This was very hard to read through, and it brought up so many difficult memories from not just childhood but well into adulthood.

My father would alternate between verbal abuse, physical abuse and the worst, emotional abuse. This started when I was very young, in primary school. Coming from an Asian family, we were all expected to be our best and to do our best in school, and getting anything less than the best grades was considered unacceptable. The consequences would often be harsh verbal beatdowns, curfews and extra classes.

Physical punishments were common, and they would usually involve a cane, stick, or belt. I was convinced I was getting away easy because the 'crime' I had committed was always super-serious, a grave and punishable offence, something like telling a lie or not doing my chores, so yeah it would be the death penalty were it not for the large-hearted compassion of the man administering the punishment.

It later turned more to emotional abuse as I had learned to start tuning out the pain and feelings and switch to a sort of zombie-mode when it came to the punishments. The emotional abuse would pain a lot longer and eventually started triggering mild to severe depressive episodes. As a male child we were told to tough it out and be a man.

As an example, the expectation on me was that I would study in a particular medical program after school. I was not remotely interested in medicine, I didn't do well, and did not get through. I chose another discipline that I liked. I am in my fifties now, but I still remember this incident very well. The summary of the comments was "I am ashamed of you, you are a failure, you have made me lose face." That stung harder than I would have expected, and it still takes a bit of effort to let go.

He had this way of changing his personality depending on the audience. To our close relatives, he would appear as the model father doing everything in his capacity (and beyond) to do good for his family, and that narrative was unquestioned and accepted by all. This was not completely without a basis, since he had supported his four siblings through a difficult childhood. The mask would drop when there were no outsiders around. Even after he died, everyone who came to pay their respects had good words to say.

As I graduated, I decided to quickly move out of home and leave the country, so I took the first chance I got and left. The abuse turned mostly emotional after that, and there's a lot I am leaving out here. I still had to keep in touch with family due to other reasons but by then I had evolved my way of coping.

The man is now dead and gone, I have not a single photo of him, nor any of the letters he had written to me. Later when I hit my late forties and would have a few deep conversations with mom, she would slowly tell me how hard it was to have lived with him for nearly six decades. She had many career opportunities that she was made to give up in order to "be the mother that a family needs", it was for the sake of external appearances. There was no physical abuse towards mom, but there was so much emotional abuse I couldn't deal with. Perhaps I took the cowards' way out and left the country, but in my early twenties I didn't know what to do.

I still have dreams (nightmares?) where he and I are face to face, arguing vigorously, stirring up all the wrong emotions, but there's not much I can do about that except to remind myself that it's just a dream, and to let it go.

So yeah, this type of abuse can really mess a person up. I'm coping now with proper guidance, letting go, meditating, and staying aware of unwholesome thoughts as they come up. It is a hard journey but I (we) need to make that decision and take charge of our feelings and actions.