My Dad.


RadicalSabbath's avatar
Let me just rant here:

I've known my dad for about 17 years now. And ever since I knew him, he has this bipolar personality.
One minute he's fine, the next he is not.
My mom and him has been together for 18 years (?). But their marriage isn't as great as it seems.

Whenever he becomes moody, he starts to accuse her of chasing other men wherever she goes somewhere public. Whenever they went to the store together and come home, he would accuse her that she is chasing some other man whom she's never met.
And she works at a job where there are men, also. So, if she happens to come out of the building at the same time with another person, whether it be man or lady, he grows suspicious of whether she is chasing after the lady's husband or the man himself.
He's always been doing this, and it's been getting to the point where I sometimes think that he acts childishly on purpose in order to get us out of the house.

Lately, there has been no month of peace at my house where there hasn't been any arguments started by him. This mood of his has been going on and off, but I don't think it has anything to do with any mental illness. I feel like this is some scheme of his going on.
Then he starts rearranging the furniture in the house and messes everything up, so whenever I come home from school, he tells me to leave it the way it is. The way it is left is a complete mess! Books, clothes, and dirty dishes are left in places they shouldn't be. The windows are left wide open for the whole neighborhood to see. 
Before I asked him why is it like this, he just says, "I'm getting tired of this. Your mom-". Right then and there, I realized that he's just doing it to annoy my mom. He's already picking a fight that he knows he's going to win.

And let me state about his personality: Aggressive, instigating, and sore winner.
Whenever I tell a story to both of my parents, he makes me pause then asks a question that manipulates the story. If I happen to forget what I said earlier and correct myself, he either diagnoses it as a lie or makes me feel guilty of forgetting the story.
I don't think he has any real concern for my friends, either, because of every single thing I've been asked to has to be turned down because I know that his answer (and sometimes my mom's) will be no. But if I am free and don't have anything to do, he still doesn't want to take me. He's been unemployed for a very long time, and all he does is drive my mom to work and my little brother and I to school, that's it. What is there to get tired about?
So I once asked him if I could start driving. He usually says, "See, you forget to see that there are idiots on this road. I don't think you're ready yet." That's the last thing he said when I was 15 years old and doing my online driver's ed course. Now look at today. I'm the only senior who can't drive herself home or anywhere. He does that whenever I'm studying college material, too. I overheard him saying to my mom that I'm not exactly college material.
He has this childish personality. Like my little brother was scared of a cockroach once, so when he said that he didn't want to deal with it using a bug spray, my dad started pushing him as like he was pushing another adult out of anger. My brother ended up coming back into the room, crying and saying that he pushed him onto the floor. His back had hurt after that happened.

Yesterday, he began to rearrange the furniture again, leaving the windows wide open where the whole neighborhood can see what you're doing. Then he told me to leave it the way it is because there's a guy looking through the windows, apparently "looking for my mom." Then he told me to stay out of my room, which is apparently the one with the windows drawn. But he doesn't say a lot whenever I close the curtains.
I can tell when he's up to no good, because he will usually sit down and become unusually quiet or put pictures of sexy women on his computer screen. 
Then he asks my mom if I'm having sex with my classmates at school, which just made me very irritated at that point. Like really? If you're going to drag me into your little escapade? Then while my brother was doing his homework, he told him to erase my name and just put "sister", because he started telling my brother that "I've been hiding whatever my mom has been doing." Really, again? The reason why I closed up all the windows in the house is because I get paranoid of people watching me when I'm minding my own business. Like, no blinds or curtains were preventing a peeper's eye from accessing the house.
He loves to make up stories like these, so I confronted him, and he told me that this has been going on for years and that I don't even know what's going on. 
That statement is true, because I don't really know what went on in the early years of my childhood, but to keep holding on to the past really puts yourself and relationship with your family at a great risk. He doesn't know how to let things go easily and move on. Ever since my early childhood, he has been unemployed, lazy, and just annoying.

I still love my dad, but if his childish behavior keeps going on like this, I'll lose my tolerance and temper.
I usually remind myself that I have to keep studying hard, but this situation affects everyone in the house, too. My mom and brother can no longer do the stuff that they wanted, or be happy about anything, because of the situation that he keeps dragging us into.

Can anyone help me out? I'm a 17 year old  senior, and I'm planning to move out of the house once I graduate and get settled into the college that I get accepted to.
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canttel's avatar
get rid of that mofo. i smell toxic behavior. kick him out before he physicaly hurts someone
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Update (9/21/2015): He started rearranging the furniture again and this time, making remarks about if I change into my clothes, that he better not catch me changing in a room with open windows.
When in the world do people just change in front of open windows?
He was the one who opened the windows in the first place, letting all of the neighbors see what we are doing.

If he keeps this up, I'm going to burst out at the point of calling him a manchild at this point and a freakin' huge brat for all I care. :rage:
TheArtisticPony's avatar
Oh dear Jesus, you're in a worse situation than I've ever been in and I've been through some shit, let me tell you.

In all honesty you're mom needs to eitehr pack up and leave with you guys or get him help. Or both, because that is an unhealthy situation for EVERYONE. You have no idea how much it pisses me off that he is like that, especially since he pushed your little brother (may I ask how old he is?), I swear to God, I want to hug you and take you in and keep you here with me where it's away from him and I would if I could.

My mom has always had problems. She was born premature and that caused sight, hearing, and probably some mental issues, but those were enforced strongly, I think, by her hearing. She's not entirely deaf, she hears some things, but when she hears only part of something she gets the wrong idea somehow and she distorts reality. This led to her being rather bipolar, but not like your dad. She would talk, yell SCREAM to herself about how much she hated EVERYTHING including my brother and I. She was full of hate and even now she isn't always peachy, but it's so so so SO much better than she used to be. June 11 of last year was Hell for my family. It was rock bottom. It was the second, or maybe third, day of therapy with our new counselor. Mom was upset after it because the lady had told mom that we come first. She was pissed becasue she was told her kids mattered more than moving and so did my education and sanity. Mom kept wanting ot move in the middle of highschool, which, as I've heard, is hell as well. She was pissed that day, and yeah I made bad choices by fighting back when I should have just stopped. I'll admit that. She got more pissed and it got worse and worse until it began to get violent. Thankfully we resolved it quickly and no one was hurt but even now thinking about that just hurts. However, two days later was a life changing moment, one that I NEVER EVER thought was going to happen.
    She got medicine. She got help. And a week or so later it was like I had a mom for the first time. We had our first conversation that didn't end with an argument. I can tell her about my day, about my friends, about my LIFE without her getting pissed or thinking someone's out to get her (p.s. shes' EXTREMELY paranoid, nowhere near as bad now but back then, I shit you not, she thought people were out to get her over buying a stick of concealer from the pharmacy. WTF)

Moral of the long frickin' story: Getting her help was not easy.But so so so worth it.
IT took time and a lot of convincing but at some point she just started looking for help herself. It was an utter miracle. (And I didn't even tell you the whole thing. There's the years back when she brought human trash into our house and called him a boyfriend. UGH)

Try getting him help first. Talk to your mom about this and start thinking of things to do. Maybe try talking to your dad about this, tell him he has a problem and tell him how it affects you and the family. If you can't do this verbally, write him a letter. Look up people he can call, put the numbers in the letter. Maybe have everyone in the house write him a letter too.

If needed, forcibly call for help, like if he gets violent.

If all else fails. Leave. You don't need that in your life. You deserve to live happily, not in fear and in hate with him.

I hope this helps in some way. If you need anything, at all, note me. I'm here! *hugs you a thousand times*
RadicalSabbath's avatar
I try discussing things with my dad first and understand what he has been going through in his childhood. It wasn't a happy one, as I can tell.

He is a good guy, but has trouble with self-control with holding to the past, mostly.

Thank you very much. :hug:
TheArtisticPony's avatar
I'm sorry for the late reply, I really hope things have improved since you've replied!

I'm glad I could help in any shape or form! :hug:
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Things are going pretty good. After I confronted him about an issue some months ago, he began to improve and started to voice the way he felt in discussion rather than shouting about it.
There is definitely some communication going on between us, and he started giving me helpful advice about living on my own and college.

Everyone on here, including you, have definitely helped out! I really appreciate it! :happybounce:
TheArtisticPony's avatar
AAAH That makes me so happy! I'm so frickin' proud that you got this all good! Or at least are working on it! :hug: That makes me so happy like AAH!
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Yeah, it shows whenever he's teaching me to drive (Exhausting.) :faint:
I'm glad I managed to speak up. It's this problem I had speaking around older people. Like even if their opinions seem wrong and biased, I can't say anything because I can predict what their actions/words will be done next.

Thank you!! :)
TheArtisticPony's avatar
Well you spoke up and I'm proud of you! I knew you could do it! Ooo and you're learning how to drive? How is that going? I know how it is to drive with a parent, geez, it's a exhausting all around I think.

You're welcome!
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GrendalUnleashed's avatar
I love my dad, even though it took him forty years to admit to me that he resented my existence from before I was even born!

He later abandoned me in the wilderness, I had to forage for food and survival, and when I survived this he still resented my existence.

My dad was a failure, from his view, through his life and he found that I was an easy scapegoat for this after I was conceived.

Follow your own path I have a brother and sister who have both been adversely affected by my dad's behaviour and my mom's heart was broken by the same and she passed away because of it.

Love your Dad, love your family...without which you would not be at this point today...but above all you are you and the steps you take are towards a future informed by both the past and the present...but ultimately the future is yours and your responsibility.

Regards

Sam
RadicalSabbath's avatar
He abandoned you in the wilderness??? How did you manage to survive?
GrendalUnleashed's avatar
I had read Raymond Mears' Survival manual, and studied neolithic life. between the two (and a dry summer) I survived...though I can say from my experience that grey squirrels are a lousy source of protein!
GrendalUnleashed's avatar
Fry, don't look at me that way, grey's like rabbits are considered vermin under WWF guidelines in the UK, hell had I been offered 'Soylent Green' when I was rendered homeless I would have chosen survival over ethics! (went for protein).

Now must state that over the past decade I have seen the "north American Grey" squirrel evolve to become a variant of the native red.

The Grey Squirrel that exists in the UK is distinct from the US variant as it has begun to adapt to the fauna of the UK forest.

On a final and practical note, squirrel's are a low source of protein (a tin of beans contains more!), haha!
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Someone needs to give you a medal!
GrendalUnleashed's avatar
Just surviving that year was reward enough, plus gave me some great practical reference for subsequent artwork/stories :D
RadicalSabbath's avatar
tessabe's avatar
That sounds like abuse.
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Pretty much it is.
Ti-Senpai's avatar
He sounds awful...and I thought my mom was childish.
First of all, he shouldn't say things like you aren't "college material" he support and encourage you.
Next, what is with him opening the friggin windows?? Everyone can see you and people need privacy.
He seems like he's only happy when everyone's miserable and that's messed up.

My best advice is move out as soon as possible.
RadicalSabbath's avatar
I don't know. Like both of my parents are supportive of what I do, but so far, my future's being molded into what they want for me.
It's either they like what I want to do, or they still want control of I'm going to do.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
listen to master, she has smarts
:iconsavagefrog:
RadicalSabbath's avatar
Have done so. Thank you.