my hand but hopefully with physio things should improve.
About three years ago I was moved onto a table in my local with a guy I didn't recognise but we got chatting and he seemed friendly. He was pretty well known in the area as someone who did art projects with the kids and had helped delivering food packages to those who needed it during the covid lockdown. He's an artist from the USA, was semi successfull in NYC and is semi retired here.
About 18 months ago his drinking (bottle of vodka a day and then some), heavy drug use (amphetamines, pharmaceuticals) and episodes (breaking down in tears, knocking things over etc. started to concern locals, myself and others who know him. We regularly had to go and get him from bars and take him home and at this point he started making up a number of stories where he was the victim. Cancer, deaths of never before mentioned close friends, natural disasters wiping out his family, pure fantasy. A younger fella who is a good friend of mine moved into the area into the house next door to him not long before this craziness began.
As we all slowly eased away from taking responsibility for him as the borrowing, lies and drama stacked up, he decided his neighbour/my friend was the reason and that he was an enemy in some way. After some time of false reports to their shared landlord, damaging of my friends property and ridiculous antics which culminated in CCTV of him trying to gain entry to my friends house and then snapping off the jammed key from this failed attempt and sanding it down, I volunteered to go over and try to talk him out of this continued behaviour and again urge him to get the proper support and if he did we would support him in his journey.
I knocked, was invited in, we shared a vodka and lemonade and I tried to talk him round. He became very agitated and things turned south quite abruptly as he grabbed a cleaver and started waving it at me and threatening me. It's a small room and my back was to the door. After he sliced me twice I took his legs from underneath him and tried to hold him down while shouting for help. He threatened to kill me when I got tired and eventually I managed to get my knee on his neck, get the knife out of his hand and kicked him twice in the ribs before legging it into the street bleeding a lot.
He chased me out with the knife in hand and a neighbour smacked him round the head with a helmet to put him down.
I genuinely felt as though I fought for my life. The surgery was incredibly expensive and the police who are notoriously useless here have said they won't pursue it as it happened in his residence with no CCTV and he is claiming self defence. He is free and living a much quieter life from what we can tell.
I veer from feeling vengeful, to pitying him, to just wanting justice.
Dreams of being attacked with a knife have started to crop up and there's a notable negative change in my mood, much lower patience for many minor frustrations.
Therapy isn't really a thing here and it isn't something I've ever really considered before. A month later and I can't even make a fist, I worry for the future use of my right hand and my mental health.
It was strangely cathartic writing this and I hope the FMTTM community doesn't mistake this disclosure as a 'hands, kidda'esque fantasy. Maybe talking helps, to people who don't already know me very well, possibly more.
A month ago I went to the house of someone who used to be a 'friend' in an attempt to de-escalate an ongoing dispute this person had with an actual friend of mine, who had become the mans neighbour. The conversation did not go well and he attacked me with a cleaver, leaving a scar on my head around my hairline and a sliced tendon on the middle finger of my right hand. I still don't have anything approaching full use of my hand but hopefully with physio things should improve.
About three years ago I was moved onto a table in my local with a guy I didn't recognise but we got chatting and he seemed friendly. He was pretty well known in the area as someone who did art projects with the kids and had helped delivering food packages to those who needed it during the covid lockdown. He's an artist from the USA, was semi successfull in NYC and is semi retired here.
About 18 months ago his drinking (bottle of vodka a day and then some), heavy drug use (amphetamines, pharmaceuticals) and episodes (breaking down in tears, knocking things over etc. started to concern locals, myself and others who know him. We regularly had to go and get him from bars and take him home and at this point he started making up a number of stories where he was the victim. Cancer, deaths of never before mentioned close friends, natural disasters wiping out his family, pure fantasy. A younger fella who is a good friend of mine moved into the area into the house next door to him not long before this craziness began.
As we all slowly eased away from taking responsibility for him as the borrowing, lies and drama stacked up, he decided his neighbour/my friend was the reason and that he was an enemy in some way. After some time of false reports to their shared landlord, damaging of my friends property and ridiculous antics which culminated in CCTV of him trying to gain entry to my friends house and then snapping off the jammed key from this failed attempt and sanding it down, I volunteered to go over and try to talk him out of this continued behaviour and again urge him to get the proper support and if he did we would support him in his journey.
I knocked, was invited in, we shared a vodka and lemonade and I tried to talk him round. He became very agitated and things turned south quite abruptly as he grabbed a cleaver and started waving it at me and threatening me. It's a small room and my back was to the door. After he sliced me twice I took his legs from underneath him and tried to hold him down while shouting for help. He threatened to kill me when I got tired and eventually I managed to get my knee on his neck, get the knife out of his hand and kicked him twice in the ribs before legging it into the street bleeding a lot.
He chased me out with the knife in hand and a neighbour smacked him round the head with a helmet to put him down.
I genuinely felt as though I fought for my life. The surgery was incredibly expensive and the police who are notoriously useless here have said they won't pursue it as it happened in his residence with no CCTV and he is claiming self defence. He is free and living a much quieter life from what we can tell.
I veer from feeling vengeful, to pitying him, to just wanting justice.
Dreams of being attacked with a knife have started to crop up and there's a notable negative change in my mood, much lower patience for many minor frustrations.
Therapy isn't really a thing here and it isn't something I've ever really considered before. A month later and I can't even make a fist, I worry for the future use of my right hand and my mental health.
It was strangely cathartic writing this and I hope the FMTTM community doesn't mistake this disclosure as a 'hands, kidda'esque fantasy. Maybe talking helps, to people who don't already know me very well, possibly more.
best city on earth.*
