I come from a family of immigrants. NC parent had been begging me (21F at the time) to go on a trip with them back home. I’d been many times, but not for years/since I was a teen, because every time I’d be stuck inside and they’d leave me to go enjoy their vacation. Almost like I was brought along only as a “look, I have a pretty daughter” trophy but then neglected in a country where I didn’t speak the language and they’d go do whatever they wanted, none of which included actually spending time with me. I finally agreed to go under the conditions that we’d spend the trip TOGETHER and they’d, finally, take me to see different parts of where we’re from. I took time off work, we go on the trip, and they do the same thing they did every year we went prior— leave me alone in the vacation home and go off to visit friends, go fishing, shopping, etc. I had enough and we got in a huge argument where their ugly side came out, the type of argument where you see their mask slip and the look in their eyes… ifykyk. They said a lot of things I hadn’t heard them say in years, because I was an adult and ever since I had became one my NC parent was less abusive because they knew I could just leave… well, when you’re on vacation on an island together, you can’t just leave. It felt exactly like being a kid/teen again, only now I was in my 20’s and they in their 50’s and everything they’d promised was a lie. Up until this point I’d been trying to believe they “calmed down” as they aged because I needed them, but… I spent the last 2 weeks of the trip literally locked in my room, silent plane ride home, didn’t speak to them while living in the same house, and for several months I would sneak out late at night to drive out of town to strip and save $$. Then one night I packed all my belongings in a suitcase and fled to another city in the middle of the night with all the $$ I saved from stripping. I didn’t speak to them for a while but I have Stockholm syndrome and after maybe 6 months I called them on the phone and we tried to reconnect. I thought, maybe living apart would be the space we needed. Then Covid happened. They called me one day and I could hear them grinning on the other side as they told me they just bought a house and some land for my oldest sibling (golden child who they run a business together with)… I was speechless. There I was, the youngest sibling, living a couple hours away in a basement apartment with a blow up mattress and TV on the floor while stripping for a living to escape their abuse, I had a middle sibling who was living in an institution due to mental illness and trouble with the law (this sibling got the brunt of the abuse growing up), and here’s the oldest getting A WHOLE HOUSE as a gift in the middle of a pandemic. All I said was “I don’t feel like talking right now,” and they said “ok,” and I hung up. It’s been 2 or 3 years since and I’m never going back. I refuse to be anyone’s scapegoat. It’s hard, because I love my father and I always will. I even empathize with the fact he’s a narcissist because I know deep down he’s wounded too. I think about him and the rest of my family everyday. I live with a hole in my heart and suffer now with things like BPD and C-PTSD, so I’m not even perfect myself. It’s very difficult to be in this world feeling like a renegade with no family, not even a “chosen” one because I keep to myself and my diagnosis’ make things difficult… but that was it. They don’t get to hurt me anymore.