Thread: Emotionally Abusive Father

It's lengthy. I greatly appreciate anyone who reads it or has some input.

I knew my dad was cheating on my mom when I was 4. The word "cheating" wasn't in my vocabulary, I had never heard of cheating... but I knew what was going on, I just lacked a means of conveying my thoughts. I begged and pleaded with my mom to get divorced from my father ever since I had that realization.

Up until I was 4, 1 year after my brother was born, my dad was amazing. He loved me. This rugged, tough military man spent hours brushing my hair into different styles I wanted; he'd tell me I looked so grown up and that people thought I was 7. I totally believed it and thought I was so cool lol. Every morning before he went to work, he would wake me up and give me a hug and a kiss. One morning , I woke up and realized my dad was gone and I didn't get my hug; I was distraught. My dad came home in the middle of work to give me a kiss and hug. Sometimes we'd talk to each other on the phone while he was at work, and I'd blow kisses to him through the phone and he would say "I see your kiss!" "I caught it!" "Oh no! You hit the secretary on the head!" I ate that stuff up.
In every home video until I was 4, my dad was genuinely happy.
In videos after, there was a change in my dad. He lost his enthusiasm.

At that point, my dad started to act as though he hated me. He would take me shopping and pick out a dress for me to wear. But when I objected, very kindly, and said I would like to wear shorts instead... I could feel his disappointment. So, I got the dress and pretended to love it. He became physically abusive. If anything was out of place in the house, he would hit me with a belt. He didn't hit me to teach me to be clean, he hit me to take out his anger. Once he got the first smack in, he wouldn't stop. If I started to cry, he would yell... and I mean YELL. While I'm frightened and in a corner crying, my dad opened all of my drawers emptied them on my bed, threw the mattress in the air into a wall and came in with garbage bags and threw all of my stuff away. I don't know what possessed me to be so ballsy, but I snuck out to the side of the house to get a few things that were important to me, went back inside and watched as the garbage man put all of my belongings into the garbage truck. Then I picked up what was left of my room. I felt so guilty, not because I thought anything was my fault, but because my dad threw out stuff that my mom and I bought together and I was afraid my mom would cry.

The most hurtful thing that happened: I was 8 and my brother was 9: My dad came into my room one night and said "Hey, we're going to play a joke on your brother I'm going to pretend to hit you really hard and I want you pretend to cry and scream." I was fully aware that it was wrong, and I didn't want to do that to my brother... I couldn't see the humor in it. Unfortunately, at that point I was so terrified of my dad that I just played along. The next thing you know, I hear my 5 year old brother through the air vent crying so hard because he thought my dad was really beating on me. My dad started laughing at my brother. I fake laughed, but as soon as my dad left the room the tears came pouring down and I snuck into my brothers room to comfort him.

This went on until I was 15, when my parents finally divorced. The truth finally came out that my dad had been cheating on my mom with two other women. The worst part is, these two women are still in his life 8 years later... and my father torments them. One woman, a stripper tried to kill me and and a restraining order was filed.

I didn't see my dad much as a result of the divorce, but saw him maybe once every other week. It was always uncomfortable. My dad manipulated my brother who was impressionable and made him hate me and my mom. It wasn't until my dad threw my brother across the room into a wall that my brother began hating my dad. My dad also sent an email to my mom stating that I think my fathers a better parent and I hate my mother. Even so, my brother and I tried to keep whatever relationship we had alive. I mean, some kids don't have any parents and we never know when our father will die.

There's no more physical abuse now that I'm 23 and my brother 20. My dad rarely talks to us. My brother and I get occasional text messages from him telling us he hates us and we're a piece of because we don't visit him. I visit him when his girlfriend comes down, because it's "safe" when she's there. But, the last time I visited him... he told me I was an a*shole for treating him like sh*t and never calling him or visiting him. So, I explained that he was right... I don't visit him frequently... because I fear him and his outbursts, but that I would love to visit him more and actually get to know him since our relationship has always been superficial and we don't know a lot about each other. He told me to go myself.

Once I went to visit my dad for his birthday and locked himself in his room and said " I don't have a daughter"

Bio on my dad: His sister/my aunt was raped and murdered, his brother/my uncle drank himself to death after years and years of rehab and his father was abusive.

I never realized any of this as "abnormal" behavior. I learned how to glide by life. I never thought that this affected me as I'd been telling myself as long as I can remember " You have a brother, a mom, a house and food... people would kill for what you have, so don't be selfish." And I really lived by that motto... I never took anything for granted and was truly thankful for what I did have. I vowed never to sleep around or fall trap to those stereotypes when I was 13, and I did. I turned out to be an extremely happy/bubbly person, in school to be a doctor etc.

I'm coming to realize my bubbly, happy- go- lucky personality is an act. I don't have a real relationship with anyone. My mom, my brother, my boyfriend of 3 years. Not one person knows me. I'm petrified to show any time of emotion. I feel embarrassed to smile. If something genuinely makes me laugh or makes me happy, I won't crack a smile. You have to push me to the point of violence to get a genuine, heart felt thought out of me. I act like I'm not capable of anything, in fear that I might mess it up ... or actually have to give something thought. I can't watch someone watch me fail, or make a mistake. I have to have someone "teach" me how to do something... even common sense things, just to reassure myself that I was correct and won't mess up. This is for EVERYTHING... turning on the air, sex and even my opinions. I just can't stop second guessing.

I know I have a brain on me and personality and depth, but I just can't stop playing this ditzy air head that giggles all the time. It's this defense mechanism that I can't shut off. People tell me things that I know and instead of elaborating or letting them know that I know... I will say things like "oh, really?" and "yeah?" "I had no clue!" and they think I'm this new pet that they can "show the ropes." I read into everyones emotion, and every move I make in my life is to make sure that other people feel good about themselves. Oh, and I can't just "go with the flow"... I over analyze everything to make sure I respond the right way. I hold my instinct back... and inside I'm beating myself up over it. Why can't I just kiss my boyfriend? I have to think about it and plan it first. When you get that warm fuzzy feel and your body just naturally flows into kissing someone, I stop that feeling.

My defense mechanism that got me through my whole life is now ruining me. This defense mechanism is what my dad used to grow up. I know. I'm not angry at anything he's done because I know how he feels. I feel it too. I understand his anger when he hit me, I know it felt good to hit me. Nothing feels better than hitting something when your angry. We're the same, emotionally. He needs someone to love him, and I need someone to love me... but I don't know how to, and neither does he. I still get nasty text messages from, but I no longer even attempt to respond as I'm just going to be his punching bag.

How do I overcome this wall and live an emotionally healthy life and stop being a scared sh*tless little girl living in fear of non existent repercussion?

The worst part is, because I'm so "happy" and an amazing liar, no one would ever have the slightest clue as to what is going on inside my head.

JuicyJuice,
First thing I want to say is I lived through almost the simliar situation with my own mother. My parents divorced when I was one and my mother got custody of me. My father was an alcholic which lead the court to believe my care was better with my mother. My relationship with my mother was great until I was about five or six I would say. I have five other siblings but they were all older at the time and lived outside of the household. My mother would throw my stuff away all the time if I did something wrong or she felt like my room was to "messy". She would spank me and hit me for no reason what so ever. She even pulled a gun on me several times in my teenage years. I became aware that I wasn't doing anything wrong and spent alot of time with my youngest brother who went through the same things as I did when he was my age until adulthood.
I found that my mother cheated on my father and her previous husband. She had been adopted when she was younger and lost her only sibling to a car wreck which she almost lost her life as well.

The reason I'm saying all this is for the fact what you wrote reminded me alot of what I have gone through to get to where I am now in my life.
I too put up a wall in words to hide the emotions/feelings I had from my childhood until adulthood. I found that I didn't have emotions not even happy and I couldn't be pleased by anything. I struggled with myself to stay away from my mother since she too acted like your father is currently.

I can't really tell you what to do but I can make suggestions to what I did to help myself come I guess you can say out of my shell.

The first thing I did was seek counseling. Not only did that help me vent it helped me find out what I was doing to keep myself guarded and myself out of the past.

The next thing I did was lived everyday as it was its own. From counseling I learned I didn't have to have a relationship with my mother to be happy. I didn't have to live in fear anymore because I wasn't under her control because I was an adult, and I could make my own choices.
That was the hardest step for me was to become an adult without seeking or finding help within my abusive mother.

I found too talking to others about your sistuation helps. Alot of my friends and even boyfriends within that time had no clue what I was living through but finally after a few counseling sessions I found that if I told others about myself and who I was it I was able to feel accepted and be happy instead of pretending.

Its a hard road because you and I both know what it feels like to live through and pretend to be happy along with the fear that still comes over us. However you have to find and seek a way to talk about your problems with someone who can guide you to where you need to be mentally in your life. One of the things my counseler told me was that fear is what makes me lie, pretend, and do everything I do. Which I never really thought of it but later down the road I was like, "wow she was right". That's because we learn what we see. Just like your dad was telling you to lie to your brother basically about your dad hitting you, you learned to lie there and pretend to be something you were not in that situation.

I guess the number one thing I would recommend for you to do to help yourself and stop living in fear is to seek counseling. Have you tried counseling in the past? Or are you currently going?
I hope this helps but I can relate fully to how you are feeling and the frustration you expressed. Its a difficult journey back up the hill but I'm more than positive you can make it to the top.