My dad is blind to the **** he puts us through

My dad is pretty screwed up emotionally but given his childhood, it's a miracle he's sane at all. He grew up during a war and some of his earliest memories are of his father being shot and ambushed when he was 6 and running barefoot through the mountains with planes shooting at them. His baby sister was shaken to death on my grandmother's back during this and once the war was over he was sent away to a boarding school because what was left of his family realised that was the best they could do for him. The foster family he stayed with while away for education were physically and emotionally abusive but he was 8 hours away from his home and knew that staying was his only option.

My mum is convinced he was fine when she met him in their 30s but she also says he lost his temper the first time ever on their wedding night because he wanted to call his family and she thought it was weird.

When I was growing up, I just remember that he traveled a lot but when he was home he was either completely fine and a great dad or pissed off, smashing plates and shouting. It felt like he was two completely different people. He was always really strict with our education and he lost his temper with me the first time [that I remember] because I didn't want to do extra maths work that was beyond my level when I was 7 or so. It got to the point that I hated doing homework around him because he would just give me extra work to do. I had anxiety and depression from 8 years old up until I was 13ish because of bullying but he never believed me [my mum didn't either] and I used to spend pretty much every night on the phone to childline crying about it, or hiding in our local forest because I didn't want to be around the stress in the house. I remember one day when I was 12ish that he lost his temper really badly in the morning and started throwing stuff around and I was so scared to go home that I took a massive detour and just stayed on the phone with childline the whole time. I also had some weight issues linked to ill health between 10 and 14 and he used to tell me I was fat and that I should go to the gym and lose weight which has led to me having a ****ty self-esteem even now at 18.

Even though he's been losing his temper less in recent years, it's still terrifying and I really can't wait to leave home. My older sister and I [plus some of my mum's friends] have been begging our mum to divorce him for years but she keeps arguing that when he's good, he's great and he's never ever been physically abusive so there's no point. Plus they're both 57 and 59 now so she said she'd prefer that to spending the rest of her life alone.

I didn't think that he'd emotionally scarred me or anything but I was talking to my sister and she said that over New Years she'd been at a party and they'd been talking about parents and she'd ended up crying her eyes out for hours about my dad. The other day I had a similar thing because I'd just bought a May Ball dress and it was fitted up top but I didn't like that I had a completely normal bit of fat sticking out because of my bra strap. It was bothering me so much that I couldn't stop crying, especially after my sister asked if it was anything to do with my dad's treatment of me. It's really weird because I'm an extremely contained person when it comes to emotions. I'm a perfectly healthy weight but I still hate myself and how I look because I can always remember him being horrible to me about it.

I can't wait to leave home and I really don't want to ever come back but the problem is that even though he's a massive dickhead, I really do love him and I couldn't abandon my mum. I feel like I want to just scream and hurt him about ****ing up my life but I know he'd never understand because he doesn't realise he's done anything wrong. It's impossible to sit down and have a normal conversation with him about feelings or anything because he cannot physically empathise with anyone. I remember some article a couple years ago about Psychopaths and he fit the criteria exactly.

I really don't know what to do because his stress is making me ill and I just want to leave my family and never look back but I couldn't put my mum through it and there's no way I could financially support myself. I feel like I'm stuck and I hate it. It's not even as if I could report him because it would be no use, he doesn't understand that what he does is wrong and it would just upset him.

Help? :/

Reply 1

Jo from AVA

Hi
Thanks for your message. It sounds like things have been incredibly difficult for a long time, and I am not surprised that you and your sister are suffering because of it. This is a totally normal reaction give what you have experienced.
I think it's important that you get some support. It is great that you have spoken to childline in the past. Have you ever had counselling? You can get referred by your GP or there may be some more specialist support locally that you can access - if you want to send me a private message telling me roughly where you live I can look up some services for you.

Remember that none of this is your fault, I know how hard it is to cope but you don't have to do this on your own. Once I know where you are I can give you some better support,
take care
Jo