I am F18, and my dad is M44. Recently, where I live, we had heavy rainstorms and thunderstorms all over the area, causing flash flooding. I still live with my family in a simple three-floor house, and I stay in the half-basement. Due to the heavy rain, there was leaking in my room—under and over my linoleum floors, in my personal bathroom, and around the room—caused by overflowing grass and dirt outside. All the stuff under my bed was soaked, along with the bathroom floor. Luckily, nothing besides some papers was ruined.

It was around 7:30 a.m. when my mom (41) woke me up. She sounded alarmed and said loudly, “Hey! I need to get in your room—the den (basement) is flooded!” I let her in, and she helped start moving items.

This is where things started becoming an issue with my dad. He calmly came down into my room, looked at everything, and said, “This is no big deal. You two need to calm down,” talking to me and my mom. We were both frustrated about my room flooding, especially since it wasn’t the first time—it was the third.

As I was cleaning my room, my dad and I talked. While I cleaned, he made a comment: “If you just picked your damn clothes up off the floor, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

I was thrown off by this because I barely had any clothes on the floor—the majority of the stuff was storage under my bed. I replied calmly, “Uhm, most of the stuff is boxes, Dad. There are only a few pieces of clothing on the ground.”

Even though I was anxious and frustrated, I kept my tone calm. The conversation started getting heated, and I’ll admit I could’ve handled it better—but then he started calling me emotional and useless, and used my ASD diagnosis against me, saying, “Because of your Asperger’s/Autism, you’re overreacting.”

I told him to stop and not continue the conversation. He then started yelling, calling me and my mom “a bunch of unregulated emotional women,” and added some personal things I’m not comfortable sharing.

The whole argument was basically him telling me and my mom to shut up, that we needed to be logical and less emotional—even though he was the one yelling and angry. This went on all day until I got sick.

Side note: My dad later mocked me to his friends, calling me a hoarder and a clothing hog, while I was sick at an Easter party.