Why is my dad so mean to me?

If none of that is where you are, keep reading. What follows is about words that cut, and the person they keep landing on.

Teasing that is not funny to you. Sighs when you speak. Being told you are lazy, slow or useless over a small thing. Your mistakes retold at dinner.

When you object, you hear that you are too sensitive or cannot take a joke. So you stop objecting, and the words keep coming.

Sharp words are often heat with nowhere else to go. A hard day, a worry, a temper that was there before you spoke. The words land on whoever is near.

That is why they rarely fit what you did. The size comes from him. You were where it landed.

The words describe his heat. They were never an accurate description of you.

It is not about being too sensitive. Feeling hurt by words meant to sting is the ordinary result of being stung.

And it is not yours to fix. Being better, quieter or funnier has not stopped it, because you were never what started it.

Notice what happens in you when he starts. Heat in the face. A lump in the throat. The urge to laugh along, or to fire back.

Do not laugh along with a joke about you. You can stay flat: "That's not funny to me." Then leave the room if you can.

Write down what was said, and when. Not to win a fight. So that "it was only a joke" has a record beside it that is yours.

Find one adult outside the house who hears you plainly. A teacher, an aunt, a friend's parent. And one thing is not in your control: the words he chooses. That is his work.

Check what has changed. Whether you put yourself down before anyone else can. Whether you brush off praise. Whether his words have started to sound like your own voice.

This page cannot see inside him, and it will not guess. It can say that mean words are often heat looking for a place to land, and a child at home is the nearest place. That makes the words about his state, not your worth. Stop searching yourself for the reason. Write down what was said, and tell one adult outside the house.

From where you stand, there is no reason, and you are right about that. The cause is not in the room, so you cannot find it however hard you look. When words are far sharper than the event, the event was a switch, not a cause. Stop apologizing for things you cannot name. You did not earn this.

A sudden change usually has a cause somewhere: work, money, health, something at home you have not been told. This page cannot name it. A sudden change in a parent is worth telling another adult about, so someone older can ask him or his doctor. It is not your job to find the cause. It is your job to tell someone.

Picking on one person can make that person feel singled out for a reason. Often the reason is position, not character: you are close, you answer back, or you are the one still at home. That is about where you stand. It is not a ruling on who you are. Keep your answers short and flat, and do not take the bait.

Being put down, belittled or talked down to tells you that you are smaller than you are. It is the shape of the words, not a fact about you. Notice when you start agreeing with them in your own head. Then say the plain version back to yourself: "I made one mistake. I am not stupid."

Mockery dressed as a joke is hard to object to, because objecting makes you the problem. That is the trick of it. A joke that only one person laughs at is not shared. You do not have to laugh. Say "That's not funny to me," in a flat voice. Then leave the room.

Hearing your dad talk you down to other people can feel worse than hearing it to your face. It puts his version of you in rooms you are not in. You cannot control what he says to others. You can make sure one adult outside the family knows your version. Tell them in your own words.

Some people read this page for a dad and recognize the heat from the inside. The Rage Pattern is the pattern where anger arrives far bigger than the thing that set it off. You may have learned it in this house.

Do you say cutting things over small stuff, then feel sick about it after? Then that file may be yours, and it is the one pattern here you can work on directly.