Vent and feeling negative for a while since my dad's talk around 2 nights ago
Vent: My dad is 65 years old and day by day, his mental process of thinking and comprehending is decreasing, more easily irritated and it would only get worse as he grows older. For example, he sometimes forget that he had already heated up the water for my shower and that I already showered, so he would heat up the water again and tell me to take a bath to which I had to after reminding him because saying no would anger him, plus, the already boiled water would be a waste. One day, my dad was asking me whether if I want <Meal A> or <Meal B> from a fast food restaurant we occasionally order from, so I answered with <Meal A> and said to him that <Meal A> has more meat than <Meal B> (with the purpose to give him an analytical information of which one is better to me). My dad replied "So which one you want!?" to which I answered with "<Meal A>" and then he said "Why did you have to say such nonsense?!" and he was in a bad mood for the whole day and waited for my mom to come back home because he planned to use her as an emotional punching bag (I believe what I said about <Meal A> having more meat is an analytical information and the intent is easily comprehensible, is it not? Am I wrong?). A meal is never delicious when I'm experiencing negative emotions such as anger or sadness, that have been internally experienced many times, but I still have to eat and finish the meal, otherwise, my dad will get more angry. I still remember which areas he smack me at, the most is the back of my neck, I keep feeling the urge to tear off the skin of that place to remove the emotional 'mark'.
I don't even trust his praises anymore because one time on a day which I still remember clearly, I helped to give him a drink, the amount is a half cup of water, I wasn't certain if the measure of the half cup of water I gave is correct or not, but he did a hum of approval and said "Good" when he saw the contents of the cup, so I ingrained that moment in my mind in order to remember that same amount to be correct and not be scolded for forgetting. But three days after, when I did the same amount, he scolded, angrily remarking and whining that "It's little" and then I argued back, saying that this is the amount I remembered that he said was good to which he answered "Ah, maybe I said that to save your face!" (to clarify it means that "He maybe did not want me feel shame at that time"), this made me feel resentful and anger due to feeling that my attempt to remember what was 'correct' from his seemingly approval was a lie, but at same time worthless especially when I heard him whispering "stupid" and when he said "I've learned something. I don't need your help anymore. I do it myself because you're stupid."
My Dad's Talk: Around 2 nights ago, he was
talking about how a <specific nation> is superior, being smarter
and hard-working than others which holds truth because that nation have
commendable achievements. (For confidential reasons, I won't reveal what
is that specific nation, but I'll highlight it as <specific
nation>). I am a half-blood of a nation from my mom's blood which
what he calls a <stupid, 3rd-level nation> and <specific
nation> from my dad's blood. But the traits of the <stupid,
3rd-level nation> is more dominant in my personality. After he
finished talking about the <specific nation>, he then talks about
the future of the <stupid, 3rd-level nation>, how the people
future will become barbarians due to the management and the corruption
and that there's no future for it, calling the people to be useless with
low IQ which made feel me depressed because I view that since I have
the blood and traits, that he constantly points out, of the <stupid,
3rd-level nation>, I'll also be stupid and useless as well, I have no
future nor will I achieve improvement especially with my clumsiness and
the amount of mistakes I have. I simply sit and quietly listen to him,
not doing anything else since to show I'm paying attention and don't
want to be rude despite his topic affecting me negatively which is
ironic since sometimes when I'M the one who talks about negative topics
that I find interesting, he yelled at me to "SHUT UP!" which emotionally
hurts me a lot. He gets to show his negative emotions as much as he
wants while I'm not allowed to express my emotions at all like when I
cry, he tells me "to stop crying, I don't like that." with no comfort
such as hugs. My mom is more better in emotional support than him.
"Failure is the mother of success" Is what I seen constantly online, what my father said once and it seems to be the truth. But how can I accept my mistakes with ease when my father's attitude towards my mistakes is like he's condemning me, making angry shouts and whines with that negative expression of his and calls me insults, saying swear words in his native language?
I have a language exchange partner, and to me, I love how she tries to understand my psychology, my interests, being a listener and lets me talk what I feel like talking about which my dad lacks. The problem is that it's possible she may be a spy or a manipulator. Oh... But I wish I would have a genuine friend like that who isn't a manipulator...I feel scared, maybe anxious whenever my dad is in a very bad mood and if he's constantly irritated, and we stay together everyday 24/7. I feel it's the wrong time to leave him, and I think the best time to leave is after he passed away from old age which is still a long time. My mom goes to work everyday except her day offs, I'm not allowed to go out at all if my dad don't permit it. I always seemed to have something negative to say about my dad every month. I don't have much people to talk to online, most of my language exchange partners seems to like casual things and doesn't have the tolerance to handle my negative moments. Fortunately, I don't get triggered as much as I did compared to the time when my dad started to have physical balance issues, but I would go into an impulsive outburst from time to time, it's rare, but it's still possible.
@SilencedConstrained Thank you for opening up about your struggles, with your dad. Racism is a hard thing to un-teach and even harder to break free from, for some. It sounds to me like, your dad is set in his ways and teachings. Can your mom, maybe do some educating on her culture at all? What I am thinking here, is your dad lacks a cultural understanding, of what your mom's culture is and is not. So maybe some educating is needed here.
@calmMango9611 Thank you for your response. My dad has stayed in the <stupid, 3rd level nation> for around or more than 19 years and have full experience on how to deal with the local people and to avoid their swindle. In <stupid, 3rd level nation>, there are indeed many encounters with the local people swindling others to the point that it's a part of a kind of street smarts to know in the country and have occasional news of thievery and crimes, it's not exactly a very orderly environment, so as the results, my dad is influenced and affected by the negative environment of the nation (He already started to discreetly steal things from markets if he feels if it's important just like the local people in poverty).
I think it's more of that he lacks open-mindedness or acceptance towards flaws and weaknesses rather than education. In what I perceived to be a fact, my dad's birthplace <Specific Nation>, is more efficient, quick, serious, and hard-working, the people don't pull out excuses to avoid work, and as the results, has good economics. So, <stupid, 3rd level nation>, where the people pull out excuses to avoid work, deceitful, swindle, slow to do and process things, not as hard-working as his birthplace, having poor economics as the results, inevitably fails to meet his standards of his birthplace that he knows, grew up with and used to it.
A possible way is to move into a better, efficient and positive environment so that my dad will get affected by it, feel more satisfied and the results will be that he'll become less irritable and his chances of grumpiness is lessened which would be much more better than him being constantly triggered nearly everyday. However, my family don't have enough funds to support moving into a better place. So, I'm staying with him for as long as he lives. I don't know about how other people would view this situation as if they were in my place (probably ran away by now), but to me, I see this as an emotionally painful process of practicing my tolerance, patience and to hold my temper. I think it's going to be beneficial for the future of when I meet people way more worse than my dad (Assuming I don't completely snap at my dad and do something harmfully harsh by that time).
@SilencedConstrained I wish you all the best of luck. I hope things get a bit better for you.
Thank you so much for sharing your struggles. I greatly appreciate you sharing your struggles with your father. I am in a caregiving situation with my father, similar to yours and can relate to things you shared in gour post.
I'm very sorry to hear you're dealing with an emotionally hurtful family member in the figure of your father. In your post you also mentioned that at times there is a degree of physical abuse that happens as well. I understand why you might be confused about what to do, because bonds and attachments with our family members can be strong, even when the relationships themselves are toxic. But it seems like this relationship with your father is rather overtly negative, to the point you wrote you regard it as a test of personal endurance and strength of character to stick around it. Is that sustainable, and is there any good for you in having to be subject to this dynamic all the time? Just to go by what you've already written and what your past experiences suggest, it will likely lower your confidence and sense of self-worth to be around someone who persistently puts you down, both directly and indirectly, through their comments and actions. And you deserve to feel safe and loved around the people you care about. Instead in a different circumstance you could potentially be building yourself up, rather than watching that be knocked down by others. I would bring forward the suggestion that maybe you should begin to consider leaving that environment or asserting personal independence from your father, if you can. Keep in mind you know the situation better than anyone on here does and should exercise judgment.
@Jigaram thank you very much for your post. (It's feels quite touching in being told that I deserved to feel safe due to feeling I'm a parasite in the world).
I'll
admit that I don't exactly have much confidence that it's sustainable. I
think the only good thing in being subjected to the dynamic with my
dad is that I'll learn who to not be with in the future.
However, one of my hesitations to leave the environment and my dad stems
from my dread that if I
ever failed in handling my own life, becoming worse and not improving after leaving him, the fabricated
voice of my father in my head will be mocking me with "See? You didn't
follow me and look where it got you. You should have followed me.", I think I would be
filled with
anger in that outcome especially how that imaginary reaction of his is
very possible. Asserting independence would most likely end up being a
temporary fix since due to his recent
forgetfulness, he would forgot about such a thing and about having a
more tolerable attitude. It's something that would angered him in the process and wouldn't work out given his
mindset that he's the leader of the house, that I should follow him,
and I'm completely in the wrong when I go into an outburst from losing
my control and patience with him. It seems to me that he lacks
self-control with his attitude nowadays, the only time of peace and
solitude I have is when I stayed up late at night on the computer to
read, study, and watch movies.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your suggestions (Or maybe I've already gone delirious that I assumed it's thoughtfulness) I will keep in mind about exercising judgement. Thank you again!
You are very welcome. And I wish one day you feel the truth that you are worthy of a wonderful life, that the essence of who you are is good, and that you have a lot to offer this world.
I also have to clarify that when I said assert independence, I didn't mean to suggest creating conflict or getting angry. I apologize for not being clear or explaining what I meant. I really meant avoiding interaction with him when possible and emotionally disconnecting, recognizing you can't change him and can give up trying to, and bringing your focus back to yourself. But like I said, you probably know your situation best to know if that could help much. It seems due to your close proximity with him, you are necessarily around him a lot while you live there, so that may or may not help your situation significantly.
I think the fact you are afraid you have already internalized his bullying voice shows the ongoing negative effects of this arrangement on you. That type of internalized critical voice can be treated with therapy and may improve simply by not being continually verbally abused anymore. That is what verbal abuse does - its purpose is to make you feel worthless, incapable, and insignificant. Would you have lacked confidence in your ability to manage life on your own without someone telling you that you couldn't do it? Is the worst thing that can happen if you leave the possibility of dealing with your father's negative judgments in your head? Because it seems that staying there, you will have to continue to deal with them in realtime in person, which is what created that problem in the first place.
However I shared suggestions about leaving sooner or later assuming you were an adult and would be able to consider achieving independence from family. Again I should mention I'm not a professional, so don't take everything I say as authority.. I just hoped to share something of value to you. Are you able to see a therapist? In your country, there may also be a mental health hotline that you could call to allow you to talk to someone who is more knowledgable about these situations and has some actual training.
My father is also going through similar issues (poor memory, whenever I call for his attention he reacts by shouting angrily, possibly lying about trivial things like if he tried a dish I made him). Your father seems way more abusive however and I strongly recommend you treat him politely and leave it at that and take only a few of his words seriously.
Your father is going senile and I strongly recommend you take control of yourself and what you can do rather then changing him since he sounds incredibly stubborn. If it gets dangerous please get help and I know it's unlikely but try talking him into therapy. If none of these are options and you believe that bringing therapy up will only make the problem worse, I strongly recommend you work on making sure he doesn't get too extreme and end up hurting you or your mother.
However if the situation escalates I strongly suggest seeking guidance from professionals and working towards being independent if staying with your father becomes overwhelming or if you already are separate then to cease contact when you are sure he won't improve.
I know I sound tough but I don't fully know the depth of your relationship to your father. There are also many alarming signs the fact that he shouts angrily and he may be mistreating your mother. I hope that your situation improves and you are able to handle your father's mannerisms without any harm to you and your mother. Please don't be afraid to post again.
-SunnyLake