Lengthy!
DP and I currently live back in the family home, as we both study part-time for a vocational course and are financially buggered as a result. My parents share the same vocation. My mother moved to another country for her work last year, and now my father is left at home alone, and has become increasingly aggressive, controlling, hurtful, unreasonable and hot-tempered to the point that I am afraid of him. It is likely that my parents have always been like this, but it has only really been through considered and welcome support from my DP that I have come to accept that what happens and happened on a daily basis in my house is just not normal. I shouldn't have to deal with this in my mid-twenties/ever.
My father has always had a temper, but it became significantly worse once his three children became adults and learnt how to talk back (like normal children). I am the eldest and the most successful of the three of us, yet somehow I'm the least dominating, the most sensitive and most forgiving member of the family. Moreover, both my parents have become increasingly Catholic, using it as a blunt and brutal instrument to inflict shameful homophobic insults on me, and to assert their parental power and immunity. Try explaining that in your mid-twenties you no are no longer, if ever were, Catholic, to parents who find this a devastating assault on their parenting. I had a large shampoo bottle raised viciously to my head when I said this the last time. My father downplayed this afterwards and I ended up feeling horribly sorry for him, rather than for myself. I can't help but see a kind and loving father somehow underneath the unkindness. I have been told by my mother that this makes me very Christian...I think it makes me a bit messed up.
DP and I are in horrible situation where we feel disrespected and belittled constantly, but have nowhere else we can currently go because we haven't the funds yet. We are criticised at every turn. My siblings are too, but far far less, and have both become extremely selfish as a result. No chance of them sticking up for me.
Primarily, genuinely to the point of absurdity, we are all criticised by our mother and father for our untidiness, our 'disgusting, vile, despicable mess', our 'pathetic and idiotic and childish attempts at hoovering'. Believe me, though, the house is spotless and ordered to the point of not looking lived in; the vague hair on the stairs being attributed to a very malty dog. My father spends his ENTIRE weekend deep-cleaning the house, varnishing, polishing and growling as he goes, and dramatically hoovering to make his point, bashing me with it as he goes.
Obviously, we do do our bit, we tidy up after ourselves and make dinner and make a huge effort with laundry and hoovering, and yet almost daily we are told that we do 'f--- all' and are 'pathetic and lazy' and that we don't care. We've had friends of my parents that we've never met saying that we must be a terrible and messy couple, in the most utmost display of bad manners at a party. My father has stated that he will no longer buy food for the house because we didn't tidy enough the other day which is fine as we are...adults...and can buy our own food...and also what the hell? We would have done had he not been so bloody terrifying when we spoke to him.
Nevertheless, I am in the rubbish position where I feel crushing guilt for the fact my parents are so volatile and unhappy and lonely, and wonder if I weren't quite so gay or opinionated, would they be less explosive and unkind. My father has shouted at me so loudly my ears ring afterwards and my hands shake. He's thrown lunch I made for him to the dog. He's thrown over chairs when I have made normal jokes about not wanting to hoover in 30 degree heat. I have cried like a baby as he hurls hurtful comments at me and tells me to stop acting like a child, whilst calling me immature. I am rarely treated like an adult, despite having three sodding degrees and working internationally. My mother has physically assaulted my sister accusing her of being on drugs after a gig when she was 16 (she'd had too much sugar!). My mother, even though she lives far away, has considerable influence over the home, and exhibits more vile homophobia than my father when she is visiting to the point where it is far worse than anything I have ever faced.
Basically, I need validation. I need people to say this isn't okay. As I write I keep thinking that I am overplaying things, that it's nothing. That I can justify everything and that it's okay that people get cross sometimes when they miss their wife and life gets stressful... I don't really know what to do.
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To need your validation to accept my parents are abusive
44 replies
travellingbird · 15/07/2013 15:00
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