Should I estrange my abusive parent

[HarbourOfPeace]

Hello all,

I am in my 20s and have been emotionally and physically abused by my domineering and controlling parent for my entire life. I won't get into details but I will say that I fear for my life everyday that I am around this parent. Even if I don't say anything, and try to make myself as small as possible, I suffer. My other parent does not have the mental fortitude to leave the abusive parent.

I am in my 20s and I still need to ask permission for everything I do and my entire life is mapped out for me (I have no say over what to do, where to go, whom to date, when to have kids, where to live, and how to live my life). If I express any disagreement or if my expression looks anything but pleasant, then I face wrath from said abusive parent. I was told there is no reason to be had with this abusive parent and must apologize for getting them angry to kick, hurl objects at me, and hit me.

I have expressed a few times in a very calm matter that I would like to move out and have come up with reasons to do so. I have some savings but not much. However, each time this suggestion is faced with a sneer and ultimately wrath.

If I become estranged, then I will have to sever all ties with my other non-abusive parent and siblings. I will also have to leave my job since it is located in the same town as my abuser. I would not feel safe living anywhere close to my hometown as I have a feeling that if my new location becomes known, then I may be killed. I do not wish to sever ties with the rest of my family, as this would inflict great pain on them and I would feel terribly selfish and guilty. I would also miss them. I also feat that my abusive parent would release their anger onto the rest of my family for my behaviour.
Please help.

You are in an awful situation. I have no experience of what you are suffering but wanted to give my support. If you have been physically abused can you got the police? Presumably the rest of your family are also being abused by this person, would they report it too?

1. I would get professional advice and support if you are planning an escape that means leaving behind all of your support systems. I think you need to put something in place.

2. You seem to have serious fears for your safety. Is this fear of being killed cultural? I can't picture what you mean.

3. You can't take responsibility for the choices of other members of your family, no matter how incredibly hard it might be to accept this.

4. You deserve to live happily and safely and with freedom of choice and self-expression.

It is not selfish to want to have control over your own life, nor should you feel guilty about it.

Yes, you do need to escape this parent and fly with your own wings. It will be very difficult: both emotionally, since you are so enmeshed in this family dynamic and know no other life, and practically, since you will need to find a job, new place to live, and build yourself a new support network from scratch.

All of this things are possible, and if you are strong enough to have survived 20+ years of abuse, then you are strong enough to put all this in place.

Maybe focus on job-hunting somewhere else, and move once you have found a job, to give yourself something stable to hang on to when you move and start rebuilding your life?

You might also want to call Women's Aid on 0808 2000 247 to find out what support (practical and emotional) they can give you.

Good luck.

Karma Nirvana. Ms Sangheera really is a remarkable woman and her network is too.

If it's a toss up between seeing family and surviving I'd say survival is more important. Good luck.

"If I become estranged, then I will have to sever all ties with my other non-abusive parent and siblings" and "I do not wish to sever ties with the rest of my family, as this would inflict great pain on them and I would feel terribly selfish and guilty."

Great pain? really? Why are they not looking out for you if they care so much? Where is your other parent in supporting YOU?

Nowhere.

My love, whatever you do you will feel guilt because you have been programmed into accepting the treatment of your abuser and the vile dynamic they both have put you into.

I'm sorry, you are learning at 20 what I learned in my 40s. I'm not entirely sure what's worse really, as when you have spent over 40 years thinking that your family cared, only to have it brought home to you that they don't, it hurts like nothing on earth. Having to realise this when you are only 20 can't be at all easy either. The only possible 'bonus' is that you don't have decades to look back on and say, Woah, now i look at that situation when I was 15/20/25/30/35/40 in a different way! I didn't understand it at the time and now I do. The hurt I think is the same, just the length of time

I don't think there is really anything to prepare you for this kind of thing. Please understand that it really will hurt like nothing else, cos to do this to a child (i'm speaking as a mother here) is beyond belief. The thought of a single second of the treatment I got being given to my DS hurts me physically. I don't understand why my parents seemed to get off on being mean, seeing me suffer. that is something i will never understand, or forgive tbh.

You mention being killed. Is this a cultural thing? If so, you need Nirvana, they help victims of cultural violence and honour crimes.

I don't think that the abuser will unleash abuse on others, for some reason it's you that is the scapegoat.

the ONLY one that is important in any of this is YOU. (even if you can't quite believe this, it's true) You have a duty to yourself and yourself only. Your family could have helped you, but for whatever reason, can't/don't/won't. NONE of that is a reflection on you, you didn't do anything to deserve any of this, and neither would you standing up and saying 'Enough' be any reason why you should receive anything more than support, help and understanding. To deny you ANY of this is wrong. Normal people wouldn't treat you this way.

I have had no contact with my abusive father since my 20s. It was easier for me because my parents were divorced and my brothers well aware of his abuse.

I have never regretted it. Not once. Nor has he ever tried to contact me.

That was the hardest part. To think that I had tried and tried and endured for so long only for him not to care when I gave up. Sadly, I have repeated this pattern in my own relationships with an abusive partner who I have been hugely codependent with.

You cannot worry about his turning the abuse on others. That is a tactic they use to keep you there. The thing I always think about is whether I could ever let him meet my sons with a clear conscience and I couldn't. It would be feeding them to the wolves and I would be complicit in him repeating the behaviour he metered out to me (and it was mostly me - the only girl) and I cannot countenance that even in thought.

So, basically, I heartily recommend distance but also recommend counselling for you. I cut ties but didn't heal myself and have wasted a lot of time and tears as a result.

I am sorry this has happened to you. It is awful, unfair and beneath contempt.

So sorry you are in this nightmare position with such stark choices.

Given that it's this stark and even dangerous, I'm hesitant to offer any advice. The only things that I can offer to just think over, and reach your own conclusions, are that 1) you do have a right to your own life uncontrolled by another. You do. 2) if you choose to leave, you could see if you could employ a private investigator now and then to keep an eye on your siblings; how they are doing. 3) WA does sound a very good idea. 4) do you have any (unknown to your parent) friends / contacts in other cities that you could stay with until you find work? 5) if you stay, it may be that you become as beaten down as your other parent. Especially if you get pushed into a marriage with someone of your abusive parent's sort.

Sincerely hope that you can find a way forward and be safe, whatever you choose.