If your father was abusing you at age 30, you have to take some responsibility for allowing it. What stopped the abuse?

I'm sorry that your family ties involved so much suffering. It's hard to know how to form healthy attachments when you had bad experiences in your family growing up. But there are people with a background of suffering serious abuse who go on to find satisfying relationships.

Examine the reasons for your lack of self-esteem. Maybe you gave up trying to succeed at meeting challenges because your father demoralized you. In that case, you don't feel worthless just because your father said you were. You feel worthless because maybe you didn't work very hard at proving him wrong. Self-esteem isn't given to us by our fathers. We give it to ourselves by working as hard as it takes to meet challenges. Coming from a non-supportive family background means you have to work extra hard. That's not fair, but that's how it is.

I think you're putting a lot of mental energy into mourning your unhappy relationship with your father. That's understandable, but after a certain point, it gets you nowhere.

When people say they have a self-esteem problem, I think what they really have is a life-esteem problem. I've been there and done that myself. We get to thinking, "Gee life has never given me any opportunities for happiness." Actually, we've had opportunities, but we've not made the most of them: "No point in trying, since nothing ever works out for me."

I don't mean to be hard on you. It is awful hard to go forth and meet challenges when when we haven't had a safe harbor of warmth to return to as needed. But, if you wait for your emotional needs to be met before you'll have any faith in life, then you'll never get your life off the ground.