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I need to convince my dad...
So my 8th grade dance is coming up really soon, and I've been pretty sure that I was going to go. I've been browsing around online for dresses and even went to look at dresses with my friend at the mall the other day. And I reallyyyy want to go, rather, need to go, to maintain the very small social life that I've managed to build for myself. My whole life all my friends have just been backstabbing b*tches who'd ditch me whenever someone more appealing would come along. And then I moved before 5th grade, just making everything an infinity times worse. I was just a social outcast through all of 5th grade. But in 6th grade, I started making friends who actually have LASTED. Now I have a decent amount of friends (like 2 or 3 "besties", and the rest of them r just good friends, but in the end, its not that many). ALSO, VERY UNEXPECTEDLY I guy asked me to the dance (I'm not the type who'd get asked...am I that nice...I dunno??), however I said no, because my dad would NEVER let me go with a guy, and if he by chance somehow found out, he'd disown me (its just a fact, and no, I'm not exaggerating). He let me go to the 5th grade dance...of course all the teachers had to work to convince him, I was the only one who wouldn't have gone otherwise, and I only was allowed to stay for 20 minutes while my parents waited for me... BUT I thought that he'd let me go to the 8th Grade Dance because I'm older and I thought that he'd be ever so slightly less narrow-minded, or at least I assumed...BUT NOOOOOO he has to be the b*tchy dad that he is (that was without all the cuss words hun) and suddenly say no, or if I may quote "NO WAY!" I was supposed to go shopping for my new glass frames today, and that's when my mom said that we should buy the dress I picked out the other day while we're there. That's when Mr. B*tch flipped out and yelled "NO WAY!!" and started ranting about the evils of a "dance". That's when I totally lost it and had to use all my self control not to actually physically punch Mr. B*tch, because whenever I try to argue a fair point, he just yells even LOUDER and tells me to SHUT UP and that he knows what's best. "BEST" MY ASS! And...well here I am ranting to diffuse all this pent up hatred. I NEED to go, the whole grade is going! I even told him about all my friends that r going who's parents he's friends with. But nooooo Mr. B*tch doesn't care and is just going to be a tyrant and dictate my life forever!!! TT~TT WHAT DO I DO?!! All my friends r going and its my last chance to spend some quality time with some of my friends who r going to a different high school (cause naturally, being the b*tch that he is, he doesn't let me go to my friends' houses or to bday parties or anything). I've finally managed to make some decent friends but I'll just be isolated again when everyone is keeps talking about the dance for days! Mr. B*tch is the SOLE REASON why I haven't made ANY decent friends my WHOLE LIFE. PLEEEEEASE HELP!!! HELP ME THINK OF SOME WAY TO CONVINCE HIM TO LET ME GO! PLEEEEEEEASE I'M REALLY COUNTING ON U GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!😫😫😫
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You have two parents and never mention Mom. I suppose she has no say in this or rather, has learned through Dad's behavior to let him have his way. If you are not even allowed to visit friends away from school, then there is a big problem and I am willing to bet it goes far beyond having over protective parents. I am going to guess that your Dad has some form of mental disability if he won't listen to reason, everyone else is always wrong and he must get his way all the time or he comes to pieces and the yelling to communicate....yes just these to name a few remind me of my ex husband who has mental illness. Although he choose to mainly yell at me and I had to keep the kids in line according to his wishes. I also went against him in many things and sometimes he listened to reason but I learned for the most part, there is no such thing as reasoning with a mentally disturbed person and so learned when to argue or not. My kids were allowed, by my saying this is how it would be, to see other friends. However I had to meet the parents first and feel it was a safe place to go. For the most part, almost all kids except those physically destructive to our property, were allowed to come over to our house. I am glad I was at least this protective because one house had a druggie mom how allowed druggie frineds to stay while Dad worked 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet and was the level headed one but never there. The other was a latch key kid whose Mom was not home and when i went to meet her discovered she didn'tarrive home until hr and half after I was there waiting with the kid saying Mom should already be home. Okay, thats not so bad but when she walked in, took a glance at me, another strange adult in her home and didn't bother to ask me and just went off to another room for a while, I grabbed my daughter and told her we were going home. Theres something wrong when a Mom would not be alarmed to find and not question another person sitting in her home.
In your case, if its mental illness, you are going to be battling this for the rest of your life but when you turn 18 and are an adult, you may want to be your best to get out on your own so in the meanwhile, you may want to focus your plans and ideas on that.
I can tell you that there is no magic trick trying to convince someone like your Dad and your Mom has likely given up trying to get him to do something like allow you to go if she ever did try. A person like him can be frightening for the wife and she may wonder if he will beat on her physically. Even if the abuse is just verbal, thats worse than physical because it usually doesn't get the professional help needed as there is no physical proof of his attack. Even if he d oesn't have mental illness per se, he certainly has extremely distorted thinking at the best and that often is just a step away from mental illness. My ex had both distorted thinking and mental illness.
It is very important for you to not be so sheltered out of Dads fear that something bad will happen to you or out of need to control you. You will find your social life crippled which can lead to other issues like not being allowed to leave the home for college in another state or not allowed to learn to drive, go work certain jobs, and you end up an adult with no idea how to survive as an adult and reliant on your Dad to his dying day which may be a long time in coming.
I vote for professional help to come to your family and the only way anyone is going to know this is if you talk to your school counselors. Your mom is not going to complain or even make her own wishes known with him around but she's more likely to open up in a private session with counselor. The only way any help type agency will know is if you tell them. You might even tell them the truth of how angry this makes you feel and how you've lost all respect for Dad and privately call him names in your mind as thats all you can do without suffering back lash and you are worried about verbal abuse and the back lash of being ostrasized, left out by your peers because you are not allowed to make and keep friends from school. School counselors know how that is damaging to not be allowed to socialize and its been going on for years so its not stress from something recent in his life. This is how he is ALL the time. All of this needs to be heard by a counselor if you feel it is true to you. Your dad barely listened to teachers last time. If a counselor gets professionals involved with your family, he has to listen. NOw this is just your side of the story so if any of this is way exaggerated, you may not stand any chance of outside help coming in.
I have famiy that got child protective services called in on them for physically leaving bruises on the child. Yes, they do have problems and so the agency made sure to temporarily put kid in foster home while the parents underwent psychological testing and took parenting classes to be able to get their child back. So if a child protective service needs to step in, their goal will be to get your Dad the professional help he needs so he can be allowed to continue to be in your life. The problem is that without bruises and only the physcological damage he is doing with your mind, there is nothing to be seen and so its much harder to get help. All anyone can do is 'hear' something, so it will be up to you to continue to complain and talk to anyone and everyone you meet about your issue and never give up. Most people won't have a clue what to do but counselors do. If that doesn't help, keep complaining to them, tell any adult family like aunts and uncles of what is going on. If Mom is yelled at constantly and verbally abused and won't reach out for help herself, then it is a situation for authorities to step in when a child is in that situation. They can't do anything about your Mom, an adult wishing to stay with him if he is verbally abusive. I left first husband after 30 years because it was verbal abuse and only got worse, not better over the years.
So I can tell you something about Dad is very off. If it ends up all he has is an anger problem, there has always been something that finally breaks the last straw and makes an angry person snap and do physical harm. My ex got like that in the end, pushing me hard so I fell over. Thats when I left when I should have years earlier, taking the kids with me away from all that.
For your future so you aren't stuck once you come of age, do with you can now to squirrel away money, babysitting and such. I'd go so far as asking teachers if I can do any work for them for some pay if Dad would feel you are safe helping a teacher after school for 'extra credit' or whatever excuse is used. Perhaps see if you can be allowed to become part of a church in your area whether the parents go or not. If your family goes to a church, tell the pastor/priest that you need to talk to him with out your Dad knowing so he doesn't get angry at you. A church is a good back up for a lone teen with a bad family situation. Even if not bad, there is truly help from that direction. My daughter was allowed to attend a different church than us when she was a teen because her friend went there. When she became 18, she wanted out on her own, or with friends. So she had them announce at church that she was looking for a place for free for now so she could move out. And an elderly woman from church allowed her to take up residence in her spare bedroom and that is how she started down the road to independance. I know this is more than your wanted with thinking only of the dance situation but thats only one issue and there will be many more. Your dad won't take you out for driving lessons or pay for it when the time comes so you'd have to find a way to save up for the lessons and find another adult other than parents willing to be the adult who allows you to learn with them in their car, perhaps an aunt or uncle but they'd have to keep mum on that and not leak word to your Dad if they truly understand and you have their sympathy. If things become really bad before you turn 18 and no agency has stepped in to get your family help, then having a church pastor looking out for your welfare is the next best thing. I know this is all in the future but you have to have a plan now. You will need to find any way you can to get out from under Dads roof once you turn 18 so he can no longer control you. Its much easier for him to set unfair house rules as long as you live there. Unfair would be telling you that you have a deadline time to be home. Fair would be telling you no loud music after a certain time at night or if he wishes, no boyfriends or friends over to visit. It is after all his house and his say what goes on there. That is why you must find a way to get out as soon as your an adult. The good thing is, he can't control you unless you give control over to him because you feel you lack any other choices. So if you can't hang with peers right now, thats one thing but you don't want him doing the same with you when you are say 25 or so. I get people that age writing in because parents are still controlling them by fear, lack of chance to learn to do anything that involves decisions for themselves and so they find it much more difficult to break away.
I understand and if you need a friendly listening ear along the way to vent or ask for other advice, just let me know dear.
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