My dad was kind of a bully when I was growing up. It wasn't an abusive situation by any means and I'm not trying to say it was. I'm also not trying to say I had a hard childhood, because I didn't. He just constantly made fun of everything I did and talked to me in a very demeaning way, like I was the stupidest person he'd ever met. I always used to tell him, "Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot!" because that was how he always made me feel. In talking to my mom as an adult, she said she has had to get after him for the same thing, so it wasn't just me being a little shithead. After 14 years of that, I hated his guts.

One day when I was 14 he was doing his usual thing. Talking to me like I was the biggest moron he'd ever met. Suddenly I just snapped. I screamed, "YOU LEAVE ME ALONE GODDAMMIT!" and shoved him as hard as I could. I didn't think about it and it wasn't pre-meditated--it just happened. I was about 4' 8" and 100 pounds soaking wet so he would've been fine, except our dog was standing behind him. He went head over heels and landed on his back. He laid there for about 30 seconds while I stood with my jaw on the ground, not really believing what I'd just done. He jumped up and got about 2" from face, then started chewing my ass out and telling me he was going to beat the shit out of me. I honestly thought he would, but after about two minutes of screaming, he stomped in the house.

We never spoke of it again (my mom didn't know about it until I told her as an adult) but after that he actually started talking to me like I was a normal human being. I'm not sure if that made him see how angry I was or what caused the change, but it was an almost instant difference. It was a really bad thing that had a positive affect on our relationship. We're still very distant with each other and I don't think we'll ever be close, but the hatred I had for him slowly went away over the years.