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i have hated my dad for as long as i can remember. i hate him for many reasons. he has been verbally abusive towards me for my entire life, in the past he has denied that i have any mental illnesses, but now he does believe in them. however, he thinks i am the reason i have mental illnesses. i feel that i can not speak freely when i am around him. i have begun to have violent thoughts whenever i think about him.

When I was 5 and younger my father sexually abused my two older sisters. I was forced to watch as well as get naked on occasion. I can not remember if I was further involved or not. He would do awful things to them. He would hit me and yell at me if I turned away or wanted to go do something else. The harder part of these fragmented memories of the abuse is that I did not try to stop it or say something to mom. I just accepted it, watched it, and obeyed. I feel guilty and responsible. I have not asked for forgiveness because I do not really know how to approach the question. I have fear around the whole thing, I remember my dad yelling at me and throwing my naked sister around the room, we were both crying. These images sometimes resurface for no reason and they make me feel incredibly disgusting inside as well as extremely guilty. My father also put my mom through a door and used to abuse her in front of us as well. The other things he would do is try to scare us every moment he could, by creeping up behind us and staring at us until we turned around then would make a loud noise while making a scary face. He did that to us constantly. I remember when we left, I was 5, my father came out to the car and started punching my mom in the face, chest and arm. That scared me too. Two doctors who have interviewed me say I have experienced trauma, two group therapy counsellors who have both asked me, after speaking of other topics about my dad, if I believe that I have been traumatized by him. I would have to say yes, but I do not really see the impact now. I do have trouble being confident around men, especially alpha male types. Not only do they intentionally attempt to be intimidating they are usually bigger than me. I have not thought to aim that blame at my abusive, bullying, pedofile father. I have always thought my issue with males was the fact I am only 5ft 7inches tall. One doc said I may be experiencing some PTSD symptoms but not the full gambit. I am looking for advice; should I pursue the diagnosis and if so should I tell my sisters? I fear that it will not be received well by them because I was not the one being actively sexually abused. They had it far worse. I have schizoaffective bipolar disorder as well as ADHD, so my world is already hard and fucked up. Should I go ahead and open up this box of shit also?

Hi CB- I was wondering how many of us suffer from any dental issues? Personally, ever since I was a small child, I was incredibly negligent with my physical hygeine, and I have no idea why. It continued into my teenage and young adult years (which is where I am at currently). I really don't know what caused it, but my parents were fairly negligent, but I feel like it has more to do with my mental issues. They were a slew of different issues as a child compared to what they eventually developed into, but the underlying idea is the same. I feel like I can't take care of all "realms" of my life. My parents influenced school, that was the realm I held in the highest esteem. My friends were my second. Needless to say, when it came to eating, bathing, cleaning, I was useless. And for a while, that didn't cause my problems (luckily I don't smell even after a shocking period of time without showering). But eventually, it caught up with my teeth. BADLY. But, as I have a dental phobia, and severely aversive to conflict, especially with my narcissistic father, I put it on the backburner. To the point where chunks of my teeth were falling out. Luckily, mostly the back molars, so I still kept my mouth shut and bore the pain. And then it got one of my canines. Completely. Now, I will say that I am fortunate to come from a fairly wealthy family who can afford treatment for such procedures, but not without intense beratement, leading to feelings of failure, inadequacy, and most importantly, a sense that I am unable to function within this world independently. So, I finally went to get my canine inspected. It was too far gone and had to be pulled, not to mention countless cavaties elsewhere. And, so I wouldn't have a hole in the front of my mouth, my dentist and I decided an implant would be best (due to my age, bridges may be impractical, as it requires destroying the surrounding teeth). At this appointment though, they mentioned my wisdom teeth were all about to erupt. And they were, it wasn't a scam. I've been feeling it for years. One of them is growing horizonally out of the back of my gums to the point where it scrapes my inner mouth, but I was too afraid to face my narcisstic father (and the dentist, but not as much). To my dad, money is All. When he texts, he can't even say the word, its just "$$$$$$$!!!!!!" And not just that, but two of my back molars, the ones with missing chunks, had such little teeth left they could do nothing but pull them. And due to concerns of being 24 and not having those two back molars to properly eat, we decided implants would be best there, too. But I sat on this information for half a year. Until every single second of my existence had been taken over by excruciating pain which I had tried every home remedy in the book to fix. Orajel, salt water, advil, tylenol, ibuprofen, motrin, midol, garlic & pepper water mix, hydrogen peroxide. They all helped, for a while, until they didn't anymore. I had no choice. I had to make the appointment. Not to mention it was a terrifying thought to have 7 teeth removed, my dad didn't care about how much pain I tolerated for so long, about why my teeth may be this way. In fact, he kept insisting they were lying about all of this in an attempt to "rob him" (not paranoia, just born in the '40''s). But I had to do it. I couldn't live like that anymore. So here I sit, writing, feeling incredibly inadequate, bleeding porfusely from the gaping holes in my gums, feeling terrible. Was my dad right? Is this just me overexaggerating? It really can't be, but he has this way about him where he knows exactly which buttons to push and how hard. So now, in pain, I feel like I'm completely incapable of supporting myself in this world, or even taking care of myself, or at the very least a sucker who got her father robbed (again, but that's a different story). I see I have run away with my point here, but my question still stands: Has your mental illness ever caused severe dental issues? It makes me feel terrible when the "normal" people don't have nearly the amount of dental work or problems I do, and to be frank, it makes me feel like shit. So CB, tell me what you think. --Alice

My dad is 65, I'm 21... He worked his whole life for me and my siblings... My family is not a functional one, years of psychological abuse ruined our relationships with each other. My sister gave and still is giving my parents hell, she tells them she hates them, doesn't respect them, yet they still give her everything she wants. Money they don't have, love she doesn't reciprocate, support she doesn't acknowledge. She leaves them in agony, ripping at them at their weakest time, My dad wakes up at 3am to stock groceries since losing his job after the internet bubble collapsed, and my mom can't teach anymore cause she had to leave work so many times for my sister that she lost 4 straight teaching jobs and ruined her resume. She still calls them poor, questions why they moved to a town they used to be able to afford and now barely scrape by in. My dad is a very frustrated man, he came from 3rd world Africa in a village you can't even find if you google it, gave up his dreams of changing his home country for the better and his hopes of being a photographer to support a family. One of the smartest men I know, or at least I have heard such. We can't really talk, he's said too many terrible things to me out of frustration and anger, regardless of whether I actually deserved it or not. He told me he was ashamed and embarrassed by me when I couldn't get into Ivy league schools. Asking me, "What will I tell my friends and relatives?" while nearly crying. He would tell me how much he hated his life and family while driving me to high school every morning for years...so I started to walk. He was livid when I told him he was making me depressed, and kicked me out of the car. He asked my psychologist in front of me, "Have you figured out whats wrong with him yet?" Needless to say I was a pretty bad student, distracted by the thought of going home at the end of the day. He's visibly depressed all the time, but when he sees other people he lights up and smiles. He smiles and laughs so much to every stranger he meets that it's uncomfortable cause its so fake. He hasn't fit in well in our town, too many embarrassing stories of the chaos in our house linger on the lips of our neighbors. My sister called the cops on me twice cause I couldn't take it anymore and lashed out. She destroyed my mother, who turned to eating to comfort herself, now she's throwing up almost everyday cause of her disorder. She ruined my father, who could never take his anger out on her so he took it out on me. I was sick of watching her torment and I needed to punish her, even though she called authorities they never arrested me and actually put her in jail once. My father loves me so much, I can tell cause he calls me all the time since I moved out and started to go to the university in the city I live in. I can tell cause he tries to ask me how my day is with the tone he uses in front of strangers. He's withering away and he knows it, and he knows he'll never hear me sing through my saxophone again. He knows I'll never laugh from the other room, wishing he was the cause. He can't walk by my door to check if I'm breathing, just to make sure I haven't killed myself. He worries so much about me, I know he loves me but I don't know if I can forgive him. He knows he hurt me, and he knows I'm not coming back. I wish I could talk to him, I wanna hear about Africa which he deeply misses, I wanna talk to him about my problems, I want show him my music but I can't bring myself to do it. Anytime we talk it's always frustration that comes out, he calls me asking about my day and then quickly becomes irritated about some issue in my life. I can't tell if he can't control himself or if he is really just releasing his frustration on me, so I stopped picking up my phone. He always leaves a message...and they always start with "Oh hi (my name)..." "Are you coming home for dinner tonight? I'll buy you scallops if you do come..." "I'm going to our uncles house and your little cousins want to see you..." "I'm just calling to see how you are doing we haven't seen you in a while..." And they always end with... "...Please call me back..." or "Please...call me back.." But I try not to, and when I do I make it brief; almost business like to avoid any possible conflict. My one word answers are not totally from resentment, but from love. I don't want to give him the chance to hurt me by saying too much, I do it so I can heal myself from the agony he put me through, but he always slips up just when I start thinking I'm able to forgive him. It's so emotionally draining just to write this, I never told anyone about what he says to me. Maybe he's why I can't trust people, or why I can't focus in school, why I fantasize about suicide, why I stay in my room as my roommates laugh and holler, why I drink so much, why I smoke so much, why I play too many video games, why I cry when I'm alone thinking about how my family could have been different. Call it what you will but I'm not stuck in the past, this continues to this day, my sister get's everything from them still, my mother is killing herself slowly in front of my eyes, and my father is more stressed and ashamed than ever. I left when I was 20 and the year away from the chaos opened my eyes, I realized who I was, that everything wasn't my fault, that I shouldn't be ashamed of who I am, that there is nothing wrong with me. I get compliments quite often, whether it's my music, my high payings jobs (40$ per. Hr.), my school that I transferred into, my sense of humor, whatever... But I still don't believe them or myself, I question everything good that I do, every laugh I inspire, every mind I vibe with. I don't even realize when I'm doing something right, it just never feels good enough. It's discouraging cause I'm so distant from reality, I'm afraid of meaningful relationships, I'm afraid of truly being myself. My emotions contradict my logic and vice versa and I'm left being paralyzed and don't know where to turn. Even If I already know the answer to my problems I don't acknowledge them as valid points, nothing that flows through my head seems right... ***I'm aware that people have much bigger problems than me and by no means is my life the worst. I'm not looking for pity I just want some advice and I'm sorry I wrote this in such a weird way but I was very emotional at the time and needed to get it out***