I got two stories for this topic.
I knew these nikkas in high school, they were brothers and my best friends. These nikkas practiced Judaism. It was cool, but weird for me because I didn't practice anything. Every Friday they couldn't chill with the crew, they had to be in the crib by like 5pm or before this Jewish horn went off in the area. I didn't know exactly what happened on Fridays till we were at their crib playing nfl 2k and their moms came thru and crushed the buildings. All electronics had to shut off. Everything. Then she started playing some weird ass f*ckin music and singing hymns n sh*t. I have been to church before and this was some other sh*t, I had to leave.
now you're probably thinking, that's not too bad...you're right, that's the tip of the iceberg.
Fast forward a year or two, these nikkas went from practicing Judaism to being a part of some black/african religion. I forgot what the name was. But nikkas became extra preachy. Every time they came around nikkas was trying to get me to go with them to a service or whatever. I remember we got into a serious religious debate once, them being all into it and me being the "I don't mess with religion" counter to the argument. It got so bad one of them told me he was going to bring one of the member to my crib to enlighten me, I told him if he did we would have problems, i'm good. I would have embarrassed whoever they brought there, no man alive will change how I live my life. Period.
Anyway, it never really messed with our friendship then, everything was still gravy. Their moms though was a f*ckin nutjob. She wouldn't allow one of my friends girl, a close friend of mine to wear certain clothes because it wasn't "proper" for a woman. She wanted shorty to wear damn near bed sheets all over her body, it was horrible. She would always come to me crying about how stressed out she was over the situation, because the mother was trying to control her life because of her religious views. Shorty wasn't religious either, she lives life free. She tried to give the clothes thing a chance, but it was never for her, she felt that she wasn't being herself if she had to conform to their beliefs. Still, she and my homie kept a strong relationship.
About a year and a half ago, these nikkas were still going strong with their religion and outta nowhere one of em snapped. He was f*cked up mentally. They had to put him in the psych ward for a min. He was stressed out from the pressure with his religion and his nut job mother and it caused him to lose his f*ckin mind. Sh*t was sad as F*ck. This changed everything between us. I didnt see him for months and one day randomly him and his fam rang my bell, they were in the area and needed to relax for a min, i'm like cool, no prob. I damn near cried when I seen how f*cked up dude was, he looked like a child with air in his head, it was heart breaking man. I also have a dog and they were cool and my dog doesn't forget anyone. you would have thought a stranger came to my crib, my dog went crazy when he saw dude, barking and making wild noised, even he knew something wasn't right.
So we're in the crib chilling and the vibe was so depressing and I wanted to see if we still had a bond, so I threw in nfl 2k, a game me and him haven't played since like 04-05. He still remembered it, so i'm like cool, this is good. While we were playing I noticed his reactions were a lil bit child-like, dude was 23-24 at the time. I didn't really worry too much, nikkas were playing a video game, I felt it was natural. They told me to put on a movie or something, so I obliged, I put it on a comedy. We were kicking back and then outta nowhere dude got up and walked towards the tv and stood there laughing at the movie, it bugged me the **** out. His little brother who was there told me to change the channel because of what was happening, I then realized this sh*t was common. It f*cked me up. After not too long they left. I havent seen him or heard from him since. The last I heard he moved to Jersey with his pops and him my home girl broke up after he mentally snapped. His fam did not want her to be a part of his life anymore, they even blamed him losing his mind on her. F*cked up sh*t. I also haven't seen his brother for the same number of years, these two dudes were my nikkas and it all changed like that.
F*ck Religion.
Story 2
Another story I got is about someone I didn't know too well. One of my homies that live on the block knew this kid that was an aspiring rapper. I did music myself, so we planned to link up. We did and I ended up mixing some tracks for him. Now this kid was a regular kid from brooklyn, I would have never expected him to go down the path he did. One day I went to my n*gga crib, it was a few months after I mixed the songs for the other cat. I happened to ask him about dude, to see where he was with his music and my friend told me no one has heard from dude in months, not him, not the kid's family. Wow and what the f*ck.
Fast forward a couple months, I was at the n*gga crib again and I asked him the same question, "have you heard from....", he said no, but the kid's older brother did. He told me that the kid's big bro caught dude stealing things from his own mother's house with a few other dudes. The n*gga was contemplating shooting everyone in the crib excluding his brother of course, luckily he didn't. Dude was mad as f*ck to see that sh*t going down, obviously. How can you rob your own mother? He said his lil bro looked weird as f*ck too, he was wearing all black now and he was planning on selling the "material" things in his mother's possession because his god does not like things like that. He sold all of his "material" possessions and was living this all black lifestyle, sh*t was weird as f*ck to hear. Yup, he found some crazy cult/religion and it made him lose his mind too. That was the last time big bro saw his lil bro. They found out after he while he left the Us and moved to Trinidad to live with his religious group and then moved to africa and got married. I asked my n*gga recently if he heard anything else and he said nah, it's been months now since anything new popped up.