It's my father again

[Pixilated]

Really, really good advice, Seshat!

Cooper, dementia can hit earlier in some people, so his age, alas, doesn't completely rule it out. However, regardless of whether there's an actual problem or whether he's just being a controlling prick, the rest of you need some good coping mechanisms for when you absolutely can't avoid him -- and to avoid him whenever it's at all possible.

[Cooper]

There's been a question bothering me since Sam left the house... and I don't think I like the answer. I found some lists of emotionally abusive characteristics, and I've bolded his.

He has to know where you are and who you are with all the time.
He tries to control your contact with your friends.
He puts down what you wear, do and say.
He tries to control you by being very bossy, giving orders, making all the decisions, and does not take your opinion or your feelings seriously.
He is scary. You worry about how they will react to things you say or do.
He abuses drugs or alcohol.
He puts you down so you will lose self-esteem, confidence and control
He tells people things you did or said that embarrass you and make you feel stupid.
He says it's your fault when things go wrong.
He calls you stupid, lazy, fat, selfish, spoiled, ugly or a "slut".
He blames you when he mistreats you. He says you deserved it, or you provoked him, pressed his buttons, made him do it.
He threatens you.
He uses physical violence or he physically controls you, for example, physically stopping you from going out of the house.
He hurts or hits you, or uses his greater physical strength to hold you down so you make you feel helpless, powerless or humiliated.
He threatens to hit you, hurt your friends, pets or family if you do not do what he wants.
He says he will kick you out of the house if you don't obey him.
He threatens to stop giving you money, or to not pay for your education if you don't obey him.
He threatens to kill himself and blames it on you.
He gets very angry about small, unimportant things.
He will not tell you his feelings when you ask and then he blows up.
He pressures you to do things you don't want to do.
He attempts to manipulate or guilt trip you by saying "If you really loved me you would..." or "If you were a good daughter you would...."
He compares you to other people's daughters and says things like "Why can't you be more like...."

He threatens to kill himself and blames it on you.

The second time I tried to tell him about my depression. I sent him a long email late at night, figured he'd get it in the morning, and get some time to think it over before I woke up.

Little did I know his cell phone alerted him whenever he got an email.

He called me from his hotel room, and told me if he thought it would help me, he would throw himself from the balcony right that second.

I begged him not to.

He gets very angry about small, unimportant things. He will not tell you his feelings when you ask and then he blows up.

I do think wanting me to work harder towards a job is reasonable, as is wanting my sister and I to take part in laundry, dishes, and cleaning up after ourselves.

Some things he's gone off on me for, besides these, I can think of right this moment:

Getting stranded on the lake. (10 feet from the house.)
Getting stranded on the lake and being in the water while I waited for him to rescue me.
Bringing a baby bunny rabbit down to mom, after she asked me to.
Considering volunteering at a shelter. (He told me doing unpaid work was just stupid and a waste of time.)

My favorite has to be the day he yelled at me all the way to driver's ed, for not thanking him, for not being outside when he got there, for being on the computer, for not talking during his lecture. Then he calmly asked me what time I was to get picked up. I told him the wrong time, by an hour.

He yelled at me all the way home about that.

He threatens to hit you, hurt your friends, pets or family if you do not do what he wants.

His favorite tactic when he thought my sister and I were being unreasonable was to hang up a belt in our rooms. We knew what that meant.

I can't count how many times he's talked about throwing the pets out. Hell, he's doing it right now with Caddie.

does not take your opinion or your feelings seriously.

This has been fairly obvious up to this point.

He is scary. You worry about how they will react to things you say or do.

I'm still hiding from him after my mother told him I hated him. The scariest part is how he's been acting completely normal... so far.

He abuses drugs or alcohol.

He's apparently been on marijuana since he was my age. (It would be a major dick move to call the cops on him, and I have no idea where he keeps it to prove it, anyway. I found it once, and he was pissed. I know who else is on it, and who is supplying him with it, and I'm well aware it wouldn't just get him in trouble. And both of the other people who would get in trouble do not deserve it in any way.) I've almost never seen him without beer. I don't know if I've seen him drunk more than a handful of times, but he is almost always drinking.

He puts you down so you will lose self-esteem, confidence and control He tells people things you did or said that embarrass you and make you feel stupid.

His idea of jokes are always at someone else's expense. He's definitely made me cry more than once because his 'jokes' went too far. He doesn't mean to damage me with them... they're literally his idea of funny. Self-deprecating and sarcastic humour is how I think the family has coped.

He says it's your fault when things go wrong. He blames you when he mistreats you. He says you deserved it, or you provoked him, pressed his buttons, made him do it.

"Aren't I being reasonable?" is his go-to line during yelling. Most of the time he is.

He calls you stupid, lazy, fat, selfish, spoiled, ugly or a "slut".

Lazy, spoiled, and implied fat. I can't deny any of these. I am 60 pounds overweight. (I gained 30 pounds from paxil... which people say is fairly normal.) I have a habit of procrastination, which he says he had too, until he used WILLPOWER to get out of it. He talks about how spoiled my sister and I are lots of times.

It gets better. I decided to look up symptoms of emotionally abused people. From Cheese of Cracked, who does bit articles about his shit childhood, I already was aware I was hyper-sensitive to body language. (I totally bombed a test to identify emotion logically, but subconsciously I'm usually spot-on.)

My sister and I fit a lot of them. The most striking?

"Tends to withdraw into an internet or fantasy based world."

My sister and I NEVER leave our computers. We both over-do gaming, and hanging out in internet communities. And for years, I thought I had magical abilities. (Not like, Wiccan style, or religious style, I mean like Hogwarts was going to send me a letter any day now kind of abilities.)

My mother, on the other hand, fits none of the characteristics, but since she never grew up with stable parents (her mother married 6 times) she may not recognize his behavior as damaging. My sister and I already talked with her therapist about family therapy sessions. I'd been putting off asking my mother to attend the next one, but I will when she wakes up in like, 3 hours.

[Seshat]

Family therapy can come once you and Sam are both physically and emotionally in safe places.

Make that happen. As soon as your depression allows you to. Sooner, if you can push through the depression to do it.

Professionals can help make it happen; especially in the case of a minor (ie, Sam).

[Cooper]

Well apparently I committed the 10th deadly sin today: I rescued a dog. It pretty much ran up to me in the parking lot, so I checked its collar, saw it was marked, and brought it to my car. I took it to my parent's home, since they have a phone, and called around until I got the people who owned the dog.

They picked it up ten minutes later. Not before my father could exclaim: "My daughter better get rid of that FUCKING DOG" and "There was a woman complaining some person picked up her dog, just pulled over picked it up and drove away."

[Pixilated]

Dear Dad: STFU Sincerely, Everybody Else in the House.

Yep. Best thing the rest of you can do is get a good set of coping mechanisms in place until you can get out of his orbit for good.

[Cooper]

Think Mom's agreed to the family therapy. Dad's still thinking on it.

After my post to CS, I had a panic attack bad enough I went to the ER, complaining I couldn't breathe right.

They put me on oxygen for a half hour, and that gave me a chance to calm down. They're saying my insurance should cover it, because shortness of breath is a valid concern to go to the ER over.

I'm debating about telling my family or not. On one hand, it could be seen as a problem big enough to warrant attention, on the other hand... it could be seen as an expensive attention-seeking maneuver.

Edit:The only reason I can think of over why he's so mad is he thinks I might want to keep the dogs I've rescued. (This is the third dog. The first one I saw get hit, the second one ran in front of three cars.)

I'm really not interested. Nothing against dog-lovers, but I'm happy with my cat and bunny.

[Tama]

I would suggest not telling anyone. Your dad seems the type to think it's for attention seeking, and really only your sister I would trust telling it, if you HAD to tell someone.

[Pixilated]

I would absolutely second this. You've had enough evidence of how he views your problems; don't give him any more ammo. Talk to your sister or a trusted friend or relative.

Or us, of course.

[Cooper]

Update

So, my father might be making strides. He admitted he might not have been fair to me. I think he's going to family therapy tonight.

And, on top of that:

My doctor is recommending therapy + pain medication for my chronic pain.
She's putting me on a new anti-anxiety medicine
She recommended a new therapy place specifically for those with abuse.

After that, I also went to a clinic she'd referred me to to get Adult ADHD testing done, which will happen in 5 days. (Well, it'll start. Sounds like adult ADHD testing is serious business.)

The only thing about family therapy tonight is one of the new meds is a painkiller akin to Vicodin, but not vicodin. It does seem to be causing the same reaction in me though, which is: half of it makes me loopy as fuck.

It's a good thing my mother is at least attending the session, because I am definitely not up to driving.

EDIT: Neither one came.

At least my medicine wore off on the loopy by the time I had to go.

Despite the talk, Dad is back to himself.

[Seshat]

If your father is either controlling or narcissistic, then the main reason he was angry about the dog would have been that you did something independant of his control.

Which, you know, is what you're supposed to do. Being a person, rather than an appendage.

My advice: stop trying to guess how he'll react to things. Stop trying to get his approval (hint: from what you've described, you probably never will).

Focus your attention on getting you and your sister into a healthy environment, and getting yourselves the community support that's available out there.

[Pixilated]

I agree. Until (IF) they make some definitive steps towards improving things, I think you're going to have to put up a wall between yourself and your parents in order to keep your sanity. It sounds as though they agreed to family counselling and then at some point talked themselves out of it.

I'm sorry to hear this. Hope you and your sister can get out of there soon.

[Seshat]

You've extended a hand towards family repair, family togetherness, HOW many times now? Only to get rebuffed every time.

It's their turn to give some sign of wanting it.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Some might consider this going to far, but have you considered calling the police the next time the suicide threats are used? It's been a long time since I've dealt with anything like this(over 10 years since I was working as an EMT), but IIRC, when we responded to a call for suicide threats, let alone attempts, it was a mandatory 24 hr psych hold at the hospital for evaluation.

It's a pretty big choice, might be burning a few bridges, but unless the family counselling works and he actually admits he has some problems, it might be the last choice before essentially disowning your family.

[Pixilated]

I think this is a good idea. If he means the threats, he'll be somewhere where he can get help. And if he's using them as a lever ... 24 hours in a psych ward might convince him not to do it again.

[Seshat]

Actually, given his behaviour, time under psychiatric observation might not be a bad idea regardless. He doesn't sound well.