Venting Bad Dads club. How did your parents mess you up?

[highlyvolatile]

My mom struggled with schizophrenia so i dont blame her for anything. Other than that she was really loving and kind.

My dad on the other hand? Fuck him. He is money obsessed, status obsessed, and just not a good person to me at all. He has never been a real father. Has always been in and out of my life for years. He's been married now 6 times. He doesnt listen. Supposedly abused me and my mom (I was really youmg have no way of confirming it and i cant ask mom anymore). He is manipulative and money is his only concern. He has tried to guilt trip my siblings and I plenty of times and I hate that I'm his child. He makes like he has all this money but always asks us to pay for ourselves. He talks about us to make himself look good. He doesnt want to help my sister get through school but fronts like he cares so much and does so much but all he does is barely pay child support and barely be there. He never calls to check on us and only because i am depressed he only enters this room when he is in this house. Otherwise? radio silence. He is a terrible father and probably was a terrible husband otherwise he wouldnt have been divorced so many damn times. What makea things worse is he cant even see why the women left him. He asked why didnt he get the chance to be a father. If youre forcing people to sign papers they didnt read and abusing them of course they'd leave you, dumbass. I'm done talking about him but i probably have a lot of issues i didnt talk about here because of him.

 

[TheLastSacrifice]

Is it bad that the last memory I have of my dad passing out in grief as the cops hauled me off brought me a huge sense of satisfaction?

 

[Vertigo]

when dad heard about my depression through my mother, he called me in the phone and yelled at me for not telling him first, told me HE's the one that should see a professional cause he's going thru more shit than me, listed all the things that are wrong with me, and literally told me to go fuck myself.

 

[ghostspace]

Is it bad that the last memory I have of my dad passing out in grief as the cops hauled me off brought me a huge sense of satisfaction?

nope

or at least, I'd feel the same

 

[Deathwish777]

when dad heard about my depression through my mother, he called me in the phone and yelled at me for not telling him first, told me HE's the one that should see a professional cause he's going thru more shit than me, listed all the things that are wrong with me, and literally told me to go fuck myself.

when dad heard about my depression through my mother, he called me in the phone and yelled at me for not telling him first, told me HE's the one that should see a professional cause he's going thru more shit than me, listed all the things that are wrong with me, and literally told me to go fuck myself.

Ouch... you must be really upset after talking to your dad. My father also react like this to people have depression so I don't even bother talking to him about my depression. People who didn't go through hard time from depression, they never understand. I hope you are feeling better.
Feel free to dm me anytime.

 

[Abused and Suicidal]

My mother has narcissistic personality disorder. She's manipulative and abusive both physically and emotionally. She also doesn't accept the fact that I have Bipolar 2 and says it's "just a phase" even though it's been going on for five years and I am officially diagnosed. Therefore, she refuses to get me treatment.

My dad turns a blind eye to my mother's toxic behaviour and pretends as though nothing is wrong.

However, they both seem like the perfect parents in public so whenever I try to expose them, people think I'm lying.

 

[Anon2662]

I grew up in a happy household. Mum, dad, little sister came along, two sets of grandparents... but then mum and dad split up cus he cheated and mum told me that he isn't actually my dad. She then told me to pick the phone up (he kept ringing because she told me when they were in the middle of arguing over the phone) and tell him to piss off.. so I did. I was 11 at this point.. fucked up thing is that when she told me, my reaction was to fake laugh and say I was glad. I didn't want to hurt her feelings.. didn't see him or his mum and dad again after that, but my sister who is his child continued to go for 3-6 week breaks abroad with him (he lived in Germany due to being in the army)... she doesn't see him anymore..
I don't hold any resentment to my mum about it any more at all.. would be nice if she'd help me find my real father but I've given up on that and figure there must be a reason why she doesn't want to talk about it.. I can't say she's a bad mum though because she really isn't! Just left me hella confused during teenage years..

 

[Ksab]

Dad died early, and I do not want to mention my mom, she cares for me at the same time antagonizes me everyday.
In short, I shouldn't blame someone other than me, who is a trash. Now I just want to die.

 

[TStorm]

Oh lots of ways. My dad hurt me a lot physically and mentally. He always called me lazy. He would beat me and so worse things. Then he would cry about how his dad did bad things to his sisters and he wants to break the cycle. Well you didn't, did you? Anyway after my first attempt to ctb failed, I ran away from home and went to live with my boyfriend. And then he tried to kill himself and blamed it on me. Since me leaving made him so sad. Oh, so you had no one to abuse anymore? Cry me a river. Anyway he was in the hospital for a long time after his attempt. Then he got to go home. I remember it because it was just a few days after I started college. And then he just died. Heart failure was what the autopsy said. I was kinda upset. A bunch of other things were going wrong at that time. So I ended up dropping out of college cause I could hardly get out of bed.

 

[Remember to forget]

Shit, some of these stories are just so sad. My thought are with you all
My mum pissed off when I was 14, left me to pick up the pieces of my shattered dad.
I cooked, cleaned and was pretty much took over trying to look after my brothers.
She hit us, pushed my brother down the stairs, manipulated, lied and was all in all an awful violent person.
I tried to forgive her but hey, you only have so many chances in life and hers ran out.

 

[BridgeJumper]

My mother is a raging alcoholic and narcissist in denial. She yells at me, calls me a dirty drug addict and sometimes hits me. The final thing that pushed me to jump was when I was really depressed and just wanted her to hug me, and she pushed me away and told me to gtfo
I hope she dies a painful death
My dad is okay. Sometimes hes a little short tempered but otherwise very supportive. He replaces friends for me, cause no one ever talks to a suicidal freak like me.

 

[Sad_Autistic_boy_101]

My real dad hurt me physically but denied that and turned everyone against me. I told my mum but she accused me of being a liar and told me that if it did happen then I deserved it but she said I was trying to break up the family. The person who I went to who acted like a father figure, killed himself so I am on my own again.

 

[Starseedchip]

My biological parents were the worst people. My father was a mentally ill, abusive, pedophile, pimp, and eventual murdere. My mother was a mentally ill addict and prostitute who had me as a teenager. I think they fucked me up genetically and I was neglected and eventually taken away by cps. My foster mother was abusive towards me and so I have that trauma. Then my adoptive mother is an emotionally unstable, religious, controlling, and narcissitic. She never bothered to get me help for my trauma, instead acting as if her adopting a damaged child caused HER trauma. My life has suffered greatly because of the decisions she made for me. Ever since birth my emotions and needs were never thought of. No matter who I was taken care of by ended up damaging me. Photos of me from as young as 3 years old show how deeply unhappy I have always been. Its so saddening to see myself as a 3 year old with a permanent frown and unhappy eyes. I feel as if it was my destiny to be this way.

 

[I’mDone]

My "father" was emotionally, verbally, mentally, and financially abusive. Everything I did on my own and did "well" in/with, he'd make it about him and would go around to others as if I was some form of award-winning trophy to him. Then behind closed doors he was an abusive and manipulative deadbeat. Ughh.. I could go on for days

My father was all that, as well as being viciously, brutally violent. I've suffered cPTSD all my life. I feel your pain.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Apologies for the wall of text. I've never talked about my dad like this. It doesn't fit in a paragraph.

My dad has social anxiety, he doesn't really know how to connect, so he was there and he could be a lot of fun, but he never emotionally showed up for me. My mother beat me until I was 17, and one more time when I was 18. If I complained or criticized about it, even into adulthood, my dad would get angry and snap that it wasn't that bad, to get over it. That last time when I was 18 and told him I almost hit her back, he yelled at me to never hit her back, she had every right to hit me.

He was in law enforcement. I always felt like he protected a city, but not me.

From 16-18, I was constantly being kicked out by my mother or running away because she was physically and verbally abusive as well as super controlling, and I ended up in a lot of bad situations because I was so vulnerable. As a cop, he knew even better than I how vulnerable I was, but I was to blame for everything. There was a girl who looked similar to me who was murdered and he had to view the body, broke down and cried when it wasn't me, and my parents seriously guilt-tripped me for that.

Every four years or so in my adulthood, my mom and I would get into huge fights because she was so ridiculously controlling, and interfering, and we'd go for months at a time without speaking. When we'd make up, he would take a lot longer to warm up to me. The last time I saw them, nine years ago, prior to the events that caused the current estrangement, I had moved to another state. They would never come visit me because my mother held a grudge that I'd moved away, even though I hated the state we lived in and wanted new opportunities. I came home to visit a couple of times, and then the last time I had plans to come home for Christmas and was paying for my own plane ticket and rental car (they would never let me borrow a car). I told my mother that while I was there I was going to spend a couple of nights with my best friend, who she'd always disliked. She had a fit and told me that if I did, I couldn't come home for the holiday, so I spent it with my friend's family instead. Toward the end of the trip, I went to their house and we had a talk in the living room, I sat near my dad on the loveseat, he wouldn't look at me. I cried and told them I'd spent my whole life being afraid that one day I could do something they didn't like and they'd never speak to me again, and I couldn't live like that anymore. I leaned against him, took his arm and put it around me, and he refused to engage, just sat there.

He is not an alpha, my mom is. But he always hated when she or I would stand up to authority. He hated me not accepting her control and abuse, or others'. He hated when I'd stand up for myself and question bad authority. She got some of that crap from him, too, though not often. Once, before I moved, she was in the hospital and in the evening told me on the phone she was suffering and none of the staff would help, and my dad didn't do anything. So I called her doctor's night service, and the doctor immediately intervened. My dad was livid with me, and at the same time was beating himself up for not being enough of a man.

He's just impossible to get close to or to rationalize with. He now hates me because I finally asked them to take responsibility for physical issues and PTSD caused by the abuse, and for standing up to my mother when I caught her publicly claiming on FB that she and I still had loving a relationship when four years earlier they are the ones who had chosen the estrangement because of my "blame games."

I don't have nearly the strong hate or love for my dad that I did for my mom. I feel sorry for him, but pity gets in the way of seeing that he was not only incapable, but passively abusive and shitty. I feel sorry for both of them that they had abusive parents but bought into the stories that they had good childhoods; I broke that cycle, too, along with the cycles of control and abuse, and that just isn't allowed with them. It's infuriating and sad and hopeless. But the past couple of years I've finally stopped pitying him and I feel some serious anger, impotence and resentment. Those are actually signs of healing and strength, as well as no longer buying into gaslighting that it wasn't that bad and to just get over it.

I'm adopted. They wanted to give a child a good life. There was a lot of good in my childhood, but not enough to override the abuse, control and gaslighting. I no longer make any decisions based on how they might be impacted. But I'm still not completely emotionally free of them, I just have healthy boundaries. If they aren't willing to own their shit and do the hard work of reconciliation, they aren't emotionally safe to have in my life. I'm 49 and I still have mild flashbacks. I can't just get over it.

 

[win32]

Most of my life has basically been this quarantine. Forcibly isolated. So I spent most of my time on my computer, while they tried to closely monitor me and control what I see and know (extreme Christian puritanism). Little do they know to this day that they were entirely unsuccessful.

 

[Hhhhhh]

my mom is a super genius academic who would verbally abuse me and my brother. My dad had alcoholism and major depression. He would mentally and physically abuse me sometimes. He also neglected me and my brother a lot. Neither of them let me be a kid when I needed to be and constantly yelled at me and dumped their own problems on me. I had to take care of my dad when he was depressed and he constantly used me for emotional support. my mom would always get really angry and get even angrier when it scared me. both of them said i was over dramatic and immature even though i was probably more mature than both of them. i never blamed them for what they did but when i asked to do therapy with my mom she flipped out and kicked me out of the house so i became homeless. she said it was for her own mental safety which i find disgusting nowadays seeing how i always did what i was told. i want to forgive them like i used to but i honestly cant anymore. they treated me like trash