Abuse

» nickinerdface - I hope I'm doing this right.

I'm not married, and nor do I have any children. In fact, I'm actually the oldest daughter of a woman who is in an emotionally abusive relationship and refuses to do anything about it. I'm only seventeen years old. My dad and I have never been that close, and as soon as I became a teenager, things started to go downhill from that. When I was younger, my dad and I were okay, because I was naive, and I didn't realize how bad things were between my parents when I was that little. My dad constantly puts me down, and calls me names, and has even been known to slap me around a few times whenever I do something he doesn't agree with. He's gotten onto me about my clothes before, and the way I choose to carry myself, and I realize the reason he does this to me, is because he can't do it to my mother. He can't slap her around because she's a grown woman, and by law, she can do something about it. The abuse has moved from my mother to me, and although most of the yelling and name-calling focuses around me in these last four years, my dad delivers the harshest emotional abuse to her. He calls her white trash, and has been known to even call her a "dumb piece of shit" (if I may), and told her she was too stupid to balance her own checkbook. He's constantly bickering about me to her, and tells her that their lives would be so much better if I was sent away somewhere. He blames the reasons why their marriage can't work out on me.

I've gone to my mom and told her how I felt. I've had the police called on me five times this pass year because I don't sit down and take it like my mom does. I can't just sit there and let him call me those names, and let him slap me around, and not do anything about it. If I can't do anything by law, I can at least defend myself, right? I know I may not have gone about defending myself right sometimes, but I don't know what else to do. My mom told me at the beginning of November in 2006 that she was going to call a lawyer and get a divorce, but now that's in 2007, she still hasn't made that call. Since then, I've been stuck in my room day in and day out, trapped in here because I'm too scared to go out in the living room when my dad gets home in fear that another fight'll happen.

I'm sorry if this sounds overly melodramatic and movie-like. I just don't know what to do, and my friends all say the same thing. "Talk to her!" "Get out of there!" "Why doesn't she just leave?" "I'm sorry, that sucks. Your dad's an asshole." I've tried everything I can possibly think of to try to talk to my mother. I've written her notes, and she's written me back. I've sat down and talked with her about how horrible things are here for the both of us, but she still won't do anything about it. She won't even look into anything anymore. There's still so much to tell, but I've already written you guys a novel. Please, I am in desperate need of advice. Any kind would be incredibly helpful.

-- posted by nickinerdface