Conflicted about how to feel about my dad's physical abuse growing up

So while I was growing up, my father was very physically (as well as verbally) abusive towards my siblings, my mom, and myself. He weighs easily over 350 lbs, and he used to have this "punishment" whereby he would throw us on the bed and sit on us for what felt like eternity until we were gasping for breath. I've watched him knock my mom's teeth out, throw her to the ground, hit her over the head with a metal plate causing her to black out, and the list goes on. I vividly recall an episode where he grabbed my sister, pulled her in the kitchen, put up a child safety gate so none of us could try to help her, and stood there and beat the crap out of her for a good 40 or so minutes...my mom had to send her to school in turtlenecks to cover up the bruising. He also punched me in the face once while we were in the parking lot waiting for my mom to come out of a doctor's appointment, and we wound up SOAKING my mom's white jacket trying to stop the resulting nose bleed. Then there were probably hundreds of times where he hit me with things like keys (he used to throw his huge key ring at me) and belts...I know some people think hitting with a belt is an acceptable form of discipline, but it felt like abuse to me.

Anyway, I still live with him now because I don't have the money to move out and can't make the money at the moment because of a combination of medical problems and debilitating anxiety disorder. Well, I do some freelance writing from home, but the pay is such crap that it's taking me forever to save up to move out. He's not abusive physically anymore (although emotionally is another story..I hear that I'm worthless several times a week) and tries to help me with a lot of things now, but at the same time, I'm still really resentful about the way he made my childhood hell growing up. I'll go weeks talking with him fine and not thinking about the past, and then I'll be reminded of it somehow, and I return to a combination of wanting to cry and punch him in the face. It came up in a conversation with my guy friend over IM the other day, and I was crying the entire time I was typing.

I'm confused about how to feel towards him now and about how to move past the hurt and resentment that still lingers. It *may* be easier to accept if he'd apologize or admit he was wrong, but he never will. There have been a few instances where I brought up the time he knocked my mom unconscious in front of me, and he denies it ever happened. If I mention the punch in the face/nose bleed, he says I deserved it because I was being "bad."

I saw a psychologist a few weeks ago for unrelated issues, and she asked why I didn't want a close relationship with my dad. I told her about the past, and she made it out to be my fault. After I finished explaining, she said "Why didn't you leave?" I was a kid, though, I had nowhere to leave to. I did call the cops one time when my dad was beating me and I thought he might kill me, but they showed up and said that in my state, he's allowed to "discipline" me that way. The neighbors called a few times because they thought he heard him beating us, but social services scheduled to have us all checked by a doctor, and when he found no bruising at that time, he was again let off the hook.

So yeah. Advice?

Good Lord -- it sounds like the chamber of horrors to me. You have GOT to see a therapist and get this mess OUT. You've got to have someone to talk to about this. You've been carrying around this baggage all these years, and it's festering now --- it's turning into a diseased ball of horror and is going to EXPLODE if you don't talk to someone and learn how to cope with this.

People like us who have abuse in our past MUST go into therapy so we can get rid of all this diseased stuff, and "give" it to someone who knows what to do with it. A therapist can show us the right way to cope with our past, instead of putting it away in our little "closets" in our mind and never talking about it. We've GOT to talk about it with the right person - the therapist.

Make an appointment as soon as possible, and get started. Hopefully it won't be too long before you start to feel better about all this. Soon it will be out in the open, and BURIED for good and you won't EVER have any reason to dig it up again and look at it.

I wish you the very best! God bless and take care -- and PLEASE keep us posted on how you're doing from time to time, ok? Hugs, Lee

Get out ASAP!!!!

Hi Freefallin...I hope I can help.

Understand, hard as it is, he is never going to apologize, I don't think. He is never going to change from what he is. People like that operate solely because they can justify their actions, and that they are incessantly "right" and others are always wrong. He will always justify and distort the truth of the matter so that he can constantly justify what he's done.

You have every right to feel resentful! You are a better person than I am for still having ANY relationship with him whatsoever. That being said, I think it is of importance that you get out as soon as you have the ability to do so. Additionally, did your therapist understand your story? It seems...incredulous...to me that she'd have the gall to ask you why didn't you leave if you were merely a child....where were you to go? :/ If she still pins it as "your fault," which I can assure you it's not, I'd consider a switch.

By the way, I certainly understand I'm not a lawyer (yet ), and that I only have one year of my undergrad studies for my law degree done, but I don't believe in any state it's legal for him to do what he did to you. That is a load of BS, frankly. Please don't lose faith in the justice system. You were wronged, I think, by that officer, but that is not representative of the whole. I just felt like adding that.

Please take care. I wish you my best, and I hope I was of some help.