For context I am a [16F] who lives away from my parents for reasons that will become obvious. I left the household a little over a year ago because child and family services got involved after I accidentaly broke down in front of a police officer (another story for another time). My parents, [56F] and [52M] are still my legal guardians but my sister [23F] who lives in a different place (quite litterally 1000km away), is going to take custody, and I'm going to be moving in the next month or so to live with her. I was m*lested by my mother up untill I was 12, my sister was not, although our mother also did some pretty bad things reguarding mental health aswell. My parents initially tried to pass off what happened to me as schizophrenia (I don't have schizophrenia) and false memories. When I was in the household they wouldnt let me see a therapist for suicidal thoughts even when I told them repeatedly that I thought I needed to see a professional (I'm not depressed anymore). Suddenly after I left the household they wanted me to get a psychiatric evaluation. So I got one, turns out I'm symptomatic of ptsd and social anxiety, but not of schizophrenia. My father wasn't the greatest person either, I tried to tell him about my depression but he played off whatever my mother said, he used to hate me as a child but our relationship improved over the years. My sister was always the favourite (I don't by any means blame her) and I was often the scapegoat, and took the brunt of my mothers yelling fits, gaslighting, etc. As is common with a lot of parents who are (I'm by no means qualified to make any judgement or diagnosis) narcissistic.
My father wasnt the greatest to me as a kid but I still love him, and feel guilty about coming out about my abuse. I've been trying for the past year to get him to seek counseling, but theres only so much I can do. I can tell hes really sad about me moving away. He was hoping that my memories were somehow fake and that the psychiatric evaluation would prove it. Tried to convince himself that I was mentaly ill, even told my friends mom that I tended to get "squirrely around this time of year". We still have phone calls on an almoast daily basis, but I can tell the whole situation is breaking him. I feel guilty, I know it's not my fault, but I still feel like I couldve somehow prevented this. I know I could've done way worse to him, and could file a report on my mother to the police (I want to, but I also dont want to hurt my father hence why I've been trying to get him into counseling). He is making some progress though, he's going through his workplace for counseling.
I just can't stop feeling like theres more I should be doing, we constantly avoid what happened to me on our phone calls, I feel like it would hurt him to bring it up, maybe hes still in denial? My mother is an expert manipulator and I'm trying to cause as little dammage as possible while still trying to help him realise how bad of a person she really is. I know hes torn between my mother and my sister as hes often the filter between them (I don't have contact with my mother anymore). A main issue here is there's a lot of things that aren't normal (in a bad way) that happens in my parents household and my father struggles to see it because he doesn't have any outside perspectives (we have no family friends, there are only relatives who also try to avoid my family).
I'm trying, but I really dont know how to approach the elephant in the room.
TL;DR I feel like I'm not doing enough to help my dad come to terms with my abuse from my mother, and I dont know how to talk to him about it.
Submitted June 24, 2020 at 12:42AM by Obviousthrowaway9395 https://ift.tt/2B73fCh
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