Abusive Father

So I've recently come to terms that my father is verbally/emotionally abusive (which doesn't even seem like a real thing to me. How do you quantify that? What technically constitutes abuse? It has taken a long time and a lot of looking on the internet to finally come to terms with this). I feel like I need advice, and maybe someone to talk to about this. Sorry for the wall of text.

Basically, my mother and father split up when I was about 10, and I've been spending half my time with each parent. My childhood before the divorce was filled with nights of hearing my parents fight, even once being roused from sleep by my mother who immediately took my out of the house to stay at my aunts house and then visit my grandmother for about a week or two to get me away from him. For a long time before they actually split up, they were sleeping in completely different rooms and barely interacting unless getting in an argument.

After they broke up, I would spend half my time with my dad alone. He would yell at me for the smallest of mistakes, get extremely angry at me for little things, threaten to pull me out of activities that I loved, like my orchestra class, and even call my mom, then yell at me with her on the phone just so she could hear it, and understand I was in trouble (and he was probably like this before, but I was just always around my mother).

Throughout the years he has continued to be this way, but also sometimes he is nice and caring, or just there, and not bad at all. It is hard because I never know when I will say something that will upset him, or will do something improperly or forget to do something that will set him off. Then once he is in a bad mood, it usually lasts for a while. My dad has bad temper issues (hes even been to jail multiple times because of it), so I know I shouldn't provoke him, but when he yells at me I feel like I need to defend myself, but it only makes things worse. Also, he is ruining his life because of his temper, anger, and need to be in control and in charge of everything, and he can't ever see anything as his own fault, it is always someone else that causes his misfortune.

Although I want to hate him, and I kind of do at some level, I also love him every time he says something nice sincerely to me, or when I think about the good times we have had when I was younger. This feeling is only strengthened because he is often just fine, not someone I enjoy spending time with, but bearable, not that bad, no yelling, or dirty looks, its just fine.

I always was waiting for when I would go to college, because then I can do anything I want, and he can't reach me, but I realize now that that is not true. He will know where I am. He will know my phone number. I will come back during breaks and he knows where my moms house is. During breaks he will also want me to live with him. Even though I know he is a bad person, I don't want to hurt him.That fact, and that I avoid conflict will leave me just playing into his hand and doing what he wants.

I know that this isn't that bad. Many people have to deal with physically abusive parents, or drunk ones, or ones that kick them out for being LGBT or just don't care that they exist. My dad has only hit me once, to explain a point, and it didn't even hurt me. I know I don't have it that bad. But I have to act cautiously around him, and once he even sent me into a panic attack. I can think I am doing things he will like and think I am doing the right thing but it just sets of an argument. I jump every time he yells at the dog, or raises his voice on the phone. Whenever he curses in pain or anything, I never know what to do, and I worry that my response will be inadequate. I just don't know what to do. Its become a shaky cycle of fairly decent and somewhat unworried waiting, (as I try not to think about it and just live my life whatever the consequences), then misery, then back to waiting. Currently it has been quite a while since I last made him mad, so it isn't bad right now, and it's hard to remember exactly how bad it is whenever he gets angry.

Please any response would be great. I would also appreciate any advice on how to get him out of my life (especially because, although I am going to college, I wont be 18 until December, and I am unwilling to cut my mom out of my life just to avoid my dad, and they live about 10 min from each other).
Also, If anyone is just willing to talk with me, or went though something similar, I would enjoy the conversation.

Thanks for reading and replying guys, sorry its so long....

 

I know that I cannot fix my relationship with him. He has had professional anger therapy for a domestic abuse lawsuit, and I have before tried to talk to him about how he makes me feel. When I was in therapy, party for my gender and sexuality and party for my relationship with my father, I tried to work though things. It doesn't work, and frankly, I'm done trying to make things better between us, I just want the pain and fear to stop.