[support] Rant: My last night with my NDad. Trigger warning? -he's kinda toxic.

So I'm pretty damn sure my Dad is a narcissist. He correlates strongly with the guide to spotting one that's on the side bar. I feel like posting this because it's still affecting me and I don't really know how to deal with him at this point besides NC but NC is kind of a challenge when I'm still receiving money from him for living costs, costs I look forward to reducing and gaining independence from. This is my first reddit post and I strongly hope I'm using this section correctly. After the night I spent an entire week venting so I wasn't an emotional wreck for my partner But I still feel some trauma when going over it and most of all I guess it'd be nice to see some solidarity.

In this post I'm writing to my sister. "Oh yeah and I didn't tell you what happened between Dad and I. So Mum and I went and helped him move his shit around so he could fly to Australia. He'd been his usual narcissistic prick self but he hadn't been 'that' bad (okay he did also strongly imply that I don't have my own opinions, I just adopt whatever I think is the opposite of his position). Until we had one last day out together before dropping mum off at the airport. I said I didn't want to go for the drive, mum was okay Dad was irritated but said sure. I'm alone for a few hours, he gets back and starts drinking some beer. He gets to talking and tries to convince me not once but three times one after the other to create an app idea he's too lazy to do himself but thinks I have to do.

So I think there's a slight bit of tension as we go out to get chinese for dinner (but I wasn't too aware of a bad mental state from him yet) We get to the restaurant, it's small, there's only four other people there. Dad gets what must be his fourth+ beer (he drove). After getting the beer he's pointing to these symbols on the bottle asking me what they say. I say I can't read them they're in cantonese, he keeps asking me what they say. I'm tired by that time of day, slightly drunk. I choose to take his question literally because he can get aggressive sometimes when he's drunk and I don't. So I'm repeating that I don't know what the thing is that he is directly pointing to and asking me "what is this? What does it say here?" (this goes on for like 10 minutes).

Eventually he mumbles something about an alcohol percentage and I check the bottle and sure enough in very tiny writing that was not facing me there is 4%. I'm tired and drunk and say something like "it's 4%, you were asking for the % in the wrong place/ asking the wrong question so I couldn't answer you". This fucks him right off.

He begins to loudly tell me that I'm a Cunt, twice. He's saying this while people are eating right next to us and the owners are looking like they reallly don't want this going on in their restaurant. I say "you can't say that/ in public" he goes "well I just did" while doing his best to look serious and intimidating. He calls me a few more things and mostly repeats "You engineered this from the start" I try to apologize but he's not having any of it, a sorry wasn't enough he wanted to abase me and see me grovel. I tell him that I can't take his behaviour but he tells me again that I caused it because he thinks I was deliberately fucking with him over the bottle label and so it was all my fault.

I say something like I can't take how horrible he's being and he starts talking about how he paid for the meal and took Mum and I to places like that justified how shitty he was being. I said "That's emotionally manipulative" he said "so what if it is?"

Along the way I say that if he keeps up his behaviour like this around people close he'll end up dying alone and unloved. I haven't told many people this but I genuinely forgot to call him on his birthday and he called me about 8pm drunk off his face, crying and sounding somewhat suicidal which scared the absolute shit out of me and made me want to see him in auckland even more for support. I started talking about how his behaviour seriously affects me and that at one unhappy moment him being drunk and shitty became the closest I have to suicide. His reply was (verbatim) "It's not my fault you're fucked in the head" (dead serious with eyes that looked sociopathic).

I'm pretty shocked by this point but the pulls out an even bigger gun shortly after when he says "Well you deserve some 'maybe abuse', what have you EVER done for me or Mum?" I know he's measuring this financially but still I couldn't help myself in comparing what Mum would say which is that I have done things for her, certainly enough that would prevent an open season in abusing me. I forget when exactly but he also makes a few 'light threats' during our conversation. I say "that sounds like a threat" and he replies that no those are not threats. We're still in the restaurant up until now.

We leave, I get in the truck absolutely shitscared over what could happen next. I get in the back seat because I'm afraid that he would grab me or hit me or otherwise do something to me until I rolled over and told him how sorry I was for everything (he's trapped me in cars for apologies multiple times, mostly non violent but he has hit me before, sometimes right up before we were supposed to spend a day working on set together and acting like we're in a functioning relationship.)

So I get in the back and he talks about throwing me out of the truck and trusting me to find my way back to his place even though it was the first night I had been there and it was pitch black driving to the restaurant. At this point I really don't care what I say to him because I'm furious over his behaviour, how he wouldn't move on from the bottle even after I said sorry for it, how he yelled most of the things he said in a public restaurant that had guests and staff who could clearly hear the words.

So I tell him that yes that night he would 'be my chauffeur' (something he's always yelled about any time I've tried to be in the back seat of a car he drove) telling him that it's 'asshole tax'. He locks me in the truck and says that he is going to have to find a taxi home and leave me locked in the car. His bullshit drama isn't working on me by then so I say something like "well you'll have to pay for a new window". His reply is to activate the car alarm and just leave me inside (he's done this on a number of occasions, one time he left the car alarm going for 15 minutes, while he had a meeting in the building next to it, he never acted like it was deliberate but he wasn't very sorry that the alarm had gone off for that long). So I stay calm, with the alarm going as loud at it is at 11pm for something like five minutes.

He finally enters the truck and he's quiet for a moment before telling me that "YOU WILL FUCKING PAY FOR THIS, THAT IS A THREAT". At this point I'm shitscared and I decide to do what I did. Which was to quickly gather up everything I could remember bringing once I got to his place and walk out the door in the general direction of the motorway and bus depot.

I don't make it to the bus depot. What I do accomplish is wandering around for two or so hours with a 20kg bag around my neck and bruising my arms and legs and neck while I also carry a backpack. I finally break down and cry, I call my partner and I text Mum. Partner organises a taxi to pick me up, Mum didn't reply until I was already in the taxi and texts me to stay 'in the area' until the next day but by that time I'm well out of albany and had just passed the last motorway turnoff before the bridge.

I pay the $60 fair and exit at Brittomart. I'm a bit of a mess at this point and barely hanging together. Mum calls me and is taking about backpackers but at this point I was ready to sit outside brittomart like a vagrant until I could get an airport bus. She convinces me to go to some hotel/backpackers in the area and we end up checking me into some semi flash hotel right outside brittomart. She pays with the credit card Dad gave her and I book some rather expensive but very convenient flights to wellington and to Invercargill a week later on the same flight mum went down south on.

Overall it was extremely traumatic for me, I was still crying randomly throughout the week after, I feel even more angst around other people's parents just because of him. I never want to be alone with Dad again and I am thinking that No Contact is exceedingly the best option. He's still sending me something like $600 a month in support, I didn't ask for quite that much but I did need some of it at least to make ends meet when flatting. He's still paying for my phone contract and on Xmas he sent me a text wishing me a merry one (smiley face) But I don't want to have anything to do with him and I look forward to the day that I don't take his money."