– Wall of text about an extremely instrospective, theoretical, philosophical, and, quite frankly, dark topic that could initially not make sense ahead –
Had I been asked this question until a little while ago, my answer would have instantly been a ‘no,’ without a second thought. One of the conclusions I came to during the last 2 years, period in which I grew up and matured a lot, is that there is no point in hating anyone. People that hurt you, exploited you, lied to you. I realized I hated none of them, and I felt sorry for anyone that felt hatred for someone else. I had found inner peace in the sense that I really couldn’t bring myself to want someone else to suffer. To the same tune, I thought that wishing someone’s death was pointless, despicable, and did no good to anyone.
I have had to come to gripes with the fact that recently I’ve been developing this feeling that I in fact deprecate for someone. This thread aims to be a discussion of this philosophical question of whether there are ever extreme circumstances in which deeply desiring someone’s death can be understandable. This of course is limited to one’s internal thoughts and feelings, and in no way is related to the question of actually causing someone’s death.
I hold myself to very high moral standards and I am never okay with doing something that makes me think I’m unethic. I might have my own set of ethics that might not be shared by everyone else, and in fact not agreed with by everyone else, but I always strive to act consistently with what I believe to be right. There is no worse feeling that knowing that you haven’t been true to yourself. This doesn’t mean I am a “peace and love” kinda person, and I can be very selfish, but not immorally so.
I don’t want to turn this into a rant but I’ll have to briefly explain what lead me to hate someone and, in fact, to wish their death. This can’t be effectively summed up in a short paragraph without losing information and details, but I will give you a big picture of the story so you get the idea.
My family on my mother’s part is made up of my mother, my grandma, my cousin, and two aunts.
Those people all went through some really fucked up shit in their life. One of my two aunts (the mother of my cousin, which is the person in question) developed an illness after giving birth that lead her to become bipolar when she was still really young. My grandparents spent their life chasing after their daughter, that eventually became addicted to heroin and did every bad thing you can imagine. This was more than 30 years ago and the situation eventually got better and stable. My cousin was adopted by my grandparents and still lives with my grandma.
My cousin is now 30 years old. He was a little bit of a problematic kid but eventually he seemed to have turned out okay. He had a job, a stable 4-year relationship with a woman, and our family seemed to be doing good.
Then, 2 years ago, my cousin’s breakup lead to a series of events that began with him getting depression and taking xanax which snowballed into him becoming a cocaine addict, mistreating my grandma, stealing her gold, breaking every piece of forniture in their house, forcing her to give him money, eventually hitting her, threatening to kill her, getting drunk every day, and much more.
I have just listed what happened over the last two years, but you will have to realize that all these events unfolded little by little. This all started with him becoming obsessed with the woman that left him, then insisting on asking my grandmother for money every day, then insulting her, then yelling at her, so on so forth. A typical night begins with him stressing her out for money, then getting some money, leaving, coming back high and drunk, breaking something, insulting her, threatning her and asking for more money, and this iterates several times. Throughout all of this time all of my family was close to him and tried to help him despite the horrible things he did and said. I was the first one to give up on him, but my mother did everything she could, talking to him numerous times and going with him to psychologists’ appointments and the like.
Every time, I would learn about what he was doing via a call from my mother and many times I drove to my grandma’s to keep the situation under control. I called the police on him several times but they didn’t do anything save for bringing him to the hospital for a psychiatric visit and then letting him free. One time I hit him in the face and started throwing things at him yelling that I was going to kill him. Nothing changed.
The worst two things about this? My grandmother is afraid he will eventually kill her or have her have a heart attack, and my mother is slowly slipping into depression as all she hears about all day is how my cousin is slowly killing my grandma.
What they can do in terms of legal actions is very limited, as Italy is known for having terrible laws on domestic violence and he is very unlikely to be punished even if he were to be reported. My grandma doesn’t want to kick him out of the house (I do realize that this part is their own fault and I have gotten very angry at them at times for not wanting to act against him).
The point is that every day I fear talking to my mom because I hate to see her crying over how my cousin is effectively destroying what’s left of my family. I realize that there is little I can do, and in fact that anyone can do, save for him doing something really bad and irreversible.
I can’t help but keep thinking, though, that it would be so much easier if he became victim of his own destiny that he’s chosen for himself. What if he OD’d on his shitty drug and was found dead? Wouldn’t the rest of my family be lifted off a heavy weight and resume living with the peace they deserve?
Another option I have hoped for is him going to jail, but the way laws work here it’s extremely unlikely as well.
So yeah, here I am hating someone and wishing their death with passion. I am very instrospective and I want to understand whether it’s “okay” to feel this way or if I should work on changing my mindset and start hoping that things will take a different (albeit unlikely) turn.
Have you ever found yourselves in a similar situation? What are your thoughts on this? Is hating someone always wrong or is there a point at which it becomes a natural reaction?
