My greatest fear in life

Since young, I always had this fear: my father. He is such a chauvinist, a hot-tempered,unreasonable & aggressive man, plus his super superstitious mindset and his love for gambling. Everyone in the family fears him. He built the fear in us by his deafening shouts and brute force. A mere stare from him will bring shivers down our spine. I was even threathened by him with the chopper twice when I wasnt even 8 yrs old. Whenever he lost in mahjong or betting, he would take on us for no reason, with the belt & sometimes the hanger. I remembered the times when I would hide under the table while witnessing my younger sis getting the most of his terror. That was our common childhood. And when I thought that these shadows of our past have left us since he had simmered down alot over the years & that we had all grown up, the fear of him came back haunting again.

He had always been disapproving of my 4 sisters converting to Christianity, becoz he associates the religion to being the "brainwashing with Western ideas". I believe it is also his fear of the clash between the religion & his Confucian mentality. I have yet let my parents know, becoz I knew what would happen. Its not so simple as just being unhappy or reprimand: It is much much worse than that. I really dont wish the family to break up. I had many re-enactment of the nightmare that I was being discovered by him, & most of the time, I broke into tears in the dream. This had been the struggle in my life for many years, & the most helpless thing is that people around me treated my matter lightly when they didnt even know my position. Advice is the last thing I would want to hear. Are others in a better position to know of the difficulties and outcomes? Do you think I could not have better solution after thinking on this sticky problem for more than 20 years? Its not something others can help. Such is the reality of domestic affairs.

Just now he erupted. He was flabbergasted when he was being ticked off by my eldest sis, after admitting that he had opened her bank acc statement. "To hell with your privacy! I brought you up till this day, cant I even know how much your savings is? We are not Westerners and to hell with your Christianity!" This time he really meant it. It had been quite a while since I last saw him erupt like this. It brought back the memory of his terror to me, as I witnessed the exchange a moment ago & being unable to intervene. Things would have gone worse should I intervene. He mentioned again about selling the house & telling us to move out instead since we wanted privacy. He is as stubborn as a bull that I know any reasoning with him will be futile. His belief and understanding of the world is so much different from ours, but we can choose our friends and not our family. It really unsettles me whenever I ponder on the possibility that I had to stay with him in the future, even after setting up my own family. I really wish to get out of his clutches but Im the only son and being the only son, who can share my burden? I wish to cry out but who would listen? No matter how much I wish to give to others' lives, back home its reality. I thought I could forget about the issue in the deepest part of my life, but no matter how far I try to run, it always catches up with me. Im tired.

I feel that he is very insecure, often being ultra sensitive and overly assuming of things. As I was writing this blog, he was rattling again of the incident. He blames everyone for all the things that they do or not do, but never ever stops to look at himself. He truly is a very difficult man. Oh God, I really yearn to know why you have placed two difficult persons (him & eldest sis) as my family, and why is it that most of the agony in my life was also caused by them? I really wish to cry out loud to you, but Im too weak to cry over these problems again. I had been doing so for more than half of my life, how long more do I have to tolerate? Its so long-suffering.

I pray that I will be spared of the torment and pls, move their hearts so that the family do not suffer any longer.

He is the giant in my life.