In Desperate Need of Help... :(

I'm swallowing a lot of pride to write this, but I can't do this alone. I'm sorry if this upsets anyone, but I need help. Things have happened in my life that I want to fix and secure my the future. Hopefully, when reading this, you can understand why this is so hard for me. Please hear me out before you cast any adverse judgment, and please know that this is how I feel and interpret the demonstrated behavior, so if there's any misunderstanding on my part I apologize in advance. Also, if you can't donate, just sharing this journal and spreading the word is good enough.

For the last few years, I have been emotionally abused by my father. He's put me down, treated me like I can't have an opinion, and it even feels like he's forgotten about me altogether some days. It started actually when I was still somewhat young, closer to my early teens young. My parents were divorced so it was hard for my mother to intervene and he was doing the same thing to her. He's told me just how incapable I'm able to do anything only because I'm naive and have no understanding of the world around me and has continuously thrown the fact that I was living in his house for free maliciously and with the intent of hurting me. Facts through and through, I'll admit, but no one improves by sitting idly by while everyone else goes out and shows off their talents. I've only ever wanted his approval, and it saddens me that he's always telling me what I can't do, focusing on it so much that he doesn't help me to improve or acknowledge what he thinks I can do.

It could be chalked up to overprotective behavior, but the fact is he has no reason to be overprotective anymore. I bring up this point because when I was young, I was misdiagnosed with a metabolic disorder that would've killed me at the age of two if I did have the illness. I went fifteen years thinking I was the outcast of the family because I was the only one with this disease and no one could explain why until a different doctor ran new tests and discovered the old doctor was wrong from day one. Due to this misdiagnosis, I was kept away from other children my age because the "disorder" caused my immune system to be weaker due to lack of the necessary proteins and vitamins that were missing from my diet and supplements only go so far. This even caused me to remain inactive from school until I was eight years old, and I had no idea how to interact with my peers appropriately because my examples on how to were children's cartoons. Therefore, I was shunned and outcasted by my classmates to the point of being told I was better off dead, reaching the point of depression and thinking that I didn't matter to anyone. My father offered no help because he said just to ignore them, but that attitude fuels the fire, it doesn't burn it out, at least from my experience. To make things worse, one of the people treating me this way was an older sister that was only a year older than me and was better praised by my father than I was.

This brings me to my next point; my father was comparing this sister and me for years it felt like. When she wanted to go out for sports; volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball, she was allowed to go try out, but I wasn't due to the statement, "You're not the athletic type." being used as his reason almost every single time. Pardon me, but I doubt anyone is naturally born athletic, or beautiful, or genuinely honest. It's a learning process from practice, understanding, and commitment to the desire to be better and the will to push forward despite the challenges that come with it. However, this was never acknowledged in any argument that I tried to make, and therefore I could never go out for sports. Eventually, I gave up on sports and pursued something I found to be much better in the long run, choir. I wanted so badly to join, but it took me two years before my father was convinced by the choir director to allow me to participate, but all the while said I didn't deserve to be in choir and that it was a waste of money. He almost never showed up to my concerts because he either had a trip, didn't want to go, or had already opened a beer and therefore couldn't drive.

That's another thing; my dad has been drinking for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I can't remember how old exactly so bear with me; my dad had gotten so drunk he got a belt and beat my mother severely with it. Apparently, being the frightened little kid that I was and my loyalty complex, I assisted in this innocently and caused my mother great pains which I pray she forgave me for, but this caused either my mother or her daughter from her first marriage, my half-sister, to call the police and he spent the night in jail. He had no regrets about what he had done and found himself justified in his actions. Arguments between my mother and father ultimately lead to their divorce, and I had been a witness to him attacking her verbally and emotionally even after they split, such as making fun of her weight, calling her useless, and all sorts of colorful things. Eventually, my mother passed away, but he still accused her of being a bad example because she was too sick to work, had depression and bipolar disorder, and that she had no ambition to do anything to improve. All lies! She was very ill, had depression, and was bipolar, yes, but she was a very loving mother and only wanted to be the best example for me and everyone else she was around. She tried to get better but no one was encouraging her other than myself, and no one thought twice to help her just for the sake of it. They always made her feel bad about herself. She couldn't drive! She was deaf in her right ear! She had Lupus and Fibromyalgia! She was nearly killed by a brain tumor and had multiple strokes! What made them think she wasn't worth leaving alone about her limitations if they had nothing else important to do? Help someone because it's the right thing, not because you feel imposed or think they're too lazy to help themselves even though they obviously have a good reason not to be as mobile.

Along with that, my father became even meaner after my sister became pregnant with her first born and ran away with her boyfriend at the age of seventeen. He drank a bit more and started getting onto me excessively about chores, but didn't ever hit me, luckily. I became even more terrified of him, however, because of the look on his face, his voice, and because I was afraid of disappointing him. My sister eventually came back home, but he still maintained his more serious attitude somewhat. He still praised her, though. Saying how much she was going to move to Louisiana to go to chef school and open her own restaurant. When I said I wanted to become a writer, I was told to find a better dream because it was too unrealistic and far out of reach. No encouragement. No sign of even wanting to help me pursue it. I wasn't even allowed to attend school outside of the state. I was told if I wanted to go to college, I was going locally to a community college and live at home where he could keep an eye on me. An understandable sentiment, but not one I wanted. I wanted to see the world. To go places where I thought I could succeed and prove that I was worthy of the family name. I just wanted him to approve of me.

When we moved out of my hometown and up to the big city of Dallas, I got into a better school and gained some much better friends. I felt accepted. Happy, even. Which was a big deal at the time because I had been depressed from the age of thirteen due to the harassment and humiliation I suffered through growing up. I told my friends about how my dad was, and they said that they thought he was manipulating me into staying with him. I said that he was a good father and that he just had a rough way of going about how he did things, but even still, part of me felt like I was lying for the sake of protecting his reputation. He was getting more aggressive slightly at this point as well. I say this because he pulled my hair and threatened to shave it off because I chose not to dry it off after I showered. Said that I would never be able to hold a job because he thought I was too irresponsible from lack of "actually doing my chores." Again, a complete lie. I always did my chores, even if they didn't think so. He thought I would be fired the first week because I wouldn't be able to handle the pressure and responsibility. I've continued to show him up because I've had my first and only job for almost three and a half years now. I've been the most reliable, the most responsible, and I've never once been suspended or warned for insubordination. I've saved most of what I made from these years, because of his influence I'll admit, but because my ultimate goal was to move out and start my own life and fulfill my dreams of seeing the world and becoming the person I wanted to be. Then his excuses became how I didn't make enough, and that I didn't understand how well off I was by not having to pay bills or debt, but that sentiment works both ways. A person can be well off from not having to take care of anything significant in their life, but it can be detrimental because they can become too complacent and end up not knowing how to take care of themselves when the person who took care of things for them passes on. I feel like that was his ultimate goal, to keep me under his roof until he died and then I'd have to figure out everything from there, but that was not what I wanted, and he should've been accepting of that, but he refused to budge.

One day, after one of our little arguments about me wanting to move out, he became so angry with me that he took out my clothes from the closet and threw them on my bed and some at me. He even knocked off my DVDs from the rack I had next to my bed, but it got worse when he started to shove me. He did this because I lightly pushed his arm away due to being upset with him and it set him off. He said that if I wanted to move out, I was to get a trash bag and leave. I did get the trash bag, but I could not stop crying and even admitted to him that he was scaring me to death, which did not phase him. After that, he made me clean up the mess and said that I should never discuss leaving ever again unless I wanted to get in more trouble. It started getting so bad between him and me, that I started cutting myself on my stomach. Don't ask me why I chose there of all places, I just did, and I might've been thinking I needed an easy place to hid them. I couldn't stand being alive anymore. I thought I wasn't meant to be happy. That I was expected to play the part of the slave for the rest of my life and I was never going to mean anything to anyone. I honestly don't even see myself as important, because I've seen what having too much power can do mainly when you use it the wrong way, and that's not to call out anyone else, just him. He's said before how he wants to become king and make all these rules that would only hurt people in the long run. A lot of them are racist and hurtful so forgive me for not elaborating here. Nonetheless, all of the feelings I bottled inside of me made me feel so broken, so unworthy of life; I nearly took myself out of this world on three separate occasions. I stole one of his shoelaces, fashioned it into a noose, and hung it from the ceiling fan in the back office where I hid most of the time when I didn't want to socialize with my dad or stepmother that he made me gain in 2012. I backed out of fulfilling it all three times out of guilt and because of my fear of death, but also because I didn't want to waste my chances to prove that I was better than he made me out to be.

That last part started the chain reaction that ultimately leads up to what just happened recently. I'm the youngest of six. I have three half-sisters, a half-brother, and one full sister before me, in that order. The oldest has four kids, a second husband, and a superiority complex that stems from a hatred toward our father planted by her mother at a young age. The second oldest only recently got her child back from CPS because she was doing drugs and getting mixed up in some illegal territory. The third oldest sister is technically not his because it came from my mother's first marriage, but they don't speak nor did they ever get along while she was living with us. He calls her this exactly and spitefully; "The Wicked Stepchild from Hell," and doesn't even count her amongst us. My brother is the much better example out of all of us, because he's debt free, pays all his bills on time, is a loving father to his child and deeply cares for the mother, and he's about to get promoted at his job to a much higher authoritative position. He's truly well off where he is right now. My only full sister has two kids, a lazy husband with little to no ambition to get off his butt and get a real job, because he's too busy playing on the Xbox or quits because it either gets "too hard", "doesn't like it", or he thinks "the people he works with are too mean". I work with people who harass me on a daily basis by way of faking a promotion, stealing my bike, blaming me when things go wrong needlessly, and sexually due to this one "manager" who keeps calling me his wife and other such nonsense, yet I stay because I wanted the job, and now I can't afford to lose it. I mention all of this because my dad was complaining how much trouble all of his kids are and that his son was the only one he understood. I took offense because I had been the most loyal, obedient, and patient of all of his daughters, and I had felt like he had forgotten about me entirely by this point, because we never hung out, he only really talked to my stepmother, who has no respect for me or how I am and had tried to make me like one of her kids, and he kept making promises he never actually fulfilled. So, I had enough and called him out. I told him he needed to get over himself, and that the world didn't revolve around him and how he thought alone. I admit I could've approached that better, but I was reacting with anger so of course, I failed to think my words through. Even still, it doesn't excuse what he did next.

He became so frustrated with me that he slammed his beer down, grabbed me by the back of the neck, and threw me outside the house telling me to get out. He then walked back to his chair, but when my stepmother reopened the door and told me I picked the wrong day to fight with him, he walked back outside and shut the door behind him asking what I wanted. All I could think to say was that I was sorry, but refused to cry right then and there. He told me if I ever spoke to him that way again, that I would get a fist to the face, holding up the very thing before me and that I would regret it for the rest of my life. He even said that if I wanted to live on my own that it was my f****** chance. He showed me that I had no shoes on, only the clothes on my back and that everything else was his. He told me he wasn't going to put up with disrespect and that if I wanted back in the house, I could, but I had been warned. When I was trying to talk about it to my fiancee, my dad stopped us because "family business doesn't leave the house." It does when someone feels threatened enough to want to talk about how much they feel hurt back a single act of physical abuse. I just wanted to be my own person. To have my opinion matter. Is it so wrong to want to leave? He doesn't even know I used to cut myself or attempted suicide and most certainly doesn't know I'm engaged. You might be wondering then, why didn't I leave sooner? Because I was so worried about getting him to accept me and wanting to feel important. Plus I was concerned I was too young even to try to do most things at the time. I'm currently twenty-two years old living with a roommate and high school best friend who has also be abused, five minutes down the street from my father's house. I have no license but plan to get one, and no car, but hope to find a cheap one to use for the time being. This setting is currently temporary as my fiancee, and I hope to move me out of Texas and up to Washington State where he lives. The fact is, though, I don't have all of the necessary funds to do that. He's saving some money, I'm hoping to find a better-paying job than just $8.75 an hour, or when I work for tips $4 an hour, and save up some money that way, but I'm asking for help here as well, not only to get out of this situation but to get my story out there. Abuse is never okay! If you or someone else is abused, please seek help and get yourself/them out there. There are alternatives to suicide, and I do believe in miracles and that God only wants what's best for all of us. Never let the conditions get too severe before taking action! Help them not because you feel obligated, though, help them because it's right. No one deserves to feel like they don't matter. With that I will leave you all with a verse that fits this perfectly:

"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who truly love Him."
                                                                                                                  - James 1:12 NIV

Thank you to all of you who read this all the way through, and I hope you know any and all donations are much appreciated by me, my fiancee, and everyone else who truly has my back. Thank you. Until next time, and hopefully on a better note, sayonara.