I grew up watching my oldest brother and sister trying to kill each other. My brother would have long scratch marks down his arms and back from her and later my mom told me she had to hide the knives from them or they’d use them on each other in their frequent fights.

I never dreamed I’d ever fight one of my siblings like that because they were so much older and bigger and I avoided conflict with them as much as possible. I avoided everyone in that house as much as possible.

I did pull a knife on my other brother once, though. I was seventeen and he had knocked his dog out cold with a punch to the head right in front of me. He was pissed that one of them had shit on the floor. He was coming after my puppy next and I was having none of it.

This brother was the one who had brought pit bulls into the mix when I was around nine or ten, because there wasn’t enough chaos and anxiety in the house apparently heh. Don’t get me wrong, I loved his dogs, but I was scared to death of them. They were nuts, just like he was.

One of the puppies he gave to my mom was literally insane. He was big for a pitbull and would sit in her lap and growl if anyone came near. She thought it was endearing. It wasn’t.

When she had a stroke and went to the hospital, they left all the dogs together for a couple days and when then came back the others had turned on hers and killed him.

Even they knew.