How to deal with abusive Aspergers father

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Hey everyone, thanks for deciding to read my horribly long story hahah. I'll start by giving you a little bit of background on my situationn.
My dad is a war-vet/retired police officer in his later 60s, with Aspergers, PTSD and severe anger issues.
I'm a 15 year old girl who is NT and highly social. Seeing a problem in communication already? Yeahh.
My parents have been divorced since I was 2, and I have been going between houses every 2 weeks since before I can remember. My parents have a terrible relationship and only speak when my father feels like starting a fight, or when it is regarding me. When I have been at his house, we've had many incidents where he has kicked me out of the house, or other things. He was an extremely bad alcoholic in denial but I gave him an ultimatum of stop or youll never see me again.
I should also mention that he has been a militant Athiest since the age of 5 (So he tells me.) Since I've been able to speak and understand (or longer, who knows) he has been spewing anger and hatred about religion toward me. Every conversation involves how "stupid, brainwashed, pathetic etc." people of all religions are. Needless to say, he is a hateful bigot.
However!! ! Through all of this, he has ALWAYS made it clear to me that he would be ok with me experimenting with religion, as it is "my life and my choice." I recently (last month) recieved an invite from a friend of mine to attend a church service with him. Keep in mind this is ONE time I'd be going. I wouldnt make a commitment to continue, I just wanted to see what it was like. Honestly, raised with no religion in my life has made me feel deprived. He said it was alright with him, and hed take me.
Several hours later, I tell him the address. He immediately says in a cold voice, "you're not going to that g*dd*mn church." Confused, I ask why, and this descends to a fight with him using verbal abuse. I ask to be driven to a friends house so I can get away from him, and on the ride there, he said several gems. For instance: "I'd rather your sorry ass commit suicide than even think of joining a church" "I'm not letting those b*stards get to you" "As long as you keep having these idiotic thoughts, I will mock you and make your life absolute hell, so you'd better explain what the f*ck you thought you were doing"
And more. At this point, Im sobbing, but he doesn't care, being unable to sense emotion or whatever.
When I got home from my friends (SORRY GUYS! IM RAMBLING! But I need to get all this out and get some advice. Thanks for sticking with it) he unleashes even more verbal abuse, which is even worse, calling me absolutely every terrible name I can think of. When I wake up, he has hacked onto my facebook account, blocked the friend who offered to take me and sent a crude and abusive message, and said he will now have my facebook password. If I ever speak about religion to anyone again, he will take my facebook and my phone, sue the persons parents I spoke to about it for prosletizing, and sue the church. I know this is legally impossible, excuse my French but that's how f*cking deluded this freak is.
So long story short. Im at my mothers house, but its hard on her to have me 24/7 because she has tons of stuff to do. So I suppose Im gonna have to go over there again sometime.. But how the hell do I deal with him?! He is honestly the worst, most angry and abusive person I have ever met and Im ashamed to be related to him. Is this what autism does? Im so lost in all of this, I cant understand it...
Anyway, thanks for reading. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Sorry to hear you have experienced this verbal abuse. Since you are 15 years old you may have rights regarding which parent you do or do not want to stay with every two weeks (I recommend asking a lawyer and/or social worker). Regarding religion that is your choice and do not let anyone say you can or can not experience religion. Does your mother go to a specific church? Maybe you could ask her advice or even ask the advice of another relative? Sorry to hear about the verbal abuse and please seek advice regarding your rights to stay with a certain parent (if you do not choose to stay with your father).

having asperger's does NOT make a person abusive. he has no excuses. i share your dad's view of religion as silly, but have many christian friends and i respect the importance they put on their faith and don't bother to share my views. the only thing i can say in your dad's favor is that maybe he is concerned about you and doesn't know a better way to show it.

perhaps you could explore religion during your time with your mom, and not tell him about it, if your mom is cool with that. i've been to catholic, presbyterian, methodist, baptist, and jewish services, all of which have their own form of charm. i think you'll end up seeing eye to eye with your dad, since you weren't indoctrinated into any reason-testing faith as a child, but as your dad says in his better moments, you have a right to explore.

Thanks for replying Gazelle.. I would definitely seek legal release from being forced to go over there, if not for the fact that my single mother has to take care of me, her ailing mother, and do several other jobs. She's under wayyyy too much stress, and I hate to see her so beaten down. It definitely makes it easier if I can go to my dads every once in a while, which is why I need help with dealing with him.

Are you absolutely sure that he has AS? Mybe he is just an angry, abusive person.

Hi MissMikkyy,

I feel for you. I grew up in an abusive home as well, & went on to marry a guy A LOT like my dad. My marriage was also steeped in abuse as both had zero empathy & selfishly were only concerned with themselves. They never cared if I was in distress, pain, etc. I'm a lot older than you (my youngest daughter is 18 years old). but I do have one thing in common with you...a father with Aspergers (my dad has not been officially DXd). But it makes sense & a lot of the things he does points directly to AS. My dad is now 84 years old, & I honestly hope for your sake that your father can make some changes towards you, but do not count on it. Quality of life & safety are far more important than having 2 parents, no matter what the courts think. My parents stayed together until my mother passed away 1 1/2 years ago. But it was no picnic to be around either of them. I am 50 years old & although I have a fair amount of physical distance between me & my dad, he is still just as abusive as ever. Breaks my heart because I wanted nothing more than for him to like me, but it's quite obvious that he'll die without ever being kind or loving towards me. I don't want to see anyone else waste the best years of their lives trying to please the unpleasable &/or the unreasonable.

If you have a better relationship with your mom & can swing it, I'd spend as little time with your father as possible. He sounds scary angry. Document everything he does that's abusive...write it out with the date, time, if there were witnesses, etc. Present the evidence to the court & an advocate. He should not force his views on you at your age unless you are doing something that he might consider to be of harm to yourself (drinking/drug abuse, etc). I realize you are still a minor, but 18 is just a few years away...even if today feels like a lifetime from now. Is there anyone who could be a court advocate for you? You need to let someone know what's going on with your dad. Someone you can trust....a teacher, adult other than your parents (aunt, uncle, etc), but get someone on your side whom you can trust close by to listen to you. Your dad's anger is not normal (even if it is for him), & he should not be saying things to you like he'd rather see you dead than to attend a church. That's no way for a loving father to treat his child. It sounds like he sees you as just an extension of himself & not a separate human being with real feelings & needs. He can only see his own needs & that's very one-sided.

I wish you the best of luck! Sounds like you need it desperately.

Tomboy

His autism has nothing to do with his abusiveness. I'm an autistic girl who had an NT stepfather who acted pretty much exactly like that, except that he claimed to be Christian on top of it and accused me of being a... er, promiscuous person. (I'm an asexual virgin, so this is about the most patently untrue insult that could ever be leveled against me.) Then he blamed the abuse on me being such a horrible rebellious child. (My worst rebellion consisted of things like sneaking chocolate out of the cupboard, or reading under the bedcovers with a flashlight at night.)

I'd be willing to bet that your father's been hurt by religious people in the past and is now freaking out about you investigating religion. I don't know what exactly that might have been; I do know that there are religious fundamentalists and extremists of all sorts who I'd advise you to stay well away from. It's always the fanatics and bigots who claim that God supports their unique little brand of hatred. Stay away from that crap, whatever else you do. I'm pretty religious and I've found myself more than once apologizing for what supposed Christians do. If he believes that they're all like those extremists, then he may be worried you'll come home spouting Bible verses, bashing gays, bombing abortion clinics, and generally being a nasty person.

You're fifteen years old--I remember when I was fifteen, I thought that eighteen was a long, long time away and I could never get out of my house. But I did. I survived it. You didn't mention any physical or sexual abuse and usually that's what would trigger police involvement, so you're pretty much stuck there. But it's possible to survive. I got out a year early by going to college early; I don't know if that's an option for you. My little sister got out by going to live with our aunt at the age of sixteen. There are ways to get away from abusive parents even when the law won't put them in jail for it.

As far as religion goes: Well, obviously, from my perspective, I'd encourage you to keep researching it. You don't have to go to a church to learn about God. Recently, I've been unable to go to any church at all; I'm a college student without a car, and the only church services I have access to, I recently stopped going to because they started talking about how being gay is a sin (it is NOT--Jewish ceremonial law, which is what that part of the Old Testament is, also forbade tattoos and quarantined menstruating women; it was a health code not a moral law)... I just couldn't keep going after that. God doesn't just make people gay and then decide to hate them for it.

Uhm, so, yeah, anyway, my point is, you don't have to go to church to learn about God. There's stuff on the Internet, for one thing, from online devotionals and Bibles to forums and Q&A web sites. And you probably have at least a few friends who are religious (for themselves, not because their parents drag them to church). I can't get to a church, and until I can, I'll follow God on my own. It's harder this way, without support from people who believe what I do, but church isn't a prerequisite. Sometimes you can even get really complacent and feel like going to church makes you religious, when in reality it only makes you a churchgoer. Religion is about what you believe and what you do, and what you follow when you make your decisions. There are places in the world where religious freedom is illegal, and where people have to gather in secret--or can't gather at all--if they happen to believe something the government isn't okay with. If they can manage that with the whole country bearing down on them, then I guess you can with your dad. It's not ideal, but... well, you won't be a teen forever.

I really hate it that you have to go through this. I've been there, and it's no picnic to have parents who should be protecting and nurturing you abusing you instead. What he's doing is wrong, and would be wrong whether he were for religion or against it, and would be wrong no matter what you had done. Whether this is something about his having been hurt in the past, or whether it's just his wanting to dominate as many abusive parents do, his behavior is unacceptable. Even the atheists around here are going to agree with that. To a large degree it's probably not even a religious issue: It's more of an "I want to assert my control over my child" issue. If it hadn't been religion, it would probably be something else, like your dating somebody he didn't approve of or your wanting to go to a college he didn't approve of.

You didn't do anything to deserve this. Your father's decision to abuse you is his own--autism doesn't make him do it; it's a free choice, and it's the wrong choice for him to make.

Do you have a trusted adult other than your father--a relative, a teacher?--that you can talk to about this? You shouldn't have to be alone. Ideally, getting him into some anger management classes would be a good thing; but at the very least you can have somebody to talk to. I know NTs need social support to a good degree and it'd be even worse for you to have to do this alone than it was for me as an autistic teen.

Just hang in there, okay? I survived this kind of situation. So can you.

You said he has PTSD; would any more information on that possibly be relevant?

PTSD doesn't make you abusive, either, though. Just hypervigilant and possibly hostile when triggered--but not abusive.

Plenty of autistics do have PTSD, ironically because they were abused by their parents or bullied at school or were abused in institutions or by "therapists" to such an extreme degree that they have the same after-effects as soldiers coming home from battle... But I've yet to hear of someone with PTSD being any more prone to being abusive, other than the increased risk that having suffered abuse would cause. The worst thing I've heard that can be put down entirely to PTSD is probably the situation in which someone with PTSD experiences a trigger that causes them to reflexively lash out--hit or push someone--because that's how they would have survived that situation when they were in that dangerous environment that caused the PTSD. But that's reflex and they would likely be ashamed of it afterward....