Im 43. I live with my parents. I have had agoraphobia in my past and social phobia, anxiety and depression.
My parents have never been able to be emotionally there for me. Ive been through sexual abuse as a teenager and also emotional and sexual abuse in my early 20s. Those events shaped my life ful of shame and fear. When i was 14, we moved somewhat off grid on acres. After my 1st trauma, i stopped seeing friends and socialising. It was too difficult to get my dad to take me places as he was always working and mum being deaf never drove.
in my 20s i would walk an hour into town for things, id study at tafe, donmy shopping and walk an hour back. I was too scared to learn to drive because i thought id be alone in a car with a man and also i had quite bad social phobia which included phone phobia too.
When i turned 30 i did get my driving licence and a car and then years later i got a job. I was independent, happy and made some work friends. Then i got a boyfriend form work, But he had paranoid schizophrenia and a drug habit i didnt know about. It got hard to hang put with him, as the years went by i found myself shrinking for him and enduring behavioural changes in him from mania, psychosis, disinhibition, mental abuse. This wore me down.
Then my work liquidated and so I volunteered at large thrift store. Then came covid, and i stayed home more again.
After covid my car broke down and for a year i was selling on eBay, old books id find for cheap. I made enough money by the end of the year to get my Suzuki Swift second hand. I am on disability pension.
For 2 years i loved my car, looked after it. It was mine, although i would always have to take my mum places, appointments, her outings etc.Dad would play bowls.
Then 3 years ago dads car caught fire despite it being a new car, and him being stubborn he had no insurance on it.
So my car became the family car. I wouldnt let dad drive my car, but i had to drive him and pick him up from bowls plus take mum to her things, or whilst i was trying to make do with my eBay selling business.
i started to get very depressed and anxious, overwhelmed and just wanted my dad to get himself a car again.
Then that June of that year, he declared we were moving out of our beloved acres of 26 years asap within 2 months as he thought with the sale he could invest in Silver and potentially get my sister a house. He got abusive and alot of things happened in that time that broke me to the point where i still had to function. There was a point where i was secretly online to mental health services inbetween helping with just me and dad with a hired ute moving the entire contents of our house to the new place which was an old dump.
Anyways the move is another story. My main point is that its been 2 years and my dad still hasnt got his own car. They had $280,000 in inheritance and he still wont buy himself a car.
i am expected to drive him to bowls or let him have my car. I am expected to pick him up from bowls, this is from 4 days ago week to more. Im also quietly expected to take mum when ever she needs to go out.
He wont get a car because he reckons he has too many assets and Centrelink will deduct their pension plus the costs. I pay my petrol and all my car things, but im expected to use my time, my petrol constantly for them. Now i dont pay rent, they own the house but i have offered and been refused. He has no intention of getting a car and will fill in for people or volunteer at bowls without even checking the calender. Im left to feel discouraged to go out often.
Also he has driven my car when hes been drunk after I’ve picked him up from bowls, wanting to drive to the pokies. Hes banged it into the veranda post, causing paint damage and a big dent on the front if my car and driven off, later not even mentioning it or saying sorry. Tho one day he said my car doesnt matter because its not brand new. That was after he asked to go to Bunnings and came back hours later with a house door he bought stuffed up to the dashboard in my car for which he broke the window and had to pay for.
i feel like there is no way out from this. Im left feeling i have to be invisible, be a taxi and just give up. I feel if i speak up which i have before, he blames me for buying this house that was dearer than a house he wanted because i wanted a backyard. Even tho i never made him sign to buy it and stayed out of his decisions. Hes always made me his scapegoat to his decisions.
