Things dad said:

I've thought about this post for a while, well, several times over the past 2 weeks. Maybe I just need to get it off my chest. I've thought a lot about all the crazy abusive things my dad said and did. Maybe I just mentally need to validate that it really did happen. Many times over the past 14 years I've thought, it wasn't really THAT bad. Then I look at my journal, or letters to Sister Parker and it hits me, it was SOOOOO bad! Worse than many people can imagine! Thus, I have felt the urge to simple write/ list the things he said and did.

• I was evil
• I had a devil inside me
• I was going to go to hell
• We (my sister and I) were abusive to him and he was going to have us arrested. 
• That in the after life I was going to be his servant because I was such a horrible person and he was so perfect. 
• I took every drug known to man
• I was called every swear word there is
• I destroyed his family (when I moved out to get away from the abuse)
• I was constantly told that I was making him uncomfortable in his own home and he had to leave to get away from me. 
• Called: fat, dumb, lazy, a failure, pretty much any horrible thing you can say or call a person
• A lot of abuse happened at the dinner table and involved me being told I was fat. I still have issues with food to this day. 
• At 18, just out of high school, I was working at an ice cream shop, he told me that it was worse than flipping burgers at McDonalds and it was going to take me no where in life. 
• That I was unwanted by everyone except him. That if they hadn't of "saved me" I would have been put in an orphanage because no one wanted me. *Thankfully one of my brothers made sure I knew that this wasn't true and I was wanted by him. 
• That it was my fault he would not join the church. Even 10 years after I had moved out and 1 month before he decided to join the church he was telling my mom it was my fault. 
• It was my fault he drank
• That raising me was physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausting. 
• I was constantly compared to my cousins and told they were so much better and smarter than me.
• He would purposely say and do things to make me angry. A lot of the time he would see just how far he had to go to make me mad. Thus, when he was dying I told my husband he (dad) is going to make sure it is horrible timing for me just to make me mad like he always did. Of course, he did! It almost ruined my daughter's birthday and we decided to not even go to the funeral! 
• One time in the car a song was playing on a cassette tape that I didn't like. I asked nicely for him to turn it down. Instead he turned it way up and put it on repeat. I flipped out and my punishment was I wasn't allowed to eat dinner that night. 
• When I was 18 - 19 I was a nanny full time, making roughly $350 a week and had 0 bills whatsoever. Yet, anytime I bought something (like shoes) he would flip out and question me about where I got the money from! 
• I had to do everything HIS way, even if my way was easier and better. 
• For his 50th Wedding anniversary he asked me to made a copy of their wedding announcement, cut it to the same size as his original and then tape it to a piece of paper so he could frame it. Well, that looked horrible so I scanned it in, cleaned up the edges and printed a copy. It looked a million times better, yet I got my head bit off because it wasn't done his way! 
• We were only allowed to go to certain restaurants. If we went to a new place he would throw a tantrum like a 2-year-old. 
• For my 19th birthday I wanted to go to PF Chang's for dinner, his response was, 'No you don't, you want to go to Olive Garden"
• A whole lot of crazy making went on, he would say something and then deny it. 
• He went through my trash. Not only went through it, but would pull stuff out of it and put them back on my dresser. Even when my husband and I would visit he would go through the guest room when we weren't there! 
• He would also read through my journal. I seriously bought a locking filing cabinet when I was 18 to protect my personal things. 
• He would open and read through my mail, even after I was married if anything when to their house he went through it. 
• I wasn't allowed to clean the toilet as a teenager because I might do it wrong! 
• I wasn't allowed to learn how to drive a stick-shift. No joke. I begged him to teach me, he finally took me out, told me nothing what so ever to do, thus I failed at learning. When we got home he told my sister, "I told you she would fail at it!"
• I was a failure at everything
• I had a 4.0 GPA my first semester in college, I overheard him on the phone with my sister saying that I was lying about my grades. 
• After I moved out (I was living with my brother and didn't have room for any of my belongings) he threatened to throw out all my stuff on a certain day. My friend and I snuck into the house around 2am to take some of my things. We were literally fearful for our lives, we thought for sure he would hear us and come at us with his gun (even knowing it was us, not a burglar). 
• I was screamed at (like end of the world, called a B****) if: the toilet paper roll was ever empty, the toilet was ever not flushed, or if there was a speck of trash in my trash can on garbage day. 
• When I was 15 he not only let me, but encouraged me to have a boyfriend. He would even give us money to go out on dates. He told me it was okay if we had sex and if I got pregnant I just had to marry my boyfriend. 
• When I was 17 I wad rear-ended. I called my parents to tell them about the accident, when my dad got there the police officer could smell the alcohol on my dad's breath. He told my dad he couldn't arrest him because he didn't physically see him drive there. The police made me promise to drive my dad home otherwise he would have to arrest him for a DUI. Of course the second we got home my dad made me turn around and take him back so he could drive his truck home. 
• I was around 14 or 15 I remember being in the car and he had an open glass of wine in it. He made my sister and I cover it up with a jacket just in case he got pulled over. 
• Several years after I had moved out I was visiting when he flipped out on my mom (the whole, making him uncomfortable in his own home schpeel and he had to leave) because the paper plates weren't put out for Easter dinner. It was around 12 in the after noon and dinner wasn't until 5:30.