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One Of My Neighbors Was Shoot And My Friends Are Being Weird.

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Justmehere

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I live in a place that is frankly pretty darn safe. No record of a shooting in all of recorded history in our complex and neighborhood...until today. I walked out of my apartment to a whole lotta police were driving up. They asked me if I heard gunshots and I explained no, I just got home and was picking something up. They told me my neighbor, that I share a wall with, was shot in the leg by his roommate and they are trying to find the roommate...

The story has gaps in it... but I quickly booked it outta there, escorted by the increasing numbers of police, and I rushed off to an already planned dinner with friends.

I got there and I was shaking a little, and told them what happened.

They didn't have much of a reaction, one person smiled, and they quickly changed the conversation to someone that no one knew who died in a car accident on the north side of town.

I sat there so confused. My neighbor might die, he might have a violent roomie... or a stupid one who was being a fool with a gun...

(By the way, no gun law comments please - this isn't about politics.)

The car accident was terrible and sure, worth talking about. But why did these 3 friends respond more concerned about a distant car accident than the shooting that happened next door to me? I don't know, am I overreacting?

My hands are shaking and I went for a walk. Not sure why this is rattling me so much.
 
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I certainly don't think you are overreacting! This is major violence. Did the police arrest the roommate or is he on the run?

Before I moved out here, my house was shot at. The target was my next-door neighbor who turned out to be a drug dealer. His house and vehicle were hit many times. In those days I slept so soundly I didn't even hear it. Didn't know about it until the police knocked at my door the next morning and showed me the bullet hole in my house. It is very, very unsettling to have a shooting nearby your home. I think most people would freak out like I did. That night, I put a huge slab of wood between my front upstairs bedroom window and my bed. The next day I took Misha and my computer and current work stuff and went to my Dad's in rural western Michigan until I could arrange an earlier move out here.

I have no idea why your friends reacted the way they did. Maybe they were too disturbed to deal with it?
 
I got out of there before the police left, and when I left they had not yet found the roommate in question.

That is a scary situation that you went through! That would have me rattled for days. It is nerve wracking to think it happened just next door. Like inches away from where I live.

My childhood home was in a neighborhood that was not known for violence either and a triple murder sucidie happened next door. The shooter was a community leader and he killed his wife and young child and himself.

I've been in rough neighborhoods, travel through them from time to time, and I dunno how people deal with living in even higher levels of violence there. :(

Maybe my friends were just too rattled to talk about it.
 
Maybe they wanted to distract you from thinking about it. Personally, I think it is something you should have been encouraged to talk about, get your emotions out before going back home, where you should feel safe but probably don't now. My guess is they thought it best to change the subject and get your mind off it. Probably with good intentions, but not how I would have handled it.
 
Oh, cripes. I'm sorry they haven't found him yet. Hopefully it was just a personal dispute and he's not someone who's going nuts on everyone. Do you, though, by chance, have anywhere else to stay tonight? Could you maybe even get a dog-friendly motel room? Not to make you worry, because he's probably not going to do more, but just for your own sense of safety. Since you're in an apartment I imagine you don't have large slabs of wood hanging around or anything to block your windows?

If that bullet had gone through the front wall of my house, it would have hit Misha, because it was right where she would usually sleep on the floor in those days. That's one reason I really freaked and got out of there. Because who knew if they would come back?

Jeez, that's horrible to live next door to a triple murder suicide, especially as a child. I'm so sorry.
 
Are they support friends (ones who know you have ptsd and know some about ptsd?) If not, they may not realize the impact such a situation has on you. I have friends who would just say, "Wow, that's scary," and then go about with some other topic. Only the couple of my closest support friends would understand why I was sharing and how it was affecting me.
 
I don't think I'd have handled it like your friends did either. But maybe that's due to a different perspective. It seems like it helps to let people talk about that stuff. Seems odd they'd have changed the subject like that. But, I'll bet @hodge is right, they were trying to distract you, or didn't know what to say, or something like that.

I hope the neighbor who got shot is ok and the other has been caught! Stuff like that rarely happens twice in the same place, so I tend to tell myself that means I'm safe when something like that happens. (Of course, I don't always believe myself....) You've had more than your fair share of excitement lately! I hope things are boring for many months to come. :hug:
 
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