MWM, that sounds terrifying. My difficult child was never really into gore. He was pretty much a easy child until early adolescence, then it kind of went downhill for him from there with extreme moodiness and risky and self-destructive behavior. The moments that stick out for me are what I call his *dead eyes* moments, when he was not getting something to go the way he wanted and he would look at me with an expression that still creeps me out. The first time I saw it was maybe a year or so ago, when he and I were in the middle of the woods on a long walk and I told him he was going to have to do something he didn't want to do. It is hard to describe, it's not the typical "I hate you" adolescent look of anger, more like a stone cold realization that he has absolutely no use for me anymore, as if any connection between us has just been a mirage. I saw the look a few times after that, always followed up with some pretty carefully planned ways to exact revenge for the "wrong" he perceived.
husband didn't know what I was talking about until 1 day he got the *dead eyes* look and said he felt as if we don't really know who difficult child is at all. We chalked it up to substance use, until he was clean for several months and was still that way when he didn't get what he wanted.
I SO hope he grows out of it or regrows those "connection with other people even when I'm angry" neurons that he must have fried when he was a teenager.
