ndad

The NDad Manifesto

	I feel trapped. I feel trapped within my household. I feel like I am stuck in Florida forever. Why did I ever decide to move to Florida at all? Yeah, I realize I was a bit of a loser when I was back in Missouri, and I was into My Little Pony. It kind of ruined my reputation but why didn't I just go through Missouri middle school and move on? My dad always barks at me to never think something with emotion, but the move to Florida was emotion. It was always emotional whenever I'm here. In fact, it is emotional for my father to even ask me to move down there with him. Not as emotional as him begging my sister to move down with him. Why is he begging? To get back at mom for cheating, if it's really the case? I never knew the true story. My brother was my age when he went through it, and knew the true story, but will never tell us. However, that may be for the best. He had to deal with the full extent of the shit when he was my age. I give major props to him for dealing with this.
	My dad has been considered as an "ndad" by myself for quite some time now. Before I discovered the place which helps people with narcissistic parents (which I will not name), I thought the way he raised me was in fact right. I don't blame myself, I never experienced any other way of raising a child. I always blamed myself for the way he snaps at me. I always thought I was in the wrong for making him mad and upset. However, as I matured, I realized that it is not right. It's not right for someone to do some of the things he has done. It's simply wrong. He has called me a douchebag, a piece of shit, somebody he personally wouldn't be friends with, etc. He has hit me whenever I acted moody in front of him, and called me a drama queen when the force of which he striked me made me fall off a high chair. He's controlled my finances for as long as I can remember, regardless if they were hard earned or not.
	When I was 15, he created an imaginary bank called "The Bank of Scott", to teach me the basics of finances. What is unimaginably stupid about this purposal is that it was basically an attempt to control what I spend. Whenever I wanted to buy something with Christmas or Birthday money, he always said no. He basically stated before that he did it so he can say no to stuff I want to buy. He doesn't realize that it's my own money. He gave it to me for Christmas, and Birthdays. Even with my own finances, that I earned from working, he tries to control what I spend. Because of the way he taught me money, he made me extremely frugal. It's not always a bad thing to be frugal though, but I feel like it came with anxiety.
	I've had anxiety for as long as I can remember, and most of it was brought on by my father. Previously said, I was scared to upset him, since he is quite literally a ticking time bomb. This made me into the way I am with people; I am scared of what I say to people in fear of making them upset. I'm scared of making people mad at me and I'm scared of people. He made me scared of people. This is more than likely why I am an anti social person in the first place. He taught me to watch what I do at all times around him because obviously I did not want to be screamed at. Due to these teachings, he made me into a walking wimp.
	He's made me scared of what people say about me as well. Since I was raised to be scared of him when he yells, and things I do, this probably affected me and how I think of people. He always complains about this, but thanks for the way he raised me, he made me this way. He taught me to be scared of him, thanks to his constant loss of temper.
	For years now, I have lacked the feeling of love towards my father. Why is that? For all of the things he's done. He's stubborn, narcissistic, and just flat out rude. Let me address the stubborn aspect first of all. He only believes he wants to believe. He does not like being told what to do, and he only wants to do things his way. Whenever I had a therapist back in eighth grade, he told me that he did not want me taking medication if I ever get diagnosed with anything. My brother has to take medication for his anxiety, and my father is a strong disbeliever of this. He blames my mom for it (like he always does for situations like this) and says I will never get on medication for anything mental illness related because he says anxiety is only a state of mind (along with depression) and says I should just toughen it out.
	First, I'd like to debunk the claim of anxiety and depression being a state of mind (this is where I discuss him being stubborn). This could not be further from the truth. Tons of research has flat out denied this and says it's your brain that causes these problems along with a mix of other factors. He may think this because of the way HE was raised; he is a baby boomer, and he was raised into being a "man" and toughen out everything (which again, isn't a great thing to do). So, he is trying to push this rhetoric onto me and say that everything mental illness related is a state of mind and I should just toughen up and be a man. Of course, I reject this.
	The second aspect I should address is the narcissism he holds inside of him. He believes everything should revolve around his rhetoric, his ideas, and his morals. He wants me to be just like him, along with the rest of his children. He likes to target me specifically to be like him because 1: he's my only legitmate parent in this state. 2: he's made me into a weak individual to be scared of a lot of things so since he believes I'm an easy target, he can take advantage of my nature so I can be just like him. For example, he is a strong believer of flat earth, and tries to push this belief onto all of the family. He pretty much forces it down our throat, especially me because I have to listen to him. I'm scared of what he has to say because again, I was taught to deal with this stuff. Whenever I told him I have to go against his belief because of my own beliefs, he said the following: "Even if you go against your own father?" as an attempt to make me feel guilty about how I feel (thanks narcissism for making my dad into the way he is!).
	The third aspect I'm going to address is his rude nature. He does not care about what people think about him. Good for him! However, thanks to this, he's extremely rude, and never takes anyone else into consideration. Whenever he yells at me, he tends to berate me with insults as an attempt to make me feel bad about what I've "done" (I get moody with him when I'm not a good mood and I have a bit of sass, but whenever he's home, I have to interact with him. If he talks to me and I begin to exit the conversation, he barks, "I'm talking to you! Come back." and makes me stay. And I have bad days sometimes. We all do, and I tend to stay away from him so I don't make him pissed or something.) He was yelling at me because he was driving me home from training at an internship I had. It was an uneventful day and I was tired. I did not want to talk to him, I was in an "eh" mood, if you will. So, since I had an "attitude" he started to scream at me how I'm not thankful and brings up stuff that I did 6 months ago - 4 years ago, again, to make me feel guilty. As an attempt to defuse the situation, I say "I'm sorry. Thank you for taking me home" as a way to make him chill out a little bit. His response? "You're sorry? You can shove your apologize right up your fucking ass! And that's not a joke!" because he was joking with me, saying really racist stuff, and I wasn't a big fan of that. In my city, there's a paper plant off the road and when one drives through it, it has an odor that is generally not pleasant. He said "It smells like niggers over here." Me, not being a fan of that, did not reply. He started joking with me, but of course I was not in the mood, I didn't know of what he said was a joke or not, hence why he said "that's not a joke!"
	Of course I can't do anything to combat what he does. With a typical NParent, they think everything they do is infact correct and they think it's the right thing to do. Whenever I tried talking to my stepmom about it to vent, she of course told my dad, and my dad talked with me a few days later saying "I was in the army for years. You are under my expectations. You need to toughen up and deal with my yelling. Man up." Whenever my stepmom talked with me saying if things were better, I had to lie and say yes to avoid creating more drama. I can't escape this until I either go to college or move back to Missouri. My dad obviously wants me to go to college in Florida because of debt, which I can understand. Until he tells me he wants me to go to a technical college, which in itself is the same price as a college in Missouri. Whenever I address going back to Missouri, he says that I just wanna escape and be coddled and be soft and "pwotected" by my mom (making an excuse to berate my mom for something she did 5-6 years ago, quite immature) as a way to preceive me as weak. I know that this is an attempt of manipulation by my father to make me stay so I can be under his expectations.
	Recently, he's tried saying how proud he is of me and my progress, but I know secretly that he's not. He's told me before that I can always do better, even with a 1 B report card or even straight As with multiple As in the 90 - 95 range. "You can definitely make a better score in that class!" Thanks dad for saying how proud I am but saying how much I can do better making it obvious that you really aren't proud. Really appreciate it.
	Thanks to my dad, he's made me scared of venting to people. Thanks to me being a male, I feel like I have to hold in my feelings because it's "manly." I obviously object this, but since I'm scared of what people think of me, I have all sorts of emotions going through my head whenever I vent to someone. One of them is fear. I fear that when I vent, I'm seen as self centered, or a genuine piece of shit. I can't even vent to my own father because of what I've said before, he doesn't even help. He just tells me to toughen up. I can't cry in front of him because he yells at me to stop crying, and says "OH MY GOD PLEASE STOP CRYING. STOP CRYING!" So, I'm scared of venting because I don't want to be seen as a narcissistic prick like how I precieve my father to be. Another emotion is the feeling of hopelessness. I feel like I'm hopeless, and how I'm going to be a sort of slave to my father forever, and I can't stand up for myself because I'm weak. He's also extremely controlling. If I rearrange my room without telling my father, he's stated that he will ground me from my room, and I will have no electronics in it, just a bed and nothing else, and he will make me sleep in the art room. He will make me sit with him at all times and make me interact with him.
	One time, he was yelling at me before I go into the doctor's office for God knows what. He was still whispering to me in the doctor's office, and I was having a full blown panic attack, because I'm scared of all the other people think of me getting my ass chewed out in front of everybody. I wasn't answering him and he was clearly getting very pissed and I hear him slowly getting more angry and he's saying how I feel is bullshit and it is a stay of mind, and nobody cares what happens between us.
	I have many dreams in life that I want to achieve, but one of them is be a father. I want to be a father, and I've always been for many years. I want my kids to be grown in a safe non yelling (but will yell if I have to) environment that is non toxic and shows that the child/ren are safe from any toxicity. This is where the manifesto stuff comes in. Whenever I am a father, I am keeping my children as far away from my father as possible. I don't want my children exposed to that toxicity. I don't want my children to deal with the shit my father does. I want to be the best parent for my children for their life as possible. With my father, I can never go to him for advice because he always tells me to "man up" or "boys will be boys." I want my kids to know that they are safe to talk to me whenever they want to. I want them to know that I will always listen to them and will be there for them no matter what happens. I don't want my kids to think they have to take a bullet for me because I do specific things. I want them to know I will take a bullet for any of my children and they don't have to do anything for me back. They deserve any love and they don't deserve to be treated like I am right now. I dream for my kids to go to high school, go to college, have a successful future, etc. I know right now that whenever my wife or girlfriend at that time gives birth, I will cry and be grateful for having a child. I want to teach them it's okay to let out their emotions every once in a while, and that everyone is human and makes mistakes. This is opposite to what my dad does, saying that whenever someone makes mistakes, is mediocracy. I refuse to believe this. Everyone makes mistakes every once in a while. Just prepare yourself for that big mistake that could easily make you or break you. I want to be happy and be away from that toxic environment but I have to deal with this until 2019. It's so close to being over. I've been dealing with the worst of the narcissism for 4 years now. I can't wait for it to be over and I can be my own person without interference.
	All in all, I absolutely feel no love for my father. I don't know if I can take this for much longer. I am at a point where I hate my father so much, I don't care what happens to him. I just want him out of my life and wish the absolute worst upon him for making me the way I am. I'm insecure, I feel hopeless, I'm anxious, and I'm depressed all thanks to my ndad. You're a real winner, Scott. You are a real winner.