Brother calls to say Dad is dying

My 69 year old Dad is a severely dysfunctional person. I know he really loves me, but he's in recent years become more and more paranoid as well as verbally abusive towards me. Recently, he sold me his car so that I have a car to drive to get to work since my vehicle died and I can't find the parts anywhere to fix it. That's been amazing and a great gesture since I had gone back to school to get a better job and restart my life. (I've done a lot of work on myself to undo the damage of my childhood) I've been paying him steadily for the car until he has enough for another one. What hasn't been good is how abusive he's become because of it. He yells at me, hangs up on me, and treats me like shit. We made arrangements for me to pick him up on Fridays so that he could use the car to go for groceries then he brings it back on Saturday. But two months ago, he started to make plans to have my brother's daughter stay overnight on Fridays. So I go to pick him up and I wait and wait for over half an hour as we agreed. He doesn't show. I leave. I call him when I get home and he angrily tells me that he made plans already as though this is all my fault! He broke our arrangement without telling me. So it becomes evident that my niece is going to his place every Friday. He doesn't tell me this he just gets mad at me when I call to see if he needs the car. So on another Saturday, I call him and he starts talking condescendingly to me again. I tell him to quit talking like this to me and to act normal. He hangs up on me. I had enough. He hasn't called me and I am done calling him. So tonight I get a text from my brother telling me I "should" call Dad because he's dying. He's losing his vision from diabetes. My brother is basically having a panic attack so now, like my mom and my dad, he starts taking it out on me. I am really sensitive to abuse now that I know what it is, for years I just took the verbal and emotional abuse and internalized it. Now I don't put up with it. So my brother starts laying into me. He thinks I should just continue to let Dad treat me like shit. It's "no big deal" in his words. To me, he's just as dysfunctional as them. You should do this, you should do that...I know from recovery that "should" is a lie. I do what feels right to me and what feels right. He's trying to force me to call when I am not ready to, when I explain why, he minimizes my feelings and minimizes Dad's abuse, lack of respect, and disregard for planning. I am so sick of my family. I really am better without them as nobody else treats me as poorly as they do. He then tells me to stop playing the victim. That pissed me off too. I hate this situation. I feel like my Dad is manipulating once again. He is an addict and an alcoholic still at 69(pills and pot daily, binge drinking a couple of times a month). My brother too is an addict though he hides it. He smokes pot daily. So does his wife and they have two small children. I am the only one in the family with extensive recovery work and years of sobriety. I grew up with a ton of trauma from my parents. My mom bit my thumb at 3 because I bit a girl's thumb who had pulled my hair for no reason. This one caused me great damage and ruined self esteem very early. My dad was a weekend alcoholic who drank every weekend and would disappear for three days. He eventually cheated on my mother. This also caused me trauma. She moved out for a year while my mentally ill father stayed at home on assistance. All through the years though, my mother was severely physically abusive. My brother and I were covered in bruises all the time because our mom beat us if we did anything she considered out of line like fighting, making too much noise, just doing anything we weren't supposed to do. Her face was always in a scowl. She yelled constantly. She said she took out her frustrations with our alcoholic father on us. He went for treatment after he was caught cheating. Those two years were really good. He was home on weekends but he ballooned up to 250 pounds. In later years both of my fat parents would call me fat all the time. I later became bulemic thanks to all their comments on my weight. Mom's abuse continued until I became taller than her and one time she slapped me in the face for making a joke she didn't like and I was so angry I went to slap her back and she realized that I was not going to take it forever without retaliating. I was 12 and getting to big to beat up. Anyway, she began to become emotionally abusive. She would say condescending things to her friends and family to show how bad we were. Especially me. My mom left me on the highway in a city two and a half hours away from where I live when I was 15 because my grandfather was bullying and punching my brother and I stuck up for him. When I did that, he tried hitting me so I punched him back in the face. My mom then stopped the car by the side of the road, opened my door, dragged me out and started slapping me. So we get to a gas station and I was mad and said something, so my grandfather takes an unexpected swing at me. So I popped him in the face and knocked his glasses off. We then went inside the gas station while they drove off leaving me and my 12 year old brother at a truck-stop gas station. My brother still maintains some of my mothers thinking. My brother thinks I should forgive and forget. But I tell him I was severely traumatized and he doesn't get it. I have forgiven and every time I do, I let them back in and I get abused again. They won't change their self destructive behaviour because they all hate themselves. They fail to see their own shortcomings. What am I supposed to do? When I stick up for myself, I am called the troublemaker. It's like doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. They all try to make me feel crazy when they are the ones that are crazy! But everyone who thinks they are normal are crazy too...There are way too many emotionally screwed up people in this world. After a lifetime of turmoil and heartache, I want peace. Does this exist? I just want a peaceful life! No drama and no dysfunction. I certainly don't pass this crap onto my daughter like my brother does. They verbally abuse his daughter daily to the point where it is second natured to her now. As a result of all this stuff, besides the time I have my daughter, I am a complete loner. No girlfriend. I can't attract any that aren't crazy like my mother. Then after they meet my mom, they become best friends and bash me together in tandem. I want to move away but I have to be a good father to my daughter and not treat her the way I was treated. Anyway, if you were constantly treated like crap, would you stay? Has anyone else moved to get away from dysfunctional family? I needed to vent.

Wow. This is all really heavy. But I do want to give you my 2 cents. First, mazel tov on your own recovery, especially when you have not had much support on the homefront. Second, you should forgive. You need to forgive, for your own mental health. But never forget. Because if you forget what the abuse feels like, you will begin to think it's okay, and you will be right back in that vicious cycle. I know from experience, that some people (even in your immediate family) you have to love from a distance.