I read your post and it resonates with me well. Looking from the outside, I see some similar aspects in your story as my own. You've been through a lot, and you deserve to do what is best for you.

Backatory? My mom was mentally abusive and I was isolated as a child. I always come to her defense, "she tries her best," when she didn't. She gave up caring for us and herself years before she passed away. She suffered a lot, though she remained sober. Her way of dealing with her illness was to control her children and have us take care of her. We weren't allowed to get jobs or grow up. I moved out on bad terms and lived with a boyfriend after she was diagnosed with cancer. Everyone seems to think I was in the wrong for my doing so, but I left because I knew I needed to grow up and start taking care of myself (and, admittedly, trying to get my brothers to do the same, though their refusal to take part was due to her lack of trust with the world and her controlling ways) before she passed away and I ended up homeless or something. It didn't matter to me to a point, because, for me, it was the right thing to do.

Because, in the end, you can only help those who WANT to be helped. My mother didn't. And it sounds like your father doesn't. You can't change that. You cannot force that. That person has to change for them, they have to want to change.

You can let it be, and you have to come to peace with it. For awhile, I felt bad, and yes, I still do--again, to a degree--but I'm healing now, a year and a half after she passed.

It's no easy road, love. But know what you have to do and what you're comfortable sleeping with at night.