Hi. I am in a unique potentially life-threatening abusive situation. It involves a parent, I'm in my early-mid twenties; so this is new to me, and I don't know very much at all about handling these kinds of things.
The story is kind of unique: basically this parent had been borderline physically abusive while I was in a college, which I was only able to do a couple years of (I was stuck at home due to finances and being socially confined in a religious cult in which I was brought up). At the time, this parent screamed in my face, said they really wanted to hit me, tried to barge in my room (I often had to push them out with the door and hold the door shut with all my body weight), and tried to deny me food. I went through therapy, stopped being a part of the cult, and started trying to set boundaries with this parent. Sometime after that, after my grandmother (this parent's mother, who they were close to) died; and this parent really lost it on me. It was very weird. It got to a point where they were constantly full of an almost uncontrollable rage every time I was around them (even though I was avoided them as much as possible, camping out in my room and trying to fly by them when I left the house.) Often when I was in the same room as them, they would stare at me and snarl with loud, viciously angry sighs (like they were ready to attack me). They started to do things that were extremely dangerous (violent things): they made them look passive-aggressive, potentially like accidents, but they were incredibly blatant, progressing in severity, and in the context of this constant through-the-roof rage at me. Once they had a broom over their shoulder (crazy) and pointedly backed up into me sharply with the broom handle as I was trying to pass by to get into the next room (to get upstairs); I saw it just in time and quickly dodged out of the way before it got me in the eye. Another time they were cutting vegetables, I walked by them, and they immediately turned clutching the knife pointed straight forward by their side and almost walked (aggressively) into me. This time, they stopped themselves. I managed to get away from home, though the other parent and all of my siblings (who love me) were in denial (could not believe, or really understand, it). Well one took it semi-seriously, but I only told him some of it, because I knew he wouldn't believe the whole truth. However, over the course of the following year, the parent became increasingly stalkerish. Emails increased until they got to ridiculous amounts, asking and eventually begging to see me. Then my other parent got involved in directly supporting me to move somewhere, so the abuser got knowledge of what town I was in (which was not far away, but I knew they never went there, my whole life). Immediately, they began asking me where the grocery store was there, cause they wanted to shop there; asking me to hang out at places downtown (if they had just drove through the small downtown it would have been dangerous, because I had to use - go to and wait for - the bus there and all the businesses were there). When I ignored them (as I had done where I lived previously), they began texting me to the point where it was almost daily, blowing up my phone with unbelievable numbers of texts, professing love, spouting religious dogma, etc. That is what occurred over the course of the year following their going really losing it on me. Then I had a stroke of terrible luck: went through something traumatic, was ill and had nowhere to go; dependent on my other parent, they brought me home (fortunately the abuser was gone for a month, but I didn't manage to get away before then). (I had been living on barely enough resources to get by as it was, so it only took one stroke of bad luck for me to have nowhere to go). Oddly, but in a way understandably, there has been a long peaceful honeymoon period (ironically much more peaceful for me than when I was living away from home, living with the constant dread of them stalking/coming across me). I have had a respite from all that; it's been like 5 months. Now that things are starting up again, the whole thing is hitting me. They are basically too smart (so far) to do anything dumb enough for me to call the police on, it seems like. They have an extreme friendly, charming side and always profess innocence in a way like they are(VERY convincingly) playing dumb, and whip that out anytime they could get in trouble (been that way my whole life; they never admit to any wrongdoing whatsoever; always innocent). (But they also have a lot of blatant insanity and severe anti-social tendencies, which would hopefully be apparent in the time it needed to be). It seems as though they would be more likely to do something drastically violent to me, and very possibly deadly (although fortunately the knives in the house are very dull and there is no gun or anything like that), before doing or saying anything less minor that they could be incriminated for -- and that they could VERY possibly make it look and/or sound like an accident. Yet I realize now that even in leaving home, they are obsessed with me--just like an abusive lover, it seems--and are fully ready to try to track me down (fortunately they are not very resourceful, technology-wise, etc.) and come after me. They won't let me go.
The covert way they are doing it makes it that much more impossible for the rest of my family to grasp what's going on, when they already have a very hard time imagining this parent capable of this (I was the it-child; I got it the worst, ultimately--they were not this abusive to the other kids. The others have never understood that: I didn't express it well, and they didn't want to hear it really anyway.) I have almost 0 support because I left the cult in which I was raised, my only support system. I was told by a counselor at a battered women's shelter that, in general, they only take victims of spousal/partner abuse (but some MAY take me if they can understand how dangerous it is). I have been camping out in my room and, while communicating with them more, getting increasing support from the other parent (the bread-winner) as well as siblings, but I don't know how long that will last. (Everything with this parent started up again as soon as I tried to start working. :/) It's so complex and rather hopeless, I don't know what to do. I fear there is no very doable answer. Been feeling suicidal and not wanting to try anymore. But a part of me does want to fight/try. One thought I have is if I could really expose them, me and my family would be free (their behavior in the family, the cult, and with neighbors and acquaintances is increasingly ridiculous, offensive, over-the-top, and crazy). There are things about this parent that make my parents' marriage increasingly genuinely unsustainable (and the other parent has complained of that for years, though seems less disgruntled in the past couple years unfortunately). Recently one of my brother's got really riled by my reaching out to him desperately and sought to get cult authority involved (that turned out to seem not very profitable, as they tend to take a mild mediation-type approach). However, there may be a way for that to play a role in the situation (he recently got overwhelmed and has let go of it for now :/ ). It seems as if I have no way of being safe from this person, other than to (try to) expose them, including encouraging my family to look further at how much she has and still does harm them, me, the relatives, their religious community, etc.) A part of me thinks I would rather wait until they do do something to me, and just take my chances that it won't kill me/seriously injure me for life (hopefully :/ ) so that my family (and the police), being forewarned and having increasing awareness beforehand, may be likely to see it as a dangerous attack (even if it passive-aggressive in nature) and the parent will be exposed (rather than my family just thinking it's in my head, that I'm just an overly anxious person, etc.) This parent has caused nothing but serious suffering to my other parent, the rest of the family (incl. relatives) and their religious community -- so it could work. My family would ultimately be relieved to be rid of them (they feel protective/obligated however--engendered by their, largely emotional, abuse). The alternative seems to be to live life on the run/in hiding, virtually resourceless, and take my chances at survival that way, which will also be slim (being virtually on the streets). Where is justice?
(While I was away, I spent a great deal of the time with a relative who turned out to be harassing and threatening themselves, and I could not recover enough to get on my own two feet - i.e. with working. I am now recovered enough, I think, to work. I'm intelligent and articulate and talented in some areas, so I know I'm not hopeless when it comes to working. I do have a lot of anxiety and PTSD from all this though).