What happens if you have agoraphobia (can't go out alone or use the phone) and the only family you have is one parent and that parent makes you homeless and then boyfriend won't help applying for housing or help do a change of circumstances for benefits. End up in homeless hostel relying on another resident to get you food. 2 years later parent turns up and decides they will help you apply for housing. Get housed but neither parent or boyfriend will help with food regularly so you end up in hospital for months due to being underweight. No one visits. Home from hospital (no boyfriend now, he's moved on) and now have 2 new neighbours making life unbareable. Again parent can't or won't help. Parent becomes terminally ill & dies. Just before parent gets ill you meet someone who promises to look after you, give you somewhere safe to live, food, someone to spend Christmas/birthdays with etc (never allowed to spend Xmas/Easter etc with parent) so you give up housing to live with them. Fast forward a few years and now I still have agoraphobia but also PTSD due to controlling abuse from parent/boyfriend and the upsetting events both in hospital and hostel. Ptsd & emotional dysregulation is destroying the relationship. Because he works full time doing shift work we couldn't have children (no one to take kid to school or pick up if ill) I spend Xmas/birthdays etc alone if he is working. We have had separate rooms for years. I can't leave as I can only get housed if he is abusive (he isn't) plus how can I leave if I can't even get past the front door by myself. There is no family/friend to help or stay with. Now I find out I could/should have had supported housing/support worker, could have been re-housed when needed had I had the help to do so. But while I've been though the above my ex boyfriends sister also agoraphobic got housed, had children (didn't have tro stay with the father just so her kids could eat/go to school etc) because she had/has family who do it all for her. She got re-housed even nearer her family because she had family to contact the council/move her furniture etc. She can choose to be single or in a relationship yet still have a house to live in. Has family to spend Xmas etc with. So 2 people both with agoraphobia the one with family gets benefits, housing, children yet the one without gets no help. Feel 'discriminated' because got no family. How do I deal with everything I've been through? How do I carry on living with someone just to have a roof over my head? Surely someone with agoraphobia and no family support is more vunerable than someone who has a family support network.
