My Story: Part Two

As bad as the physical abuse was at my house, the mental and spiritual abuse was even worse.  I was raised to believe what my parents told me and to never question "my beliefs". My father was (and is still) hardcore conservative. The depth to which his beliefs were ingrained into me was so great that even now, four years later, I struggle to keep straight what I believe Vs. what he believes. But more on that later.

Around the time I was 14, my mom realized how damaging our household was to us kids and that something needed to change. So we moved. She never told us kids or our dad that we were leaving. She had some friends help gather our stuff and we left and moved to a different state to live with her parents. This was a difficult time because I still had not realized how damaged I was. I struggled to understand what was happening and what it all meant.  My mom put me in public school where I entered as a 9th grade student. This was a whole new experience. I had always believed that Public schools were evil, yet I met good people, good teachers, and had more opportunities to do things I loved. My father, in his families absence, started attending therapy. He started taking medication and seeking help in dealing with his OCD. He made such a turn around to the point where a year and a half after we left, he was allowed to move back in with us. Since he moved back into us he has been declining back into how he acted before we left and I am seeing my brothers go through some of the same things I went through. I feel sorry for my mother who is currently working part time while also going back to school to finish her degree, all while dealing with the problems in our house. My father has only recently got a job to help support the family, and even though he is almost always home, he barely helps with the house work or other responsibilities. It got to the point where after much pushing from my older sister and my threatening to move out if he didn't get his act together, finally nudged my mother into laying down some rules for my father to finish if he wanted to remain in the house.  While this has helped things drastically, things are no where near perfect. I find myself having to keep my mouth shut every time my dad tries to talk religion or politics. I hear him talking to my brothers about the same topics and they just soak up whatever he says. I worry that they will be brainwashed as much as I was. I hate seeing them go through that when they already have enough to deal with without dealing with my fathers crap.