Hi reddit! I need help after a disgusting display of anger by my dad this morning.
Some background: I came home from my first year of university a couple of weeks ago. I crushed it in all of my classes, found the perfect major for me (physics), and have created an exceptional social network on my college campus for myself. I got into a fantastic competitive summer research program in physics called an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) funded by the National Science Foundation, and will be paid $5k for doing research over the summer (as a freshman!), as well as have my room & board paid, on top of travel accommodations being taken care of. I leave for it this weekend. I'm really excited, but my dad is bummed about me not being home for the summer. On top of all of this, the medical group he works for (he's an M.D.) is going through massive legal issues between the company that bought his group, and the hospital system that his group works for. He finally took a job a couple of states away (the majority of the other docs in the group are also leaving), so now my family is moving elsewhere. My mom (50F) is an attorney and was supposedly going to gain official partnership at her firm (which she has definitely earned), but is now being torn away from the firm and is emotionally shattered as a result (although she was offered multiple jobs in the city they are now moving to). I have a younger sister (16F) who is pissed off about having to move in the middle of high school, and thinks the move is purely to spite her. My dad's mother (who lives halfway across the country) has severe Alzheimer's, and can no longer walk, talk, or eat by herself, on top of screaming/biting/punching all of her caregivers. He is her beneficiary because he has a shrewd brother who keeps attempting to steal from his mother. It's safe to say that he is very, very stressed.
It should also be noted that both of my parents are first generation Americans. My dad is Greek, and his father was an....exceptionally physically and emotionally abusive asshole. My dad was beaten daily for the first 18 years of his life by both my grandfather and my dad's brother. He was screamed at constantly. He grew up extremely poor in an urban area of Chicago, and was raised in an 700 sq. ft house. My dad had to get his first job at the age of 12 in order to help support his family, and was working 2 different jobs at the age of 16, because my grandfather lost his job. It's no secret that my grandfather had SEVERE anger issues, and my father inherited his temperament, as well as was molded by it. After he moved in with my mom once they were engaged, it took him over 3 years to realize that he was constantly screaming all of the time for no reason. He has been working on it for as long as I've been alive, but has still always been way angrier than a "typical" dad. I've grown accustomed to it, but have unfortunately also inherited this extreme anger. I'm only 18 and will likely need to start anger management therapy soon. My dad has never laid a finger on me, and his anger is purely verbal.
Most of the time, my dad and I are great. He's one of my best friends. But once a switch flips...he just loses it. We both grew closer but became more angry with one another once we started training brazilian jiu jitsu together 4 years ago. I used to have my own car but got into a wreck a couple of years ago (when I was 16) and didn't have my own car for about a year and a half. Over the most recent winter break, my dad bought me a new car (2018 civic Si sedan), and taught me how to drive stick. I only learned how to drive stick for about two weeks before I left for university again. I would come visit on the weekends occasionally during the semester and the last thing I would want to do was drive around for hours after already driving/riding back a couple of hours from my university (we can't have cars on campus so my parents would have to pick me up, or I'd get a ride back). I also psyched myself out about driving stick a little bit, but recently started driving it again. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I kick ass at it- the Si has an awesome transmission, which of course makes it much easier. The only thing I need to work on is how to park it (as I have yet to really practice this). I keep planning on trying to take my car out at night so I can go to an empty parking lot and fine-tune the parking. My dad takes my car to work every day so it’s not like I can drive it during the day anyway. This greatly pisses my parents off - I love my car, but I can ONLY drive it after he gets home from work, and he never leaves it home for me during the day despite me asking him to do so (he could take another car). Even then, whenever I COULD drive it, it’s always very late at night, and I’m either exhausted from having driven for hours that day already (we have two dogs and our house is on the market), or I have plans to do something that night.
Also note that my parents are both very much so on edge, and it is taken out on me constantly. They have made fun of me for every little thing for my entire life, and even though I'm really mentally/emotionally strong, it's really eaten away at me (because everyone has done it to me for 18 years). As a result, when they have a specific condescending or rude tone in their voice, I get defensive because I'm so used to being attacked consistently. Let me make it VERY clear that I am only like this around my family, and I think that they are my anger triggers. I am never this way to my friends and accomplices.
The incident this morning:
My dad and I were joking around all morning, watching TV (he's on call tonight at the hospital). He decides to call my mom at around 11 and suddenly he starts talking about me driving my car. He comes in a few minutes later, after the phone call, and just starts LOSING it for no reason. Has this super heated tone and starts talking down to me and saying stuff such as “you’re gonna take your fucking car and go pick up your aunt and uncle. This is fucking ridiculous. What the fuck...” etc., even though I had been planning to take my car tonight for the past couple of days (I couldn’t previously because of certain events that were in our town this weekend). I told him that doesn’t make any sense because I drove it last week just fine, and I was going to take it tonight anyway, and it’s a horrible time to go learn how to park it in the middle of lunch rush hour. No parking lots would be open. I said this WITHOUT any attitude in my voice, as I was trying to reason with him before he was set off. Then he starts going on and on and randomly goes off about my attitude, is walking around huffing and puffing, starting to lose it. He started screaming at me “YOU’RE ABOUT TO LEARN HOW TO FUCKING PARK, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK. YOUR ATTITUDE NEEDS TO CHANGE...” and keeps going on and on, despite me not egging him on at all. He just kept getting more and more angry even though I wasn’t saying anything.
He starts SCREAMING at the top of his lungs now, all of his muscles are tense. He starts screaming at me about how he isn’t going to let me do the REU (which he can't legally do, as I'm 18), how I’ll never drive another car ever again, and just keeps going on....and on....and on. I go upstairs after a couple of seconds of silence in order to go get dressed to go pick up my aunt and uncle, who needed to be picked up an hour earlier than planned. I come back downstairs to get my car’s keys, and he storms across the kitchen, and keeps screaming at the top of his lungs inches from my face. I tell him that I’m about to drive my car and pick them up right now. He gets extremely pissed and rips the keys out of my hand, and slams the drawer that I got the keys out of. He gets even closer to me and keeps screaming and screaming and I finally had enough, so I turned around. He said “get the fuck out of my house” (I still hadn’t said anything except that I was taking my car to pick them up...), I started walking off, really angrily, and I open the door. He screams “DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING SLAM THAT DOOR!” and I took off through the garage, walking through the neighborhood for several blocks with tears streaming down my face. I’m exceptionally hard to break, and these were tears of pure anger.
He drove by about 15 minutes later (deep into the neighborhood) to pick me up in my car. He says “you need to come back right now” so I said “you should’ve thought about that before you started screaming at me.” He floors my car and drives off, and screamed “FUCK YOU!” through the window.
He turns around and comes back on my side of the road and says “get the fuck in. Right now.” And starts talking to me about how I set him off and kept giving him attitude about it this morning (false; I didn’t do this once), and that we are “going to have a fucking talk tonight. Got it?”
Reddit, I'm still VERY pissed off about this incident. I am repulsed. It’s taking every ounce of my willpower in order to not retaliate at the same, if not a worse, level and start screaming horrible things that I would never be able to come back from. He's cooled off now, but I'm quietly sitting in my room, typing this up. I'm obviously having a sit down talk with him tonight, and I need advice on how to approach this without losing my temper. Any advice is appreciated. He is clearly slipping into his old angry state again, from before I was born.
TL;DR: Dad has severe anger issues from his childhood that he's worked on during his entire adult life. He is starting to slip back into these anger issues, but I have also inherited the same anger issues. He screamed at me this morning and I ran away for 15 minutes. We are having a sit-down talk tonight, but I don't know how to keep it in control without losing my temper, because I'm really fucking mad.
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