Monday, February 17, 2025
Last night, brothers Raymond and Bryan Wang, who are 28 and 25, respectively, got in a terrible fight at around 5:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (22:50 UTC) at home. Raymond and Bryan both have anger management issues and have less-than-stellar tempers. Raymond has a habit of exploding in rage and having big tantrums or meltdowns while under extreme stress. Bryan, who is, for the most part, much more chill in comparison, has had very little patience for these meltdowns, especially for the last three years, as some “episodes” could get quite intense. Bryan also doesn’t have the best temper in the world. Recurring triggers for him include: being pushed around by Mom to do great work, being unheard or unnoticed when he is desperate, and more. Mom has high expectations and sometimes pushes both boys to aim for even better and better performance.
- Example 1: In the Wang family’s home in Lexington, Massachusetts, there is a door in the kitchen that leads to a backyard deck outside. On July 6, 2021, Bryan accidentally locked himself outside as the door locks on the “wrong” side, and Bryan waited in desperation for someone to see him and open the door so he can come back inside. He waited 15-30 minutes, and he got very frustrated. Dad opened the door, and Dad and Bryan worked on a solution to fix the door lock so that this would not happen again.
- Example 2: On February 2, 2018, Ray, Bryan, and Dad went out in the late afternoon. At 4:15 p.m., Bryan got off at Brandeis University to familiarize himself with the campus. For the next 30 minutes, Ray sat in the back as Dad drove around campus, trying to find Bryan. During that time, Bryan made four phone calls to let Dad know the present location, but Dad and Bryan were somehow never in the same place at the same time. In the third and fourth phone calls, Bryan got increasingly more frustrated. Ray, who listened in the back, knew it was quite likely that Bryan would be furious and have an intense meltdown when he got back. Ray’s intuition was correct; when Bryan finally found Dad’s car at 4:45 p.m., that did indeed happen. Bryan kicked the side of the car and spent the rest of the ride home yelling at Dad. It didn’t help that it was freezing that day. It was 21 degrees Fahrenheit, and Bryan was very, very frustrated.
Other recent fights
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This section covers the past 12 months.
- On July 24, 2024, at about 8:00 or 8:30 at night, Ray, Bryan, and Dad went to the YMCA. Their visit lasted only a few minutes before it was cut short by an impulsive meltdown on Ray’s part. Ray tried to talk to Dad, who was on the rowing bike. When Dad was too busy to reply, Ray lashed out in impulse. It’s not entirely clear what led up to this, as 99.99% of the time, Ray would have been okay with this and moved on and gone onto a treadmill. A possible antecedent was that, during the car ride there, Ray was mildly frustrated while playing Monster Legends on his phone. One of the daily missions is to feed a certain amount of food to his monsters, but almost all of the monsters on his island were at Level 100 or at max level. He tried to tell Dad about it, then lashed out when Dad was unavailable while using the bike. Ray had a meltdown. He yelled about wanting more attention from his friends, even going as far as saying he wished they were always available. Bryan was furious due to the self-centered nature of the comment, and he yelled and criticized him severely. A stranger, one of the men who happened to be there, ordered them to leave. In the parking lot, Ray also screamed about wanting to “kill” anyone who didn’t like Sylveon, a Pokémon character which Ray has loved since its introduction over a decade ago. In the car, Bryan yelled at Ray about this outburst, and Ray began speaking very negatively about himself. Ray agreed with Bryan’s harsh criticisms but began saying self-deprecating remarks such as, “I’m a terrible person.” Ray began punching himself. He was beating himself up both physically and verbally. Ray also said he wished he could turn back time to undo his outburst; when Bryan reminded him that this was impossible since it’s not possible to go back in time, Ray got defensive. When Ray asked if Bryan’s statement about “going forward” included “one second from now,” Bryan said, “Yes, of course, I care about one second from now.” Ray then continued to stretch Bryan’s statements to extremes, which really irritates Bryan. For example, when Bryan said it will “take time” to correct the habit of exploding in rage, Ray said, “you mean like a million years?” This didn’t help Bryan’s mood; to Bryan, this was Ray trying to dismiss and invalidate Bryan’s feelings and advice.
- On December 22, 2024, shortly before 11:30 a.m. EST (16:30 UTC), Ray, Bryan, Dad, and Mom went to an apartment in Boston. In that apartment lived a man named Jack, whom the family met at a Starbucks in early August of that year. Jack looks after two boys: Andrew and Michael, who are roommates. The visit was okay until about 12:30. Ray was still recovering from a brutal search mission about “Behind the Name,” when he needed to find a name with an 80% score or higher, but he realized a lot of the names he had used in his imaginary stories fell short of that threshold. He had been in cognitive dissonance for two days. He was also missing his friends Junli, Cullen, and Kevin terribly. It had been five months since Junli’s last visit. He has at least four other “soulmate friends”: the aforementioned Cullen and Kevin, as well as two other boys named William and Peter. None of these friends have seen or spoken to him since September 2024. Anyways, back to the apartment visit on 12/22/2024. Ray and Dad were playing card games with Jack, Andrew, and Michael, but Ray was feeling quite upset. He let out a few F-bombs while talking to Dad. Ray said, “And don’t you dare criticize me,” which Bryan took great offense to. Bryan was furious and yelled at Ray for that. Minutes later, when lunch was served, Bryan said that his conflict with Ray made Bryan lose his appetite.
- Five days later, on December 27, at 6:30 p.m., Ray was upset at a “progress ban” which his OCD had given him the night before. It had a duration of two days, and it expired on December 29. When Ray complained about it to Dad, Ray said, “I hate progress bans. I hate them more than Todd hates Adam Levine. That’s how much I hate them!” Under Ray’s OCD rules, a “progress ban” temporarily forces him to suspend certain projects until the bans are lifted. Bryan heard Ray and said, “What’s a progress ban?” No matter how hard Ray tried to explain, he could not do so in a way that Bryan understood. Bryan said the phrase “I don’t understand” at least two or three times during the next 5 minutes, and Ray got irritated by that. Bryan said, “Fine! I won’t say it!” He was furious, ran to his room, and slammed the door shut.
Swymfit coach Jerzy came to the Wang family home on Sunday, February 16 at 4:50 p.m. they started their session at 4:52. Ray was playing Pokémon X and was told to put down his game. The session started out okay. This was the 34th Swymfit session since Ray met Jerzy back in September of last year. It started out like the other 33, but as they got further into the session, Ray could not stop thinking about the negative correlation between “women singing with pianos” and user satisfaction. He learned that from Todd in the Shadows, a popular YouTuber who reviews pop music. “Jar of Hearts,” despite a solid 73% user score, was fifth place on Todd’s “ten worst hit songs of 2011” list. He loves the music reaction channel Cody McManus, who reacted to Babymonster’s song “Stuck in the Middle,” a beautiful piano track which sadly has only 45% even with a “key change” in the song. Todd loves Adele, who has two highly-respected piano songs from 2011: “Someone Like You” and “Set Fire to the Rain,” both of which scored over 85%. Ray tried to think of other counterexamples. Unfortunately, during Swymfit sessions, he’s not allowed to check his phone or check the time. At 5:50, Ray mentioned it out loud. Bryan said, “But Ray, that’s what Todd thinks.” Ray said, defensively, “I can care about that if I want to!” Bryan, enraged, said, “Fine!” Ray had a big meltdown and jumped up and down repeatedly and yelled, “Why did Todd have to dislike Jon Bellion? Why couldn’t Todd love him instead?” Back in December, when Todd ranked the ten worst hit songs of last year, he picked “Who” by Jimin for song #9, and he blamed Jon Bellion, one of the producers on the track, for its subpar quality.
Ray kept starting sentences with “I fucking wish.” Ray also yelled sex-related words and went on a rant about why he believed there should not be social stigma attached to those words.
For the next 20 or 30 minutes, Ray was in his bedroom with Jerzy, who worked to calm him down. When they finally went downstairs at 6:29 p.m., Mom and Dad tried to talk to Ray, but Dad was inadvertently making it worse. Jerzy tried to get Dad to pause, but Dad kept talking until Ray yelled a threat to him. At 7:02 p.m., Ray talked to Dad about social stigmas, such as “adults with imaginary friends,” “adults who like Arthur,” and “men who cry in public,” and wanting to kill and cleanse the world of anyone who has those stigmas. Bryan was still very angry. For the past year or two, he has been sick and tired of Ray’s habit of talking about killing. When Ray elaborated and said he would do this only if he were attacked or judged, Bryan said, “That’s not what you said!”
It was Sunday, and Ray had a session with his long-time tutor, EK Lung, at seven; the session started 15 minutes late due to the meltdown. As soon as Ray finally joined, EK Lung explained to him that meltdowns are unacceptable.
