Having a slight break down

This is... A lot so bear with me. I'm having a slight break down due to past emotional abuse from my dad and stepmom. (Mostly on my stepmom's part, but my dad didn't really do anything and sometimes joined in.)

Some background information. When I was younger, about 6 or 7, my dad started to cheat on my mom with another woman. He brought her to this little Christmas party at our house once and she seemed nice enough. I was young and she let me play with her phone and joked with me quite a lot. My dad was also bold enough to take my brother and I to a baseball game which turned out to be one of their dates. I was small so I didn't really put two and two together until when I was much older. Anyway, a few years pass of my parents arguing back and forth almost every day when I was 9 they finally took the step to get divorced and completely separate. My dad moved out into a new apartment with my stepmom and it was agreed my brother and I would go visit every 2nd and 4th weekend of the month.

At first, everything was great. I started visiting my dad as stated and had a blast when I went over there. My dad, stepmom, and I all had this Friday night ritual where we'd go to Denny's and then go back to the apartment and play board games. We'd all go out places together and my stepmom even took me to get my toes done at a nail salon once. My brother also joined me after a few weekends and we both kept each other company and had fun together.

Then slowly I started noticing my stepmom getting more mean once her and my dad moved to a new house from the apartment they rented. Then the serious talks started. My dad and stepmom would sit me down and have talks about me not speaking up/voicing my thoughts or about my mom and how messed up she was. How my dad was a victim with the whole divorce etc. These talks happened almost every weekend and during them I never knew what to say. My mind would go blank and I'd just wall up. Which I can see how that would be frustrating but they didn't make it much easier because I'd get berated for anything that didn't fit with what they wanted to hear.

It got to the point that I started telling my dad I was feeling sick so I would only have to go to his house for one night instead of two. And eventually we moved again and my stepmom's treatment towards me continued to escalate.

Some examples:

We went to a frozen yogurt shop and I ordered a large instead of a medium thinking it would be ok. She yelled at me saying that it was her money and not mine to choose what I wanted like that.

But then we went to an ice cream place another time. She was paying and I was told I could get something. I asked about what I wanted to order just to be sure and then the clerk asked "Do you want to upgrade to the large? It's only a few cents more." When I looked to my stepmom to make sure it was ok, she was mad. She commented "I'm not your mom. Why the fuck do you keep asking me? You can make your own decisions." And then in the car ride home, she and my dad continued to berate me for asking.

My dad decided to throw me a party for my 12/13th birthday. (I can't remember which exactly.) I was super excited. I hadn't gotten to throw a party ever because my mom didn't really see birthdays as a special occasion. All my friends and family who I was close to were there. Well, we went to the pool and I grabbed a towel from the bathroom that my dad said I could use. As soon as we get back from the pool, I hear my stepmom yell "ARE THOSE MY TOWELS?" in front of all my friends. And then she continued to yell at me for not shaving my legs/underarms because its disgusting. I spent the rest of my party sad and feeling like crap.

Another thing that happened that was really big. My dad was telling me to take things from home that he said were right fully his and told me it wasn't stealing because they belonged to him. He told me not to tell my mom or brother and to do it secretly. He told me I didn't have to but he'd be really happy if I did. Me being young and wanting to make things easier on myself at my dad's began doing just that. Eventually I was caught by my brother and also my sister once and they told my mom. Well, you can probably tell she wasn't happy. I got an earful as I was leaving to see my dad and then promptly told my dad and stepmom I didn't want to do it anymore. To which my stepmom replied, "The only reason you don't want to take things from your house is because you still think your dad is going to come back! Well he's not!" When in reality I was just uncomfortable with it. Whenever something went missing in my house, I started to be blamed for it constantly until it eventually turned up again.

My mom won the court case that was going on between my dad and her. (Apparently he was trying to steal money from my grandparent's accounts and some other stuff) I was over at my dad's place when my stepmom found out my mom had won. She stomped out of her room into the living room where my stepsister and I were watching TV and started going off on me saying how much of a b*ch/horrible person my mom was. Then the whole weekend she adamantly avoided being in my presence. If I would walk into a room she was in, she would leave. I remember I got something to eat and went to sit at the table when she was already sitting there and eating. She promptly picked up her plate and went into the other room as soon as I sat down. Apparently her side of the family noticed how mean she was being because my step uncle even commented and called her out telling her "Be nice."

I visited once for Father's day on a Sunday that I was supposed to be with my mom. My dad and I spent the whole day laughing and drawing together. (He's an artist so he paints a lot.) I had been using his sketchbook that has some ideas for his next project in it as a hard surface since I was drawing on the floor and the floor was carpet. When it was time to leave, I put his sketchbook in his desk drawer and left. A few days later, he texted me asking if I had it because he couldn't find it. The next weekend I visited like scheduled and he kept insisting that I took it and kept saying how him and my stepmom had looked everywhere and couldn't find it. When I got back to his place, I went straight to his art room and found it right where I had left it. I thought that would be the end of it. I showed them and my stepmom told him "I told you it was going to turn up as soon as she came over. I looked everywhere and it wasn't in that room." We went to eat at Denny's and while we were sitting, she started to berate me about how I could have ruined my dad's career and how stealing is horrible.

The last thing I'll talk about is when I finally stopped going to my dad's house my freshman year of high school. That weekend my stepmom had been particularly annoyed with me. I asked where she moved the blankets/sheets that I used to sleep on the couch. (I didn't have a bedroom there so I slept in the living room and put the suitcase with my things in it in my dad's art room) She got mad at me for asking but still gave them to me. Then the next morning, my dad started up another serious conversation about why I was really there and told me to write down my thoughts. I did and apparently he didn't like what I had to say so he threw the paper in the trash and told me to wait in the living room until my stepmom got home with his car so he could drive me home. ( I'd also stated that I wanted to leave because I was upset and uncomfortable.) Well I did just that, but as I laid on the couch waiting, I grew more and more terrified of what my stepmom was going to do. So I panicked and packed up my suitcase, grabbed my backpack and walked straight out the door. I kept trying to call my mom but she wasn't answering so I kept walking. My dad didn't realize I was gone until my stepmom cane back about an hour later and asked wondered where I was. I was already almost to the main streets by the time he called my cell phone, asking where I was. He picked me up and said something along the lines of "Is it really that bad here that you have to run away?" And then told me I could get some water when we got back and we'd sit and talk about this. To which I promptly/ shakily replied no to because I was even more terrified about what my stepmom was going to do and say. As soon as we got home, my stepmom stomped outside and began yelling at me and berating me for running away and hurting my dad. And then she said "You choose to have a relationship with your dad or not right now." And cornered me into answering him. I was crying and upset and told them no and then she proceeded to make me explain why. In the end she told me I was no longer welcome there just like my siblings and told me to leave. My dad drove me home and left me on the front steps of my house even though my mom wasn't home and I had no way of getting into the house.

Anyway, sorry for the long post but this morning I woke up and this popped up and had me very emotional and really sad. Looking back on all this stuff, I realized that this has fucked with my ability to communicate with anyone. I luckily have a very patient boyfriend who knows what happened and who knows what to do to help coax answers out of me. But it's still so hard for me to say when something is wrong with or when I don't want to do something.

Submitted March 12, 2019 at 06:07PM by inulover1 https://ift.tt/2F6KzSA