Are my parents abusive? In any way?
I've been struggling with this for a long time. I've been told that it's muddy because it's very off and on... But I don't know. And something happened recently that's making me have questions again.
A lot of this happened when I was a kid still. I'm 23 now. I think the biggest thing I remember is an incident with a teacher in middle school. Me and this boy were like 13, maybe 14, and being weird to each other. We were being kids who had crushes on one another that were going through puberty. One day two kids said we were touching each other in the middle of class and then it all spiraled from there. This teacher would make false calls home about how we were kissing in class, and eventually brought me outside to scream at the top of his lungs in my face just for walking in the classroom right next to this kid. My father wouldn't believe me, he said that if I tried to talk to the boy again for any reason my phone would end up in the pool. My phone was searched through (all gallery and apps and texts) and given back to me with all pictures of men deleted. Including pictures of my friends. My best friend at the time lived right next to this kid and I was accused of just going to see him later, with the same phone in the pool threat. At that point it had been at least 6 months and I wasn't even thinking about this boy but I got a whole lecture about it.
I got my phone taken away when I had low Cs in my classes. Which happened a lot, because I wasn't great at math. I barely passed math. My phone was always looked through every time. The gallery, all my texts, even Instagram messages. I'd get told I had plenty of privacy or that I don't need it because I'm a kid. My dad would do it right in front of me and also read the texts out to me, saying "oh it was cute when you and friend talked about x." I was accused of trying to talk to boys on the internet. If my phone was active past 10pm, my bed time until I graduated, on the router (my father checked) my dad would barge into my room and told me to go to sleep. Sometimes he'd even take my phone. He had all passwords to every account and he'd threaten to delete the accounts or make sure I never have access to it if I changed them and didn't want to give him the password.
I had all emails forwarded to my mom until I was almost graduated from high school. My dad didn't want me to turn it off until I graduated even though I was already 18.
If my father was upset with me, which happened frequently, he would physically intimidate me. If we had an argument about my phone, and let's say the door slammed when I walked in on accident (it was windy and happened more times than you'd think), he'd walk up to me and get in my face and grab my chin. It didn't matter if it was an accident, it was always taken as me acting out. I take this as physical intimidation, maybe I'm wrong, but things like that happened constantly. His first instinct was to do something like that and when he "released" me I'd have to say "yes father." instead of just "yes" or "okay."
There was one time, during college, where I was trying to explain something about fafsa to him, I just wanted to explain my thought process. He yelled at me to shut up. I said don't talk to me that way I'm just trying to explain something to you. He screamed at me in my face and said I don't tell him what to say in his own house little girl. He also said I needed to learn a lesson and he'd never apologize.
My mom has done... Less things. My mom has complained about not being close with me and turned around and said she didn't like me as a kid "but you're okay now that you're older!" and then justified it saying I was mean to her. I specifically remember her at some point screaming that she didn't love me in elementary school. She also would not let me talk about my interests if they didn't interest her. She'd actually just talk over me until I stopped talking about whatever it was.
I recently quit a job. Yes, I got another one. But that job resulted in thinly veiled threats of being kicked out to the street. But this led to the big incident making me question everything...
I tried to move out and was held within the house trying to leave. My parents don't have guardianship or conservatorship over me either. I was meaning to move in with my partner in another state, and I had a job lined up. I had money saved up. It was planned for at least 3 months (realistically, more than that. More like 6. But the actual planning started being more serious 3 months in), but I didn't tell my parents until 2 days before I was going to leave. This was actually suggested by my partner as I was going to just disappear without saying anything at all. They spent the longest time trying to convince me to say something, and were even willing to go to lunch and let my parents take a picture of their driver's license.
My partner and my parents never met because my partner is trans. My parents are highly transphobic, and I believe I may be trans as well. This is a belief I had well before my partner, not caused by my partner. Once my parents found this out, my mom started screaming about how my cousin was beat by her trans boyfriend and she tried to kill herself multiple times. How she ran away at my age and got abused. My parents were calling my partner untrustworthy because of their hormones, saying it was more likely for me to be abused, harping on their government name not being legally changed yet. A lot of things. My partner was panicked and didn't help either.
They spent the entire night trying to convince me to not go. Telling me how I'm breaking my mother's heart, telling me that my relationship with them will be ruined permanently. That they'll cut me off and sell all my things. I explained the entire plan to them, how I had a job waiting for me, how I was going to pay for everything, how I was going to do x y and z thing such as getting my license and secure transportation. I don't have my license for a few different reasons. Me and my partner have known each other for a long time and have spent significant time together in person. I fell asleep for a few hours, and my room was barged into and I was brought into my parents room. I was not allowed to leave this room whatsoever. They weren't going to let me out of sight until I said I wasn't going. If I tried to leave I was physically put back into the room.
They took my phone, threatened to break it and my computer. Told me I wasn't getting it back. My mom was guarding the door and my dad was yelling at me in the room about how stupid I am. How they don't accept it, how it would be so much more accepting if I did it differently. They were willing to "work" with me on it until they found out my partner is trans. Then they switched completely to my partner being a predator from the internet.
My partner is not a predator. We have seen each other multiple times in person, both alone and in groups. We even met in person. We were friends for a while before we got together. We facetime a lot too, probably more than the average couple due to distance. We even do cringey sleep calls sometimes. My partner moved away for work, and I thought a new environment would be good for me. I wanted away from my parents.
My parents went through my phone in front of me, without my consent. They made me unlock it and snatched it from me. They went through my messages and found my partner's address, started purchasing various background checks and criminal records, looking up names. They found out where my partner worked because we talked about work through text. She was seeing if her workplace had openings a while ago.
My parents told me that they'd slash my partner's tires and call their place of work saying there's abuse going on at home relating to me. They were screaming at me about everything that could go wrong. My father eventually tried to call my partner using my phone, but the call wouldn't go through. My partner was on the road coming to get me and was in a spotty area on the highway, so the call dropped when they did eventually answer. But the assumption was that my partner hung up, so my dad pulled out his gun and loaded it with a bullet in front of my face saying that now he has to prepare to protect his family at all costs because this person doesn't even want to talk to my parents.
Right after this, the police knocked on the door. My parents were telling the cops that a person from the internet I've never met beforehand was coming to get me to live with them. Then one officer talked to my parents and the other talked to me, but not in separate rooms. I said how that's not true, that they're holding my phone and that I've met my partner multiple times in person and there's pictures of us next to each other. I said I didn't want to stay and that they're preventing me from leaving. The officers said to just try to convince me to stay and verbally said to give my phone back and walked away in the end and to call tomorrow should anything happen.
My parents went straight back to the room after they left hounding me about what I could've possibly told anyone else. How they're not abusive and I manipulated everyone into thinking that they are, so much so that they called the police. I have never ever called my parents abusive to anyone, by the way. They said calling the police was part of my partner's fantasy to bring me to them. That my partner just wanted me for sex and a savior complex.
They used my phone to call my partner and make threats. It was subtle threats to life. Things like; I know where you and your parents live, if you come here we're going to have problems, if they (me) disappear within the next few weeks I'll come knocking at your door and that's a knock you don't want. Outside of the calls my parents continued to threaten my partner's life but to me instead. How they'll shoot my partner if my partner shows up and call the police after. How if I go through with this they'll do something so drastic it'll be their goodbye to me. They took the number and texted my partner to go home and I won't be there but kept the threats to over the phone. They said they'd force me to cut contact. They said I was young and susceptible and not mentally ready to move, nor was it planned out, threatened my partner again, and hung up. I was then hauled to a hotel for the next two days. I wasn't allowed to leave that room either and I was kept from any access to the phones.
My parents threatened to call the cops on any other irl friend's house I go stay at to come get me. They already threatened to send the police to all of them regardless. My parents have told me that they're extremely traumatized to the point where they need counseling. They keep trying to sit me down and keep making me promise I won't try to leave again and will do it the right way. I'm being taken out driving somewhere every single day now at least.
They're starting to connect random instances to my partner saying they're trying to stalk them. A random TikTok follow, some car being weird outside. At one point my mother was ready to slash some random person's tires because they happened to park in the middle of the street in front of our house. They turned out to be a doordasher looking for a specific house.
I'm being told if I try to go again I'll effectively no longer exist to them and that I'm responsible for their mental suffering and how scared they are for my safety. They haven't asked me once if I was okay for people so worried and concerned about me. Just if I have anything I want to tell them. Meanwhile I'm trying to navigate what I just went through by myself and I can't even go outside anymore without being questioned.