I can't imagine another moment of interaction with my nephew difficult child in my life. I live far, far away, but he knows where I live (I let him stay with me for 2 weeks during all of that--he drank a bottle of cold syrup one night, for the buzz, and then raged at me when I "called him out" about it, among several other difficulties and tense moments) and I have wondered at times if he might eventually come after me for vengeance if/when he ever has nothing left to lose--he hates me for having spoiled his reign of terror at his mother's place--as seems fairly likely (every time my sis and I got close to throwing him out, he would attack me, even if I had nothing do with the incident, as he knew that without me there, his mother wouldn't have the firepower to exert her will over him, and this infuriated him). But for the most part, he and his mother, as far as I can tell, are determined to prove me wrong via him living correctly and advancing smoothly into adulthood, which desire, on both their parts, I entirely applaud--I can think of no outcome I would desire more than that, even if it's driven by "Let's prove Uncle xxx wrong."
But there have been many, many signs since I left that prove this a naive hope. I won't enumerate them, but things haven't gotten much better there, except that he's living apart from his mother and younger brother (at his mother's expense), which is a good but obviously not permanent situation (she won't pay all his bills forever). He has attempted community college, for instance, but has made zero progress--i.e., dropped all of his classes both semesters--because, he reports, he "can't sleep at night" and thus can't attend classes, which is a natural byproduct of having been permitted to sleep all day and stay up all night, usually partying, since he was about 14, as well as smoking pot every day and night, which makes it impossible and get anything done during the day. He *has* managed not to be arrested during the last year (remarkable, given his track record in the 2 years prior to that, during which there were several traffic and pot-related arrests), which I suppose is a kind of triumph if you want to define "triumph" downward to "not getting arrested but otherwise making no progress." He still parties and smokes pot with friends very routinely, per various YouTube clips I've seen in the last year, and apparently (per Facebook posts) does little more than skateboard every day with buddies, and all that goes along with that. He was always very inclined to take/shoot and deal drugs, but since there's been no arrests for this, and since his mother pays all of his bills, he's either not doing that anymore or he's being very cagey about it so as not to lose the maternal dole.
But again, I hope never to see him again. I very sincerely doubt that he'll ever turn things around because, from what I hear, he's under no pressure to change and experience has taught me that people don't change, especially in adulthood, if they're not compelled to via consequences for their actions. And he was very, very violent and hateful toward me throughout my time at my sister's, so I have no reason to anticipate any change in his orientation to me in the interim.
I'm sorry that my attitude about him--and indirectly about my sister--is so sour, but I've learned over time not to expect changes from people who aren't changing their behaviors and/or having to deal with consequences for behavior. Frankly, if he miraculously starts treating his mother and brother decently and turns his life around, I'd be very pleased to hear it, even if I remain anathema to both of them. But I've managed a certain emotional victory, for myself, in not thinking much about him anymore and just getting on with my life instead--a pretty complicated and rewarding but challenging life on its own terms, like most other lives--and I'm not sure I'd want much to do with him, given all that he did (his behavior toward me was very consistently vile and violent for a year, and was in many ways even worse--stealing, lying, menacing--toward his mother and brother throughout that time as well. He just exhausted all of the avuncular love I had for him--what was a great abundance for a good long while, until it ran out--and I have nothing left "in the tank" but repulsion and avoidance now. I'm sorry if that sounds unforgiving or unhelpful, but that is, I think, a fairly understandable reaction to a kid who behaved like that at 17 and 18 toward you, not for a little while or for short bouts, but throughout 14 months of cohabitation. A parent's love doesn't ever die, but an uncle's or family friend's? It can die. He killed it, at least for me. And I think there's a useful lesson in that for him, if he can ever absorb it: you can lose people in your life, even family members, if you abuse them enough and for long enough. He lost me--or I gave up on him. Either way, I'm glad it's over. I really don't want to ever see him again.
As for his mother, I have very complicated feelings there. She will always be my little sister, but I have left out a ton of things about her actions/conduct toward me during that time, especially in the last 4 months or so, that I don't wish to relate, but which made it nearly impossible for me to regard her favorably any more. I don't want her to be unhappy or to be hurt or die at his hand (a real possibility if she ever cuts him off fnancially--he "loves" her while she's paying all of his bills but otherwise hates her very viscerally, which he has admitted many times--has spat in her face, marauded her physically when I wasn't there, etc etc), but I can't spend any more emotional energy on her after all that has happened, especially given my own children's needs. As for them, I want them to have good relations with her and especially with her younger son (who's entirely innocent in all of this, and a great kid at 16), and they are trying to do that, especially with the younger brother--not so much with their aunt, given all that she did to me wrt the difficult child. It's all a bad mess, but it's a mess we've all made our adjustments to, and life has gone on productively for us. In some ways, it's the classic difficult child/sociopath-in-the-family (as I'm certain that's the problem) scenario: he has driven us all apart and become the "black sun" around which his immediate family orbits, and around which all of us orbited during the time I was in his mother's home. We've all learned to get past it, but not without some real effort and pain, and of course it is very sad that my sister has become so cut off from the rest of us in the extended family. We just can't deal with her anymore while she remains in this very dysfunctional enabling/defending relationship with her unrepentant, still-malfunctioning difficult child.
Ugh. Exhausting even to describe all that. Thanks for listening. It's a terrible mess.