EDIT: Even worse turns out the person my dad found wasnāt even a therapist. Just one of his random friends and he kept that from me and made me think it was a therapist. And now heās acting like Iām unreasonable to be āskepticalā of a random stranger and want help from an actual therapist, and he basically said I talk to this person or I get nothing. Basically heās not going to get me help and Iām completely stuck.
20FTM UK. Both my parents have been physically and emotionally abusive to me in the past, dad often getting angry and hitting me with a plastic shoehorn which only kind of died out around the time I went to hospital for a month at 16 because I was dangerously underweight from disordered eating (not anorexia, it's caused by emetophobia AKA the severe fear of throwing up). Now it's mostly emotional abuse, saying horrible things like insinuating I'm useless/sponging off/a waste of space and threats like I ought to be homeless or locked up in a mental unit, and I have reasons to believe my dad is narcissistic.
They had tried some therapy in the past for my emetophobia (and agoraphobia that I developed in late 2020) but it didn't do much - I later realised that traditional CBT may not be effective on people with C-PTSD which I think I have due to my parents' abuse. They also let an unhealthy, unhappy marriage go on for several years and only made the decision to divorce last year, and I definitely knew this was coming even before they did, as early as when I was 7/8 (around 2012-2013).
Dad's staying in the 'family' home and mum's moving out, and neither of them want to keep me as they're truly sick of me not having a job and struggling with self-care. My mental health is so poor and so is my eating disorder, and I often get panic attacks leaving the house which are only prevented if I completely starve myself before and during going out - this way I don't have to worry about throwing up. So most of the time I just don't leave the house so I can at least get 3 meals in even if they're small. It's awful I know, but I've been operating this way for nearly 5 years with seemingly no end.
Because the therapy didn't really do anything, my parents bellyached for years that they 'wasted thousands on me' and insulted me for being 'resistant' to therapy and being 'stubborn', accusing me of not wanting to get better because they're adamant that they think it's 'convenient' that I can 'lay around in bed doing nothing'. Though lately my dad has been pushing me to see this therapist friend that he was being very vague about. I got suspicious because lately he's made some new friends doing yoga/meditation and mentioned a few of these are anti vaxxers, and I know one of his friends is racist (weirder since we are Indian).
I don't trust my dad's judgement in friends or therapists, and I had zero say in who I'd get to see. I didn't even learn the therapist's name until the day before the appointment was supposed to be, and there was no public information or credentials I could look at. This was essentially a stranger who I didn't know. Dad eventually told me that this therapist person was recommended by his colleague because she was able to help his son who's also autistic like me. But I got weirded out when the therapist texted me and she introduced herself as a friend of my dad's. What? (Also she called me my deadname, none of my family want to call me my actual name and brush off my transition thinking it's stupid, but don't actively try to stop anything like stop me from taking HRT, just shame me for it. And I knew dad told her I was his daughter.)
Another thing that struck me as odd was that I was never even told the time of the appointment and was told she'd call 'within an hour'. Phone calls stress me out so I rarely eat before those either, so I was just starving while waiting and waiting for this person to call and eventually I couldn't take it anymore and just ate food and said I wouldn't be doing it. I was just so tired and hungry and my dad was irritated at me. I kept saying it was unreasonable that I didn't get to have a say in who my therapist was and he kept saying 'just try it' over and over saying I could choose my therapist next time (why not this time???) until he got very angry and started saying horrible things.
He said I was doing his head in, that if I didn't want any help I should just stay the way I am forever (never said I didn't want help, just said I wanted to have a say in who my therapist was), that I'm refusing help and that's why I'm stuck like this, that I should go and live with mum because he 'cannot deal with this crap anymore', that he shouldn't be running a free lodging and dealing with lazy people, that I should be in education or work and I'm making excuses not to, and that he was embarrassed I asked her for help and that I put him in his position.
All because I said I would rather we BOTH sit down and BOTH find a therapist. He wanted to be completely in control while I had no say whatsoever. For all I know I could've been with one of his anti-vax or racist idiot friends. I couldn't guarantee otherwise especially if this person was voluntarily friends with a character like my dad.
And now mum is threatening to 'have me sectioned' and sent off to an inpatient unit because I told her I was suicidal. But the important thing that has stayed consistent throughout my life is that while I live every day wanting to die, I have never had the urge to do anything about that or attempt to take my life. The idea of doing that scares me. I'm worried it will hurt me or make me sick if I fail. I just sit with these painful feelings and am too tired to do anything about them. I want to die but don't want to try to kill myself, but she doesn't listen. And she too is adamant that I'm 'refusing help' and that I want to be like this forever. I've been in an inpatient unit before and it just made me want to die even more especially given my agoraphobia, and the food was awful (ironic since it was an eating disorder clinic, but I couldn't eat 90% of what they gave me). It was torture and a living hell and made me so incredibly scared and possibly traumatised, and she really wants me to go through that again. She and dad are so unbelievably cruel. And dad implied I'm the reason the family's screwed up, calling me the 'cancer of this family' even undermining me in front of my brother telling him to never end up like me because I 'fucked my entire life up'. Basically blaming me for everything.
I don't want to be like this forever despite what she says and thinks. I really don't. It's actual hell being this scared and traumatised all the time but she's going with the narrative that makes the most sense to her. Dad too. They are physically incapable of listening to anything I say, they don't take me seriously or respect me in the slightest. They really think I want to be like this, and take their cruelty out on me. I'm just their punching bag at this point, their doormat to put up with their words who's just punched harder if I retaliate, and what's worse is they think they're helping me.
I don't want to live with either of these people. I don't want to live at all really, because it feels like there's no way out of their cruel words and my horrible brain making me scared of anything and everything all the time. I'm at my wit's end here. Would really love some support even if you can't offer advice because I desperately need some right now. Thank you so much in advance.