Couryn was brought into the world by a very dysfunctional family. His mother, Madelyn Davis gave birth to Couryn at 22 years old. Her boyfriend, Steven Butcher was 23. Both Madelyn and Steven were heavy users of hard drugs, and alcoholics. They both struggled with forms of psychosis, Madelyn having severe bipolar disorder and Steven having symptoms of OCD as well as schizophrenia, although he was never diagnosed. The two lived together in a run down home, that was almost never cleaned. Neither had jobs and they lived off Steven's inheritance from his wealthy uncle. They met in college and "fell in love" shortly after. Both dropped out within their first year as their addictions and mental health worsened. They moved in together even though their relationship was quite toxic. Steven had severe anger issues and got very violent when he was drunk, which was most of the time, and both of their disorders made the relationship very dangerous for both of them. Physical and verbal fighting was a daily occurrence unless they were too high or wasted to fight. Eventually the two decided to have a kid. Although the pregnancy was "planned" they made absolutely no preparations for their child. Madelyn continued to use drugs, smoke, and drink like normal throughout her entire pregnancy, heavily using heroin. This caused Couryn to be born a month and a half premature and suffer seizures and dangerous fevers from withdrawal. The hospital did nothing to prevent him from going home with his parents so after 3 months in the NICU he was sent home with Steven and Madelyn. As a baby he was often left alone in the house just laying on the torn couch, or on the floor in the heaps of ignored trash and dirt. While they were home the TV volume would be all the way up to drown out his cries, and mask the coughing of him choking on the thick fumes of cigarettes. From being severely underfed on a cheap formula, and never kept hygienic Couryn would get deathly ill constantly until he was about 6 years old. His parents would never take him to the doctor, so if his illness got bad enough they'd give him some drugs to "take the edge off," which really just knocked him out until he was too weak to function and bother them. When he was 6 years old and had to start going to school Madelyn and Steven finally put some effort into his care. They didn't want the school to worry about Couryn's home life, so they kept him fed, bathed, and neatly clothed. Madelyn would cover up bruises on Couryn's arms and face with her makeup from Steven's drunken outbursts, only to hit the poor kid when he "couldn't sit still" from wincing and squirming in pain. As he spent more time away from home, finally meeting other kids and getting the mental stimulation of learning that he never got at home his life started to turn around. That was until symptoms of his OCD started to become problematic when he was about 8 years old. He was firmly punished every time he had a meltdown over seemingly stupid things, at home and at school to the point that school was no longer his safe space. When his teacher yelled at him for counting to steps to her classroom every morning, or his father hit him for repeating the same word over and over until it "sounded right" what's was left of his mental health started deteriorating. Madelyn eventually saw the similarities between Couryn and Steven's compulsions and went out of her way to make Couryn's worse. She'd forcibly stop him from touching the same six spots in the house he'd go to everyday after school, or made him believe bad things would happen if he didn't listen to some of his more harmful compulsions. He lived in a constant state of fear and had no idea that his thoughts and feelings where different than everyone else's. He overheard his father talking about his schizophrenia hallucinations so much or both his parents talking about a hallucination they saw on hallucinogenic drugs he thought the figures and shadow people he saw as a child were normal and never told anyone.
Eventually Couryn started making friends in school, and although he was always on edge, they helped to give him some relief from the constant struggles he dealt with. He had a nice little friend group by the end of middle school and kept up with them at the start of high school. As he grew up he learned that what he experienced at home wasn't normal. Instead of sitting by silently while his parents fought or crying by himself when his Mother interrupted his routines he started fighting back too. Steven was quick to turn his aggression on Couryn instead of Madelyn and the fights almost always resulted in Couryn being hurt crying alone in his room after hours of screaming. As his OCD developed further he was incredibly irritable and was quick to fight back against anyone anywhere even though he knew how it would usually end.
