strategic ways to talk to abuser?

[iamalreadydead]

i live with my abusive parents and am currently trying to leave, in the meantime i'm in a situation where my dad is expecting me to interact with him regularly and is trying to force me to develop a relationship with him. he thinks I am planning to live here another few years and says that as long as i live with him this is what I have to do, he's holding shelter over my head essentially and I have to be friendly, speak to him, be near him etc in order to have access to my bedroom.

They're going on vacation this week and he's offering to get me some food for the week while they're gone. I thought my mom, my "safe" parent, was gonna take me but because she is also adamant about me and my dad having a relationship again, she suggested that he take me, and I'm dreading the car trip. I do not know how to talk to this man.

He is violent, hates me having any form of autonomy, is openly disgusted with me and my looks and my expression of self and mentions it every single time we interact. Everything that comes out of his mouth is said with the intent to put me down, and if I try saying anything against it or even remotely in disagreement he threatens violence and if i don't relent, will follow through on the threats. I am also extremely uncomfortable with being physically near him. Is there anyway for me to talk to him at all without triggering him AND myself? or is this just one of those things that I can't avoid? Placating him seems like the one thing to do but I get so frustrated and it feels like a self-betrayal when I have to sit there and just take it. this is mostly a vent and if there are no solutions then I understand and it's fine. thank you for listening regardless

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. The only thing I can think of is to try to steer the conversation onto small talk. Do you know what his interests are? Try and get him talking about something he enjoys and hopefully, he'll focus less on you. Even if it isn't interesting to you, that's got to be better than being abused.

People quite often like talking about themselves. What were his schooldays like? Did he always know what he wanted to do as a career? Did he have some firms he prefered to work for than others? Asking questions about his life will make it seem like you're interested in him- which I guess is what he's hoping for. Even if you're not, it might work as a tactic to deflect attention off of you. I hope it goes better than you hope.

 

[quietism]

Sounds like nightmare fuel to me.. yeah. Very scary.

He is violent, hates me having any form of autonomy, is openly disgusted with me and my looks and my expression of self and mentions it every single time we interact. Everything that comes out of his mouth is said with the intent to put me down, and if I try saying anything against it or even remotely in disagreement he threatens violence and if i don't relent, will follow through on the threats. I am also extremely uncomfortable with being physically near him.

I wonder how your mom would respond if you explained that to her. Is he gonna beat you up if you're honest, and just say, "I want nothing to do with this person", and just ignore them on the trip? Reading a good book or something. I don't think I could handle the self deprecation involved in placating someone so cruel.

 

[Whale_bones]

It's an awful thing to have to sit there and hear horrible things said to you without being able to stand up for yourself. One tactic I used with my abusive parents was counting words. Especially if they go on long rants against you, just counting their words takes up mental focus and makes their insults fade Into the background.

Do your best to prepare yourself beforehand, tell yourself that he's likely going to insult you and his words aren't the truth, they aren't who you are. Put up a shield and plan to self-soothe and comfort yourself afterwards. If you have supportive friends, plan chats with them before and after so you can have those reminders of your good qualities.

These are basically survival tactics to lower the impact, but abuse inevitably takes a toll over time and the main goal is always to get free of it. But while you're stuck with it, sometimes these little things can get you through the moment.

 

[Oublivien]

I used to have the same or similar situation. It was like being in the car with a monster. I don't completely remember methods to subvert in the situation.

His primary goal was to establish power over me I think. It's likely some personal thing with a long history behind the issue, but that's not important. The two methods he would use would be intentionally restricting as much freedom as possible (for no reason, which was the best reason for him), and trying to bait me into getting angry so that he could reestablish his ego with violence. A method people like him use would be to give hope, and then smush it.

I'll admit, after 30 minutes of being in a car with him and playing super-carefully and defensively the entire time while also not showing any anger, I'm guaranteed to get a headache.

A defensive thing you could do is to try not to let them know what is important to you. They'll likely try to probe and find things important to you, and leverage those against you (whether it be making your life miserable, or anger-baiting again). It's not realistic to be not interested in anything though, so sometimes I'd pretend to value something minimally valuable to me so that he'd only destroy those, and hopefully not realize what was actually important to me.
When he does finally target the things I don't care about, I'd practice pretending to be distraught (I'd put on my "I'm trying not to look mad rn" face with clenched jaw etc, superb acting skills). A good way to make it believable is to pretend you don't notice him looking at you through the overhead car mirror. I'd also divert my eyes whenever I'm "angry".

A more proactive thing, would be to try to dull any sentences or conversations. The two methods were to be mundane, or awkward.
By having seriously lackluster or just not completely on-topic responses, you can make it unappealing for the other person to hold extended conversations with you too (obviously be careful and don't take it too far otherwise it'll revert back to the violence path), which is good because as they get tired or bored, hopefully your side becomes easier.
By intentionally redirecting conversations to be awkward, you can interrupt their train of thought, while also not obviously cutting them off (hopefully it's not obvious). Some things I'd do would be taking just a little too long to respond (ideally long enough for them to wonder if you're gonna respond or not, but just before they ask you why you're not saying anything). I'd also start to say something just as they started to say something, and then quickly stop talking after like 0.1-0.3 seconds as if realizing my mistake (or immediately after they stop talking). This one is especially good because it can seriously interrupt their train of thought, but it's also risky if timed incorrectly because they might get annoyed, and you'd have to be careful of the violence route again.

I've tried just being completely silent before and only focusing on not getting frustrated, but it's not ideal because it takes a lot of mental effort regardless, and your silence might frustrate them into taking away more freedom or choosing violence. One of the most important things in these long draining "conversations" is to try to retain as much mental power as possible (the goal is to not get mind burnt while getting slandered, and also not drain yourself trying to be 100% safely defensive). More importantly, when you're trying methods for the first time, be careful because while these helped for me, they could antagonize him unexpectedly. And meanwhile, if you think you're gonna have to deal with it for a long time, taking note of what works and what doesn't is beneficial; experience is probably one of the best counters to getting annoyed. After maybe 3 years, I got better at predicting what kind of response he would give (probe, sarcastic/belittling comment, direct insult, threat, and violence). When I knew what was coming, it sometimes softened the slander a little (not much), and after having it happen enough times, I started to figure out what keywords or topics to avoid. Anyways, now I completely ignore this dude. As an update I guess. He still acts like a child from time to time.

Overall, the most important things to emphasize are "divert", and "without him knowing/realizing it". If I remember anything else and anyone thinks this is useful I could add later.