This happened when I was about 11 years old. I’m 45 now but remember every detail like it was yesterday. It still haunts me as it did then.
I was at a friend’s house, and we were having a sleepover with a bunch of other friends. We were left unsupervised as the mother of the friend who was hosting ran an errand. He pulled out one of the many guns they owned and was showing it off. As I got up to walk across the room, I crossed his path; at that same moment, he pulled the trigger. I remember hearing the pop. The smell of the gunpowder.
I remember being taken to the hospital, my whole young life flashing before me, and accepting that this may be it.
I have suffered from PTSD my whole life because of this, and just the other day I was held up at gunpoint.