Hello.

I’m 20 F and I currently live with my younger sister (16 F), my dad and mom. I’m financially dependent on my parents and I don’t have a job yet, though I am currently looking and hoping to get one as soon as I move back to the dorms at my university (which will happen in about two months).

I know that my dad is abusive; it used to be a little physical (he choked my older sister once, slapped me across the face, spanked my older sister and I and whipped us with a belt whenever he felt angry) when were younger but now he directs his anger by hitting himself/walls or other furniture. He also belittle me and my sibling and my mother, and often screams, but “fortunately” (as he told me) it could be worse, as his childhood was far worse (his dad beat his mom daily). My sisters and I are really scared of him; I was even diagnosed with PTSD due to my traumatic childhood, which was largely due to him.

Today, a really bad argument occurred between my younger sister and him. He followed my younger sister into our shared room and began screaming at her. She told him to stop screaming because it really scared her. I interrupted him and (politely) asked him to stop screaming because it was triggering. He directed his screaming at me and wouldn’t stop, even as I was experiencing a bad panic attack. During this screaming session, he threatened to kick me out , demanded I start paying for wifi because he was going to shut it off as I disrespected him, and yelled that I needed to call myself down from my panic attack and stop undermining his intelligence, whatever that means.

So my sister and mom came to my defense and said that yelling wasn’t okay, but he rebutted that it was a parenting technique and that he had it much worse as a child. He also said it was perfectly alright for him to scream because what about him, what about HIS anger? He argued he had to right to express it and that he was never going to apologize for it. Then he left the room and proceeded to verbally abuse my mother for “enabling” her disrespect children for another hour.

After a while, he came back to our room, asked if we were “done” (He said it Condescendingly, as if we were in the wrong for crying), and told us to eat some fruit (that I paid for) as if everything was normal.

Is his yelling considered a normal parenting technique? I can’t stop crying and my anxiety is horrible right now and I feel as if I’m overreacting. I feel so unsafe but there is nothing that physically warrants this feeling, but is yelling considered abuse?