Abusive family members will do anything in their power to keep you under their thumb.

The incessant lying, the guilt tripping, and the emotional manipulation, anything in their arsenal is fair game if you threaten to leave.

But sometimes the victims are able to leave for good and stick it to their abusive family member all at once!

Tell me to clean my room? As you wish

When I (f) was 15, my mom, and dad got divorced.

It was an insane relief to me as my dad was extremely mentally, verbally, and physically abusive.

All was well for a while and I had very little contact with my dad.

Of course that didn’t last long. He started poking around more, and demanding I come visit him.

As much as I didn’t want to, my mom pleaded with me to suck it up and go see him, as he was sending her constant hurtful and threatening texts.

I begrudgingly went to see him. When I arrived he told me to get in the car.

But her Dad had a surprise, and not a good one.

He wouldn’t tell me where we were going and my stomach began to churn.

We pulled into the parking lot of Walmart where he told me to pick out all of the toiletries I would need at his house.

I told him I was fine, and then he told me that I would be staying at his house every other week.

I immediately began to panic as none of this had been discussed previously.

I knew that the law stated that because of my age I got to choose who I stayed with, but he always had a way of getting around things.

When she talked to her Mom, she confirmed that none of this had been approved!

When I got home that night I sobbed to my mom about the endeavor and pleaded with her to not make me stay there.

She was shocked as she had not had any discussion about this, but she assured me I did NOT have to stay there.

I informed my father of this and he didn’t reply.

A few weeks later I got a text from him demanding that I come out to his house to clean my room.

I knew this was another ploy to force me to visit so I brushed it off as long as I could.

A week later he told me I ‘need to clean my room or he would be throwing everything I own away’.

When my mom and I had originally left I only had time to pack a small suitcase, so my sentimental items, a majority of my clothes, and my siblings’ remaining stuff was still in the room.

She soon realized this was the perfect opportunity to stick it to her Dad!

I was furious that he would threaten to do this, but then I saw my opportunity for revenge.

I set up a date and time to come clean my room.

I didn’t say a word to my dad when I got to the house and got to work. I packed up everything I owned into some boxes, and slid them out of the window.

I then crawled out and loaded them into my car so he wouldn’t be suspicious.

Then I cleaned the now empty room within an inch of its life.

I took down every picture on the wall. Stripped the bedding, vacuumed, cleaned the windows inside and out, and even scrubbed the walls.

The room was spotless.

I left no stone unturned as I knew he would try to find something I missed so I would have to come back.

When she went to get her Dad to check the room, she already knew there was absolutely nothing he could complain to her about!

I could’ve just left then, but I had a moment of bravery, and decided to ask him to check the room.

He happily agreed and I watched his face go from confused, to angry, to cold. It was SO satisfying.

He looked at me and said ‘so I’m assuming you’re not coming back?’.

I just smiled at him, and left.

Reddit was totally on board for her revenge, and this user was reminded of a similar maneuver he pulled with his abusive parents.

Another user was reminded of her difficult Dad.

And finally, although many questioned why her mom would send her back, this user said there may be a legal reason.

Hopefully her never had to put up with her Dad’s mistreatment and gaslighting ever again!

Kids really should get more say.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.