Found out my childhood friend / First crush is doing life for attempted robbery and it's messed me up.

[Flynn99]

Met him when I was 11 and he was 15. He was the "tough kid" at school but always nice to me and stood up for younger kids. This experience was so formative that I based a lot of my personality around him. My dad was abusive so he was the first masculine figure my brain tagged as being safe. I'd been bullied most of my life, and he was my first protector.

Tried contacting him again in December but he deleted his FB account before reading it. Later found out he got arrested for trying to rob his neighbour’s house and people were calling him a “smackhead” / heroin addict. That was 5 months ago, so it adds up.

I always knew he was kind of a rebel but I never thought he’d end up like that and it's made me feel shocked, sad and a bit empty.

I literally found out about this earlier today.

Life for attempted robbery? There must be more to it as you don’t get life for killing someone sometimes.

Maybe life dealt him some very difficult and uncomfortable lessons, maybe he became bitter and angry. Try to handle this objectively as if someone you didn’t know. He is serving time as has caused someone / some people a heck of a lot of turmoil and lifelong anguish.

Are you in contact with anyone who can shed more light on this, only do this if you think it will help.

Remember life can be difficult for some in many different ways, people change for the bad as well as the good. People don’t stay the same. If this feeling persists consider helping out with younger people or in Young Offender Prisons etc? Maybe you might be able to help others too.

He was naughty, always misbehaving and we were forever being separated as we'd be up to no good but never anything malicious, just mischief.

Almost like a child's assessment of "mischief" isn't reliable and if poor childhood behaviours are the very beginning of setting off down a particular trajectory that may continue if left unchecked.

What is a 15 year old boy doing hanging around 11 year olds anyway tbh

A fall from grace? An angel who wanted to rebel?
calling him a fallen angel or fallen hero just romanticises the story - perhaps it would be more appropriate to empathise with the victims?

Yes imagine he had an extensive criminal record or there was a weapon involved.

Given your description, I don’t think he was very safe at all. I’m sorry that your early years were so awful that he seemed a safe person.

There is ‘rough around the edges’ and ‘total career criminal’. And ‘angel’? Either you are on a wind up or you probably need therapy.

It’s so sad to hear about things like this. There was a lad who was at school with my partner and he went down a bad route but he came from a nice family and something somewhere went wrong and he had a bad injury, became addicted to prescription painkillers, lost his job, home, family and then he became hooked on other stronger stuff and he’s in a real mess now.

I am assuming there was conspiracy involved to get such a long sentence.

I understand feeling sad for him that his life has ended up this way but I can’t help feeling you’re a bit of a vulture.

It sounds as though you’ve not been in contact with him for many years.
You imply he means so much to you but you had no idea he was a struggling drug addict, which doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s very sad for him and his loved ones (and of course his victims) but don’t make this about you.

Well, let’s hope an armed man breaks into your house and robs you. The place where you feel safe and where your life happens. With a bit of luck the fallen angel that robs you, whilst armed in your own home can be saved by you in a Hallmark movie stylee. Maybe you and the armed robber can adopt a three legged dog together and start a bakery in a small seaside town.

I doubt he got a life sentence for attempted robbery.

OP I can understand why you feel sad. All of us have people we knew briefly in our past who made an impact on us, and even if we never saw them again, it’s quite emotional hearing that bad things have happened involving them.

But this man must have done some pretty terrible things to get life in prison, so it’s probably the best place for him. Maybe he’ll get clean while he’s there. Some people do.

I was a drugs worker for around 10 years and agree with you. Encountered some deeply damaged people who also damaged others. One of the strongest arguments for decriminalisation is that it can break the link between using substances and offending.

You are getting an unfair rough ride OP. I completely understand how you feel. I have known a couple of people who fucked up their lives after becoming addicts, one of whom had a messed up childhood with chaotic parents. It sounds like this young man could have gone down a different path in different circumstances.

Acknowledging that does not take anything from his victims and I agree with others he has a lot of criminality behind him, or serious violent offenses, to get that sentence.

Reasonable to feel sad that someone you looked up to when you were very young has gone so far wrong in life.

Very unreasonable to be so dramatic about someone who is no longer a part of your life. "Fallen angel" - no.

A man I was friends with at school was put away for drink driving on the motorway, which resulted in the death of an innocent woman. I'm still in touch with a lot of my old school friends, and we were shocked and saddened. He was always a bit of a jack the lad, but didn't have a nasty or unkind bone in his body.
It was a first offence and he ended up serving just over 6 years. Nothing for the loss of a life really. I'd have been furious if it had been my mum he'd killed.

To his credit now though, he's tee-total, and uses his social media to promote the dangers of drink and drugs. I haven't talked to him since he got out, but he seems to have turned his life around.

Are you the same poster who wrote about basing their style and identity around school ‘tough kids’? If you’re the same poster then you really need help to move on from your teenage years and this hero worship you have of these people you haven’t seen in years.

Are you the poster thats making batshit threads today.

I don't entirely agree. That said, OP's clearly dramatizing this situation and isn't in possession of the full facts. She also doesn't understand the concept of sentencing guidelines.

Exactly this!

OP sounds like a grief vulture and tries to make everything about herself.

The trouble is @Flynn99 you have never known him as an adult. People change. He might have stood up for the underdog as a kid or he might just have had the appearance of doing so and actually had an ulterior motive.

I feel like the older I get, the more I 'see' people. I've had the edges knocked off me by repeatedly having a certain view of people and had the rug pulled too many times. Now I sort of accept that people are a mixture of good and bad and I can like some aspects of their personality and dislike others and have a more superficial relationship with them without the old habit of labelling them. I feel sort of sad to admit that but it's true nevertheless.

Do you feel strongly enough about it to visit him in prison?

I work in criminal justice no way in a million years did he get a life sentence for a first offence attempt robbery. Armed robbery with an antecedent history, maybe but still very unlikely. Life sentences are few and far between these days and reserved for the most serious violent and sexual offences.

Sounds like a drug-addled robber to me.

Op I think you need to work on understanding yourself first as you are getting too emotionally involved in a persons life who you likely have little meaning in

it is very sad how some peoples lives turn out and if the support had been there from childhood their life would likely be different but choices are still made and some people do actually enjoy being violent

and while he may not have good legal representation he absolutely would not be given life for robbery he will have had a violent history

This. I have been a criminal defence lawyer for twenty years. If he got life; he’s a a serious dangerous criminal.

Sounds like you are romanticising a ‘bad boy’. I definitely think some therapy will help.