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My father won’t stop tormenting me
I’m 22 years old and live with my parents (for now). My father constantly torments me. He’ll say I’m worthless, good for nothing and a parasite. He’ll comments things like “you’re not normal” if I make a tiny mistake like drop something or bump into something, making me feel even worse about it. He dehumanizes me often times referring me as an “it”.
My mom often times takes his side, stating he just “cares about me” and “wants me to do something good with my life.”. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t want this man to keep affecting me emotionally anymore, and no matter how hard I try to ignore him, he’ll still make comments.
I also don’t want to feel like his words are true, but it’s hard. I don’t know what to do..
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Dear Tormented One,
It's a shame that no one taught your father to become a motivator rather than a person who has allowed themselves to be who they are. As for you, many great people have come out of situations like these because they were motivated not to let people bring them down. Fathers are imperfect and have their tendencies to put some of those imperfections on their kids. But now as a grown adult, it is time for you to turn that torment into triumph. Figure out what you have a passion for in life and put yourself in that. Take all the negativity, all the rage you feel inside and turn it into positive energy to achieve what you are meant to achieve. That way when others are going through the same, you will be able to guide them through that road as well. Don't allow yourself to live in that negative world or state of mind but take it as fuel for a better future for yourself.
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Now that you are the ripe old age of 22, isn't it time for you to be living on your own, in any case? This is a toxic environment and surely, one that you might be glad to leave .
Take stock of your resources and abilities. You'll need money, a job, or some other means of support, such as scholarship, education loan, or even joining the military.
You could become a live in caretaker for children or the elderly; or, an apartment manager, in exchange for free rent and possibly a salary as well.
Almost anything would perhaps be better than the living circumstances you are currently in.
Your mother is in denial and wanting just to keep the peace. Your father is mentally unbalanced and cruel. Time for you to go! Good luck, good wishes, and...Bon Voyage!
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What he is saying is more true of him than it will ever be for you. You have to realize who you really are is not at all what he refers to you as. The man sounds mentally off to be honest and that may be the cause. Nobody normal acts like this towards anyone much less a child.
What do you do? Find an adult you trust such as a teacher, guidance counsel, or CWY at school. Tell them that your home life isn't good and that your father keeps calling you good for nothing, not normal and a parasite. Have them get you some support and address what is happening with your parents.
It may seem hard to do but you need to take that brave and bold step to get him to stop with the bullshit. You have to be free from that toxicity and for him to see it's not normal and cannot continue nor be tolerated.
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Lets call this what it is, Verbal abuse. Verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse since there are no wounds or bruises on the outside to see, they're on the inside. Since you are not a minor, agencies for protecting. About verbal abuse, I've lived it, 29 1/2 yrs until I finally left my verbally abusing ex. I can say that there is nothing you can do that would EVER deserve this kind of treatment. Even if you make a silly mistake. If another person is angered by such things, its a matter of the angered person not owning their own internal turmoil. They never believe that they are the one with a problem. Same as my ex, even going to our pastor and asking him to encourage me to do counseling with him cus he felt I was the one with all the problems yet that same Pastor tested me in a situation once and secretly watched me to see what I would do and afterwards had compliments for how I handled the falsely perceived conflict on the part of the woman who was church secretary. He knew I didn't have the issues and it was my husband. So you must believe me that you are not at fault. Your Mom married an abusive man. If he wasn't like this from the start, he became so after something that happened in his life that he considered a crisis, imbittering him from then on. So your Mom is a willing victim. She did not divorce him as I finally did mine. She is not the person she once was before marrying him. To have peace, she had to pander to him, support all of his incorrect behavior and speech because if she did try, as I did, the husband becomes more out of control. You couldd say that attempting to point out or correct their behavior is like throwing fuel on a blazing fire, they only act more violent.
I am sure you are at home due to financial reasons. There aren't many options available other than finding a way to leave their house. So where would you live? Here is where you need to become creative, because even though you may not wish to go through with it, it is important to your well being to leave. Think if there is a relative who lives near enough, doesnt matter the relation, as long as they believe you and have an extra bedroom you can stay in at no or little cost. If there are no relatives that would work, then think of friends parents who know you well and perhaps have a kid or two at college. Perhaps you can persuede them to let you stay for a while. If you are going to a local college and work to pay your way, you might check with the office to see where you can find out about other students looking for roommates and if it can be worked out, get a couple of roommate wannabe's to work together with you finding a place you all can afford. If you dont mind ending up with someone you don't know, check with the pastor if you attend church and let him know life with parents is unbearable. Details not needed if he doesn't ask but simply mentioned Dad is verbally abusive and Mom backs him up. I caution against meeting men who want you to move in with them because the odds are you will end up with someone just as bad or worse.
I will now explain what happens to you internally when you are treated this way by Dad. I'm sure you'll agree it is stressful. The stress is something you live with 24/7. Since there is no break from it, you are constantly plagued with stress and stress needs to have somewhere to go. Stress will either attack your body mentally/emotionally or leave mind untouched by make your body weaken until it contracted stress induced illnesses. Many diseases can also have stress as an alternate cause like cancer or heart attacks. I didn't have my mind attacked because I was going to God in prayer and finding out whether I had really did something wrong. In all my time with the ex, I actually got closer to God. Not saying you have to, thats your choice, but its what happened to me. I ended up with daily headaches, a couple of migraines per year, total body stress rashes, and ulcers to name a few. These things don't hurt you over a month or two but after years non stop of abuse, it can lead to death, either from the mental sickness and depression now causing one to take their own life or from a disease where the body gives up fighting and you die. In a dream, I was told if I stayed with the ex, I would die in four years time. This was at the end. I left. I will pray for you and your family. Perhaps God will do a miracle for you, but keep in mind the free will given to all people, is something God wont take away if one person is using their free will to do evil. Then again as in my ex's case, there could be mental illness causing your Dad to act this way. You can't order him to get help. No one can change another person, only they can choose to seek help. My ex pretended to see a Dr. after a counselor friend had a talk with him urging him to start seeing a Dr. He went once, twice and then stopped because he only made the initial visits to get the friend and myself off his back and overheard him saying so to someone else. When a person is unwilling to see a need to heal and change for themselves, the only thing left is to remove yourself from his presence in your life.
I have tried to show you what is really going on here and the consequences to you if this situation isn't changed soon. But I don't have any easy answers for you. I can say that you will need to get some counseling for yourself to heal. When I left my ex, the retired counselor friend worked with me for free and gave me insight into what coping mechanisms I had come up with so I could dismantle them now that I was safe as they would cause me problems in moving on with my life. If I have understood this all wrong, please let me know what the circumstances truly are so I can better help. For example, if you are disabled in any way, there are agencies for protection of such individuals, and if you failed to tell me, I wouldn't see a valid opportunity to get you moved out with help from the right agencies. If you write me further on the subject, don't do it where you can rate my answer. Go to 'search advice columnist' and search for dragonflymagic and once on my colomn there is a button to use to write to me. Just remind me of your situation if you write, even just to let me know of your progress. I will be a friendly voice for you.
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