<p>Hi everyone. I’m a regular poster under another username. I’ve been wanting to post this for awhile, and I’m really hoping for some advice on how to handle my dad’s temper tantrums. I apologize in advance for the length of my post, but I feel like I can’t otherwise give a complete picture.</p>
<p>My dad likes to be in control of everything to the point that my mom and I, when I’m home from college, have little freedom. He likes to tell my mom what to wear and how to do things. He’s always convinced that his way is better either because he got it off the internet or heard it from friends. When my mom objects, he persists to the point where she’ll lose her temper. Then he loses his temper and blames her for not following his directions. It happens so frequently that my mom usually stops arguing after a certain point.</p>
<p>My dad never likes to admit wrong. When you try pointing out his flaws to him, he tries to turn things around on you, making himself the victim. He thinks we hate him and like to blame everything on him. He makes melodramatic statements like, “Fine! Everything’s my fault then! Everyone in this family hates me. There’s no love in this family!”</p>
<p>Tonight, something trivial happened, and he flew off the handle. I was going to a friend’s house, so I offered to pick up something from the store that we needed. He said he’d do it because he wanted to go out. I insisted that I could do it because the store was on my way. He started getting irritated and told me I was complicating things; my mother told him he was complicating things. That’s when he got really angry and sort of started yelling.</p>
<p>He eventually worked himself into a frenzy, knocked some things to the ground, and went out for a drive. This was after various declarations of, “This whole household is turning against me! There’s no justice! Don’t bother calling the police!”</p>
<p>After he left, my mom and I talked about various ways to get him help. I suggested counseling or therapy, but she told me that that wouldn’t help him, nor would he ever seek counseling himself. She just told me to go along with whatever he said and ignore him whenever he got angry because that was the only way to deal with it.</p>
<p>Well, after a little while, he came back. He came thundering upstairs and started yelling. Neither of us had called him while he was gone because we wanted him to calm down. He was enraged that we hadn’t called and accused me of being coldblooded, merciless, ruthless, loveless, and heartless. My grandmother has just passed away, so he invoked her, telling me she would’ve been ashamed of my cold-heartedness. I tried explaining to him that we didn’t call because we wanted him to calm down first and didn’t want him to get too excited while he was driving. He didn’t believe me, saying he could have driven himself off the road, and I would’ve as good as killed him because I didn’t call. He told me my actions were criminal.</p>
<p>Taking the cue from my mom, I listened to him while he raged on, but I said as little as possible. His main beef was that my mom and I had, in his view, ganged up on him in pointing out that he was wrong. He kept on saying he was the head of the household (and thus implying that he didn’t deserve to be “punished”). </p>
<p>Just now, he seemed to have a meltdown where he sounded like he was crying and saying, “My mother just died!” But when my mother and I apologized and tried to console him, he shrugged my mom off and started yelling again. I don’t know if that bit was a glimpse of his real heartache or just a bit of acting. </p>
<p>I really can’t stand it when my dad is like this. I should’ve backed down initially, but I don’t think such a small disagreement should be able to set off something like this. When my dad starts yelling, he doesn’t listen to anyone. He just goes on and on and on. If you start talking, he’ll interrupt you and won’t give you a chance to talk. He just talks until he’s convinced himself that all of humanity has wronged him, which isn’t true, of course.</p>
<p>He deliberately misconstrues other people’s words and throws them back in their faces. He says he’s just defending himself, but he’d never tolerate that kind of behavior from me if I were in the wrong. In fact, he’s pretty much the only one in the family allowed to be angry. When I try defending myself (by explaining my own actions, not by putting words in other people’s mouths), he tells me to dispense with the excuses and that I have no right to be angry.</p>
<p>Whenever he goes on like this, I’m just gripped by this feeling of great injustice, which is, ironically, also what he feels. He cannot be wrong, and when he thinks we’re telling him he’s wrong, he just starts shouting and sometimes becomes incoherent in his shouting. It’s always a lose-lose situation because there is no right move. If I had called him tonight, he either would’ve ignored me or picked up the phone to yell at me some more. I was concerned about him, and that’s precisely why I didn’t call; I’m always concerned when he gets mad anyway.</p>
<p>And while I try not to take to heart the things he says when he’s angry, his words still hurt. A lot. I remember instances when we were arguing at my grandparents’ house and he’d tell me I was responsible if my grandfather had a heart attack due to our yelling.</p>
<p>When he unleashes his temper, it’s absolutely terrible. It cripples the whole family. When he’s upset, everyone else is. And he doesn’t see reason. If he realizes that he’s wrong (which is rare), he’ll just change the subject and turn himself into the victim (like tonight - his attitude later was, “Fine, I was wrong, but you committed the greater of sin of not caring enough”). He has never apologized to anyone, although he fully expected apologies from my mother and me tonight.</p>
<p>My mom tells me I should try talking to him when he’s in better moods and that this is more or less just a phase he’s going through (“male menopause”). But from my experience, if you talk to him when he’s in a good mood, yes, he’ll listen, but he won’t really try to improve. When he gets angry, he just forgets to be rational and flies off the handle, so no amount of talking will help.</p>
<p>Now that his rage has run its course, he’s more rational and calm. My dad hates “talking” - you know, when you tell other people about your hopes and fears and such. So I think part of the reason he gets so angry is because he bottles up a lot of emotions, which is pretty common in our family (as well as stubbornness). And life does go on, usually after a couple hours, or even a couple days. We tend to brush these incidents under the carpet. But then the volcano erupts again, and everyone’s flustered all over again. My dad has a really overbearing presence, and I just hate to think that my mom will have to put up with this for a long time to come.</p>
<p>My mom has even said it herself; she’s a workhorse for the family. She brings home money, but she’s not allowed much say in anything. All her friends are my dad’s friends, so she doesn’t have any allies (except me, but I grew up being terrified of my dad, so I’m not much help). I’m not that worried for myself because I don’t have to live with him for the rest of my days, but my mom has to. </p>
<p>Lastly, I want to make clear that my dad has never been violent towards anyone. When he throws things, he’s careful to aim for the ground. He wouldn’t hurt either of us, I know. But his rages are always emotionally draining.</p>