There was another boy in our D+D circle who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and my memories of Carl are shadowed by his bullying of this other boy who let's call Alvin. Not that I feel so lily-white by comparison; I intentionally withdrew contact with "Alvin" when I became fully conscious that he brought out something ugly in me too. It's been a lifelong mystery what it was about "Alvin" that so consistently evoked contempt and sank him to the bottom of the pecking order in every circle he moved in.
So yeah, Carl's passing brings me some complicated feelings. Not least of which is, it's a sad commentary on our times that GoFundMe is a de facto social safety net.
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What to do with addictive thoughts: DON'T suppress them
End of an internal era: research suggests "thought stopping" is not very effective and may even be counterproductive