Location: Texas, USA
I am a girl and I am going to leave for college in the fall.
My father has always had anger issues. Ever since I was little, he has been hitting and yelling, especially when he was in a bad mood. He would always try to disguise it as discipline, but obviously, a lot of it was unreasonable.
When I was 15 or 16, he got into trouble because of his anger issues and got arrested. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I remember a local newspaper saying something about him laying hands on one of my older relatives and he got out because they paid a couple thousand for a fine. After that incident, he apologized to us (me, my mom, my younger sibling) because of the stress and drama it caused. He also promised to control his temper, which he had done multiple times since we were children, and I took it seriously because he had obviously just gotten arrested and the public was aware of his anger issues.
However, last year, he ended up hitting me and my younger sibling again. It was after me and my sibling had an argument, he eventually started screaming and when he gets mad he starts insulting everyone and bringing up unrelated things; that time he started insulting my mom for letting me have a boyfriend and called her (and both me and my sibling) stupid bitches among other things. I stood up for my mom and said "every single time you're mad you just blame other people, she didn't even do anything" and he lunged at me and hit me partially 3-4 times but missed because my mom blocked him. He also went ahead and hit my younger sibling a handful of times. Then when we backed off he barged into our rooms and hit us both again several times.
I'm only bringing this up again because he's mad again at us for no reason. I wanted more independence and to become more responsible as I transitioned into college, but my dad took me wanting to be more responsible as me pushing my parents away. This was because my mom kept saying she wanted to visit every week and I didn't need her or my dad up my ass while I would be doing hours of studying plus extracurriculars each week. I said no because I wanted to get a job and have time to figure out college myself, and he started getting mad and telling me to "chill out."
The day after that he started calling me a useless piece of shit and kept swearing at me. But it's been a week since then and we havent spoken to each other at all. I feel like I do not need to be the one to break the silence because he will probably just end up swearing and he also makes no sense and never understands where I am coming from.
I just have a feeling he's going to burst one of these days, and I am not willing to change my stance on this situation, so this will probably lead to an argument and/or him getting physical again. Moving out is not an option for me because I don't have a job or money, unfortunately. I also need loans for my college and I can't take out any myself.
I am just not going to put up with this anymore, it's gotten old. I literally got the news articles of him removed because I didn't think he was going to hit me again, but he already has since he's gotten arrested, and I don't think he has any problems with doing it again.
So how do I take action against him if he lays a hand on me again? I probably wouldn't win in a fight against him because he's fucking huge from eating junk all day, and I am not very big myself.
He also uses his hands only to hit, and there are never any marks or bruises afterwards. I have house cameras that might be able to record if he lays hands on me again. I am not usually in any immediate danger when he hits me.