u/Rare_Opening_2743

TLDR: MY DAD WAS FINANCIALLY, MENTALLY AND VERBALLY ABUSIVE BUT I HATE THAT HE DIED WITHOUT ME SAYING I LOVE YOU ONE LAST TIME.

My dad passed February 23rd 2026. We did not have a good relationship for the past year and through a lot of my childhood. I lived with my mom till I was 12, almost never saw my dad as he lived several states over and was a truck driver at the time. When I was 13 my parents decided to get back together suddenly and we moved states to live with my dad. It was ok at first but the longer we lived with him the more I noticed I didn’t like the way I was talked to and treated. Honestly my dad has always talked to me like this when he’s not in a good mood. I think he started calling me a bitch and saying fuck you to me around when I turned 15, anytime I would disagree with him about a subject or something he wanted me to do specifically.

One time my little sister and I got into a small argument at dinner, she took my seat at the table, I got mad and tried to take my food to the couch to eat. I dropped the plate of food on accident, cleaned it up and washed my dish and just decided to go to sleep. As I was about to walk into my room, my dad got up, grabbed a yard stick, and hit me with it so hard on my back that it broke it half. For no reason too, just because he didn’t like that I had a small argument with my sister and decided to just walk away instead of screaming about anything. I was 13, I think that’s when I lost respect for him honestly. Things didn’t really get any better honestly.

My parents divorced again a year after getting back together and I had to decide if I wanted to stay in a good state with my dad and receive a fully paid for education or leave and move back in with my mom in a not safe neighborhood in a veryyy poverty filled state with no good education system. I chose to stay with dad. I made that decision at 14. My mom cheated on him, and for some reason he assumed that I knew everything and just hid it from him. I was 14 and she was cyber messaging some guy states away from us. I had no clue but he still treated me like shit anyways. I learned the word Narcissist that year and began connecting the dots with his behavior.

I will say he’s never physically hurt me, aside from the yardstick situation, it was always verbal and mental. I was an AB Honor roll student through all my school years, took my studies seriously because “school was my job”. Except that didn’t stop his from acting like I was a complete idiot outside of studying. He would always say things like “life’s just so easy for you” or “you don’t care about anything” or would say to other people “how did you let my daughter beat you in (whatever activity/sport)” and laugh. I felt like I could never say anything because he paid all the bills and I was just a kid, what could I do. I never told anyone either not even my mom, not even till this day. I once almost got kicked out of our house, 2 days after my 18th birthday, (still a senior in high school), for not washing dishes that HE left in the kitchen sink. He came in my room at 5:30am and woke me up by slapping me in the head and telling me to get my shit and get out of his house. The only reason I didn’t get kicked out because I called my mom crying and confused and she called and said something so bad to him that he never brought up the dish situation ever again. I moved out at the first opportunity I had to go to college hours away.

Lots happened while I was away and to make this long story a little shorter, our relationship was always better with distance between us, he would actually act like a loving father, calling to check on his college daughter and sending money for food and supplies. But the second I did or said anything that he didn’t like or agree with, I was cut off completely. He even stopped saying I love you to me for a couple years after some argument he created.

Anyways enough backstory, He had a heart attack in June 2025. We were living together at the time and it was really bad. One night he just came up to me and said “hey my chest has been hurting really bad for a few days and my left arm is hurting bad too.” I knew as soon as he said his left arm was hurting what was happening. I rushed him to the ER where we sat and he had tests run on him until 4am. Around 4am my dad told me to leave the hospital and go home. That I had to work in the morning and he would be ok with the doctor. After a bit of back and forth I left.

He has two sisters that were called to our state to help with his care. Sister 1 was a military vet and covered most of his (rent utilities) expenses since he was in the hospital for a month and lost his job due to it. Sister 2 actually works in the medical industry for over 20 years and she was the one who talked to the doctors to get information about his condition (because the doctor is nurses weren’t telling us anything really) and she also advocated for my dad so the hospital wasn’t just running test after test on him just to rack up the bill. With the two of them there I honestly felt a lot less useless and like my dad would actually be in the best hands with his siblings.

He had heart surgery and ended up being in the hospital for about a month and a half. I was there almost everyday, but I also worked almost everyday while trying to make up for his lack of income so we could have the bills paid. Well before he had the heart attack his truck broke down and he left it at a gas station close to his job. I’d sent him $200 TWICE so he could get the car towed home but he sent the money back both times, saying don’t worry about it I’ll figure it out.

We had also bought a new car together shortly before his truck died on him that we paid for together, but it was supposed to be MY CAR since the 15 year old car I was driving was in terrible shape by this point. Well he forgot about his truck until a few weeks into his hospital stay and asked me to go drive by and see the truck. I went to the gas station and the truck was gone. I asked the employees about what happened to it, they didn’t. They had to call the store manager, who had to get in contact with other people and he basically told me he had n clue what happened to the truck and gave me a list of tow places around them to call. I called everyone and a few police impounds in our area and absolutely no one had or saw the truck. I can only assume it was stolen so I told him. Obviously he was upset bc he got that truck from his deceased parents and had been fixing it up for a long time. I understood that, I just couldn’t understand why he was upset at ME. Saying I lost his truck telling me it’s all my fault when I told his well before he went into the hospital that he needed to get his truck home asap, even sent him money to just get it towed home twice. Doesn’t matter, it’s my fault his truck was gone in the wind and he told me to my face that he would never forgive me for it.

This is when my dad became the cruelest he’s ever been. The next day I went to see him at the hospital and I was doing his hair for him, like he asked me to. He turned to me and asked me ”where have you been since I’ve gotten sick? I feel like I hardly ever see you. I feel like you’re not helping me.” At this point he’s been in the hospital for a month and I maybe was not in the hospital for 3 DAYS during that whole month. And that was only because of my work shift ending when the hospital visiting hours closed so they literally wouldn’t let me see him. And his sister #2 was staying with him every night in the hospital so they really wouldn’t let me in after visiting hours were closed because she was there already. At this point im so out of it that I just said “I’ve been here when I could be” and just left the conversation at that.

For that entire month I’d been working my ass off with a terrible paying job just trying to cover our bills by myself( I had no clue that sister number 1 promised to pay most of his bills that month either). Nevermind the fact that I’m 24 years old and my dad is laying dying in a hospital and I’m completely useless. Nevermind the fact that I’m trying to work so he can be comfortable when he gets home. Nevermind the fact that i am 100% bearing the weight of knowing he’s going to die and trying to fill my time in with distractions anyway possible just to get my mind off it. While also trying to cater to his every wish because I can feel that I don’t have a lot of time with him.

I know it was a lot on him and he could feel it too. But fuck I was doing the best I could with this terrifying situation too.

One night the girl I was dating at the time called me over late at night to go be with her for a few hours. I left my house around 12 am and went to hers, was only supposed to be there a couple hours but I ended up falling asleep somehow and not getting home until 5am. That’s when he decided to take my car that we had just bought from me, like I was a child who was grounded, because he didn’t like the fact that I was out late and probably having a good time. As soon as I got home he started yelling at me saying “ I could’ve died while you were gone” but when I asked him if he was actually having heart troubles or just saying that to say it, he just said “shut the fuck up and put my keys on the table” and went back to sleep. So I knew he was bullshitting and just doing it bc he felt like fucking me over for nothing. I should also mention, he had been out of the hospital for three months by the time this happened, and never once told me he needed me to be home all night to check on him. He’d never even mentioned ever having issues or thinking he was gonna die in his sleep.

The cruelty started up again the day he came home and only got worse day after day. We were also in the process of our lease ending and had decided months before that we would get another two bedroom place together. Well with two months left on our lease and him finally home from the hospital I sent him an apartment application that I’d already paid for since I was expecting us to live together still. He sent a message saying actually I don’t want to live with you. And left me to try to find a place on my own while knowing I didn’t have enough income for it. He didn’t give a fuck about where I ended up he just knew it wouldn’t be with him.

I ended up moving into a shotty roach infested motel, filled with prostitutes and drug addicts in the worst part of our town, and paying $400 WEEKLY just to stay there. It was bad. I thought about doing terrible things to myself during that time. I had got a new job where I was paid a little more but had way more responsibility and it was honestly kicking my ass everyday. Plus having to go home to my motel room every night and not knowing what crack head was going to be screaming down the hallways that night never got easier.

The “friends who I care about more than him” is just the girl I was dating who was holding me down mentally while dealing with the hospital and everything afterwards. Him saying I couldn’t be bothered to take him to appointments is because he already took my newer car and I was riding around in a dangerous car that was falling apart. He took himself to the appointments in my newer car and literally would get dressed and leave without telling me anything, including whether he had an appointment that day or even wanted me to go. The day he got out of the hospital he didn’t let me do anything for him no matter what it was. He would try to fight me when I said I was even going to grocery store with him to help him pick up and carry stuff.
Guys don’t like to feel like they are weak and useless tho, so when he refused to let me help him in any way I backed off completely.

I ended up asking him to pay me back the money I put in for the car he had taken from me a month into driving it, I had gotten a really good lead on an actual apartment and they were willing to let me stay there if I could move in within a month a half. Well you can see how well it went when I tried to ask for that. Ended up losing that opportunity for a safe place to lay my head because he refuse to give me anything for like 3 months. Then suddenly asked my cashapp out of the blue months later when he knew I needed it sooner. Tried to make me feel bad for ever asking him to give me the money he basically stole from me in the first place. Tried to get me to pay for problems he was having with that car, when the car had no issues the entire month that I was driving.

Honestly when he sent me the happy birthday text I didn’t know how to respond. I was so angry, I was hurt. I was still in motels, still wanting to end myself, it was my 25th birthday and I spent day crying to myself wondering if anyone cared about me or even remembered I existed. If it wasn’t for the fact that the girl I was dating stuck besides me the whole time I was going through it, I probably wouldn’t have even seen that birthday. I didn’t think he would message me either but when he did I said the only thing I was capable of saying, “Thank you”.

That was the last time we even “spoke”. My last words to him were thank you and we had such bad blood at the time but now I regret not at least saying I love you. I wasn’t expecting the police to call me two weeks later and say you were gone. My mind is a whirlpool of emotes and I sink deeper and deeper into the center everyday. Idk why I’m posting this. But shit if I don’t tell anyone now I’ll probably be dealing with all these pent up emotions until the end of my life. Whenever that may be. If you made it this far, thank you. Thank you for caring even a little bit about this internet stranger.

EDIT: ADDED SPACE BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS
EDIT 2: Some of yall are lucky enough to have never had narcissistic, manipulative parents and it shows. And some of yall are just assholes tryna project your own issues onto me. Take the story, learn from it, and move on.

TLDR: MY DAD WAS FINANCIALLY, MENTALLY AND VERBALLY ABUSIVE BUT I HATE THAT HE DIED WITHOUT ME SAYING I LOVE YOU ONE LAST TIME.

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