Hi all,
I've come here because I don't know where else to turn about this.
My father is on a knife edge 24/7. Me and my mother have to tip toe around him. If you don't act the "right" way, he lashes out emotionally, for example storming out, slamming doors, and then being in a mood. This will continue until an apology is given.
Its quite disturbing when you are in the right, and have been hard done to, but are expected to be the one to "make up" and apologize.
I could provide examples if anyone is interested.
Has anyone else been in this situation?
>please use the search function to see if there are any threads on the same topic before posting
>>17179890
>>17181254
Alright, allow me to be more specific.
My brother had a breakdown and had to move back in with my parents, where I live also. He is an ex-gambler and puts a strain on my dads already short fuse. My dad tends to get angry at things he doesn't understand, and if he feels inadequate, he will lash out. He is the kind of person who also needs to vent throughout the day about things people have said or done to annoy him, as most things seem to anger him. He is a book snob but incredibly inpractical and is very insecure about this fact: the last argument with had before this one was because he couldn't change the batteries on the remote and I should have known this and done it for him. Rather than simply asking me to do the batteries for him (I wouldn't mind at all), he lashes out and calls me selfish and other words. It is always my fault.
I tend to stay out of his way because I have learned how to handle him and I don't like shouting. I am careful with what I say, if I am not courteous enough, or don't say or do the right thing, he will become enraged.
However, my brother really flips my Dads switches more than normal, for some reason. The latest argument was because he was angry at something my brother had done and needed to vent and I wasn't in the perfectly receptive state he wanted. He never vents to my brother, it is always me that picks up the slack. My brother is a drain on him. This must have been bubbling under the surface and I said I didn't want to listen to my brothers problems. This sent him into a rage and he slammed the door. I followed him and apologized but it was too late. He shouted as he walked down the stairs and made a "no" wave with his finger and said Shhhh. Shhhh. Then slammed the bottom door.
I went downstairs to try and fix the issue, maybe I should have stayed in my room, no doubt he would have been in a mood if I had left it in limbo. I wanted to make it clear I didn't mind listening... (cont)
>>17181281
(cont) to his problems, I just didn't want to specifically listen to problems about my brother. I gave him the advice to be straight with my brother and say all this stuff to him in a calm manner rather than penting it up inside. All this time my mother is distraught. She always wants me to be the mediator, she agrees with everything I say about him, but she says "he's the one with the problem" and "I just want everybody to get along" (this means it's me that always has to do the patching up after his rages).
Perhaps I could have acted better. I am human. I made a mistake. I wasn't in the mood for it. I didn't want to hear about my brother's problems, how he is dragging my parents down with his selfishness (he has nowhere else to go because he stole money from the family to fuel his gambling a few years ago). And now it's a whole huge issue with my dad and his short fuse. He said a few nasty things to me when I went downstairs, more allgeations of selfishness, how "he knows what I'm like now when he needed me", how "he's not going to let me cause an argument" and then he put his hands over his ears saying "I can't handle this" and stormed out, slamming more doors. My mother and I went in again to try and calm him down and he ended up getting more enraged when I tried to calmly explain why I had acted how I did, and he ended up saying "leave US alone" (it was me and my mum who went in there to speak to him though?), and then "I just want you to leave me alone, I'm not going to give you the fight you want".
At this point me and mum left him and went for a drive and this is where she said to me he was abused and it's not his fault and I need to go and apologize otherwise it will never be resolved. This cycle is very draining and extremely stressful as it's always on me as the bad guy. I wouldn't mind the outbursts if he apologized. It is a huge mental weight to carry around with me and I worry I will start to internalize some of the things he is saying.
Bamp.
Have you tried doing some research on BPD? The way you write implies you feel pretty guilty and bad for him, but the behavior is still messed up. My mom is like that, though with some extra crazy. Anyway give that a go, maybe it will help.
Your father sounds like a mega sperg. What exactly did you want advice on?
>>17181531
>>17181538
Thanks, I'll look into BPD. The sensitivity to criticism definitely matches up.
I guess a part of me is looking for solutions otherwise I'd go crazy having all the blame put on me all the time. With my mum often backing him up to keep the peace, even when I am in the right, it really starts to play on my conscience.
Hopefully a resolution will come soon enough, we went for a drive again today and I outlined to my mother that I don't like the strain my brother puts on the family and that I don't like it when my father takes it out on me. It is impossible for us to sit down and talk to him about his rage and sensitivity as the roof would blow up and I'd be accused of "looking for a fight" and "tearing the family apart". So hopefully this will get through to him through my mother.
Not sure what else I can do to stop him lashing out.
>>17181575
If what I suggested about the BPD is at all accurate, then you gotta understand that you can't expect to find allies in your family. Not for any fault of yours or theirs, just because the way it works makes you a scapegoat and it ends up "working". Because of the blame you accept onto yourself, you enable it. I am an oldest child and I have two little sisters with a large age gap, so for me, learning to take blame came early. I found out quickly enough I could be the golden child or I could be the worst, and it all depended on the mood.
Once that became apparent I welcomed all the shit piled onto me because hey, at least it wasn't on my sisters.
Then when I was almost 18 I left the house to go to college (which I specifically chose to be a city away), and now 9 years later I've been on a whole different continent. My relationship with my parents is great now. We can't provoke eachother. So we call, communicate, and share, and I know whenever there's a need for me to be the scapegoat I can just be the asshole but because I'm not even there, it doesn't hurt anymore. I let them use me as that.
My only regret is that my baby sisters are now experiencing similar things. But I try not get involved because I believe we'll all end up closer again later down the line when the abuse isn't as imminent.
Sorry for such a long post OP, I just figured I'd let you know how it went for me so that you could start also figuring things out in a similar way. Distance and self awareness is the key.
>>17181246
>my dad acts like a giant faggot
Rape his face
>>17181575
Stop feeling guilty and tell it like it is. Move out if you can.
>>17181246
You give too much fucks, I had more or less the same issue with my dad. He would call me a trator of the family and said that i'll go to hell and that Satan has my soul.
Eventually I stopped caring, I would just stare in his eyes without a word unless I really needed to answer. I had my own problems and life wasn't sweet on me either, but he was my father so I would respectfuly hear him out and give my personal thought coldly and move on.
He will man up eventually, stop showing him that he is the victim in the family, you are just fueling his pussiness.
We both have hard times now and suffer a lot, but we don't bitch about it and just enjoy being a family.
>>17181281
broadly speaking, you have 2 options.
>walk on eggshells all your life
>stop giving a shit
if you choose the second, there's an other fork in the road
>stay
>move away
those might be hard or impossible.
Moving away means being independend, you might and might not be ready for that.
Staying and not giving a fuck about your father means he'll attack you, in his small shitty way, your mother will side with him, and they might escalate, maybe even become violent - btw, that's what I personally would consider the most caring thing you can do to your parents, as it will force their hand to deal with their personality problems. OTOH, moving away would be the most mature thing you could do.
>>17181616
>>17181622
>>17181888
>>17181967
>>17182023
Thanks for the responses.
>Not for any fault of yours or theirs, just because the way it works makes you a scapegoat and it ends up "working". Because of the blame you accept onto yourself, you enable it.
This kind of thing is what scares me the most, the idea that these outbursts and resolutions will be effecting my personality in some way in the long term and I'll internalize the abuse and come out the other end with a wonky way of dealing with other people. Of course every time an individual outburst happens it's not nice in of itself, too. Glad you got it sorted out anyway man.
>You give too much fucks
>He will man up eventually, stop showing him that he is the victim in the family, you are just fueling his pussiness.
Yeah. As it currently stands my mother wants me to go downstairs and shake his hand and "everything will be ok". Which is good, but it doesn't undo the outburst. I feel rightly wronged. I won't get an apology, and he won't come up and offer to shake my hand. As usual I have to be the initiator, and it just doesn't feel right. I doubt my mother told him about his anger or I would have heard shouting and general denial from downstairs. She has probably pinned most of it on my brother and made out like I am very sorry for how I behaved and it won't happen again etc.
>walk on eggshells all your life
It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't get offended at *perceived* slights. For example, not acting in a "proper" way. Very difficult to deal with and my mum says she just learned to cope and "he's always been this way". The blaming it on me is the icing on the cake.
>maybe even become violent - btw, that's what I personally would consider the most caring thing you can do to your parents
He won't do this as he knows that's an instant high-ground destroyer. He's very old fashioned and doesn't believe in mental health issues and by extension emotional abuse. He feels entitled to the anger.
>>17182153
>He's very old fashioned and doesn't believe in mental health issues and by extension emotional abuse. He feels entitled to the anger.
Feel like baiting him? Because if you stay, you WILL have to bait him - that means, you'll act like a sane person that hasn't been groomed to accept his behaviour, and he'll think you're baiting him.
Moving out and cutting contact would be easier. Or you could keep on keeping on, and nothing will ever change.
>>17182197
>Because if you stay, you WILL have to bait him - that means, you'll act like a sane person that hasn't been groomed to accept his behaviour, and he'll think you're baiting him.
True, my strategy is usually ignore his outburst and suppress feelings about it, but I find it hard to be "like nothing happened" immediately after, like how he acted was not OK. Then I'm the bad guy again in my mothers eyes for "prolonging it" because it's "all sorted now, everything is OK, what's the matter?" and he'll say "I'm being ignored in my own house" and threaten to move out because he "can't stand it any more" which causes my mother to go hysterical. He's incapable of being held accountable for his sensitivity and anger, that is the cardinal sin, for which the roof flies off. So I am stuck in a Catch-22, as I am today, with everything supposedly hunky-dory but me left feeling like something isn't right about what just happened.
>Moving out and cutting contact would be easier.
Yeah. You are probably right.
Bamp.
