I am posting here for traffic and also because I am not sure else where this fits? Please be gentle with me- I have come back to MN after a long time away so have not posted anything for ages and this is a subject which is difficult for me to talk about IRL.
My childhood was a strange one- lovely caring mum who doted on me and my older sister but my father would swing from being kind and generous to being very angry and emotionally and verbally abusive, with occasional bouts of physical violence. Most of the time the violence was threatened rather than actual but we lived in fear because we knew he was capable of real harm. I was so afraid of his temper that if I made a mistake I would want to kill myself rather than face him, and I did attampot suicide more than once and spent many years in mental health system.
Since I have moved out, it has been 7 years now, my father is much nicer to me, bar a few incidents since then. At least I know I have safe place to live (and a keyworker) now, so I do not have to put up with him long. However when I do see him, he is still very nasty to my poor mum and when my sister visted recently spent the whole time putting her down and telling her how rubbish she was and making her cry. Christmas seems to make him worse and last Christmas he started being unpleasant again. Nothing physical, just screaming put downs, cold silences, threats, gaslighting etc...he was especially rotten to my sister and mother and just witnessing it made me start to have anxiety attacks and flashbacks again.
I left early on Boxing Day (couldn't stand another second of it) and it ended with my fatehr threatening to kill himself and going on about how I am faking my health issues, when I told him I had been advised by my carers, DBT therapist and CPN to set firm boundaries and leave if was in an unsafe situation.
I am still in contact with my father and working on my "issues" of fear around him, but I do not want to put myself through another Christmas like that. I do not like staying overnight at my parents' home as it makes me feel vulnerable. I have got to the point where I am able to sit in the same room as my father if he in an ok mood without feeling panicky or nervous but when he kicking off, I start to feel very unsafe and go into a sort of "fight or flight" state.
I really am glad my father is being nicer to me generally and I do not hate him anymore like I used to and we sometimes have some good times together which I never thought ould be possible but I just cannot DO Christmas again. My sister feels the same but she believes it is her "Christian duty" to honour our parents and feels she should be there at Christmas. I am also a Christian but I do not believe a loving God would ask this of us. I have been told by the mental health professionals that I need to set firm boundaries, but if I do that, am I perhaps assuming this Christmas will be as bad as the last 5 have been? Maybe this one will be OK. Am I being hard on my dad? I am almost as tall as him, and twice as wide- he could not do anything to hurt me. But I am scared of my feelings around him. I am also scared of my feelings around my mother because I end upgetting very impatient with her and angry because she feels she has to please my father and is scared of him.