Is it ever okay for my parents to hit me?
I'm 16F and I know it might seem like a silly question but I genuinely feel like I need to ask this. My dad doesn't think it's a problem but I feel scared and confused about what happened.
Here's what went down. I was basically half asleep through all of this because I hadn't slept in two days and they woke me up super early to do something. At first my dad was calm, trying to get me out of bed, but then he snapped. He started yelling "the fuck are you lying there pretending to sleep" and kept hitting my arm with his palm. I didn't try to block it at first because I thought he'd stop after one or two hits, but he didn't. So I started hitting his arm back to defend myself. Obviously my hits were way weaker. Then he pulled me down off the bed, took my blanket, and said he'd make me listen to him no matter what. He grabbed me from behind, and when I asked why he was hitting me and told him to let go, he said I was hitting him too. Like he thinks we're equal now or something. Then he started saying shit like "go ahead, hit your father" while holding both my arms really tight and using one of my hands to repeatedly slap himself in the face. I was in shock. I stopped fighting back and just kept telling him he was doing it to himself and that he was being crazy. And for some reason I started crying. In my family adults always love asking why I'm crying like it's something I do on purpose. I try so hard not to cry, to keep it together, but sometimes I just can't.
He only stopped when my mom walked into the room because my little sister was crying from fear. My mom told him to stop and that my sister was scared. But my sister had been telling him to stop from the very beginning, he just ignored her. After that he started badmouthing me to my mom, something like I kept saying that he hit me, like he didn't actually do it. I said something rude back, which I immediately regretted. Then they were all "disappointed" and shocked at how I talked back to my father. After everything my heart was pounding like crazy. I was breathing so loud and I seriously felt like my heart was gonna jump out of my chest. At first I thought maybe I was overreacting, like maybe it wasn't *that* bad. But later I saw red marks, scratches, and bruises on my arms, and my whole body was sore. And two days later it still hurts.
The worst part is he genuinely doesn't think he did anything wrong. He's done stuff like this ever since I was little whenever I did something "wrong" or pissed him off. But whenever I bring it up and tell him I was scared of him, he completely denies it and says he "never laid a hand" on his kids and was a great father. When he yells it's like he's not talking to his daughter like I'm some random person off the street. There's no warmth or empathy in his eyes and some of the stuff he says genuinely freaks me out. Last September he even said they should've raised us to be afraid of them and that he should've hit us more. Like he didn't already. And whenever I try to say something back, my mom cuts me off. I don't know if I'm overreacting or not.