I’m 19 and over the past few years I’ve been having more and more issues with my mum. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my mum but things can be so difficult between us.

I struggle severely with anxiety and due to my anxiety I lost my job earlier in the year and ever since my relationship with my mum has felt even more tense. I still live at home with her (I live in a really small town so there are no jobs readily available) and because I’ve had no money I haven’t been able to afford food, so occasionally I’ll have to ask my mum for some. I try not to ask too often because I feel so guilty, she will roll her eyes when I ask for food and will get so frustrated. Whenever I ask her for food she will complain about how she has no money and I feel so bad. She’s always struggled with money and recently she told me that once I get a job she’ll have no problems with money. But the thing is even when I was making money and i was fully paying for myself she was constantly running out of money and asking me to loan her money.

I will quite frequently miss out on food because she says she has no money, but I recently found out that in the past 90days she has spent $900 on games in the App Store. I know it’s her money and it’s her right to choose what she’s does with the money but I wish that she wouldn’t make me feel so guilty about her not having money.

In high school I suffered with an eating disorder and there were multiple times that I had to go without any lunch at school because she chose to buy a coffee at her work instead of buying me food and the hardest part was she had told my friends to notify her if I didn’t eat lunch or bring anything to school. My friend always used to get annoyed at me for not bringing any lunch but I was too embarrassed to tell her that my mum chose to have a coffee instead.

And I can’t talk to people about this because everyone would always tell me how awesome my mum is, but they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.

Not too long ago I got into a small argument with my mum in the car, she got so angry so I went to hop out of the car because I was scared she yelled at me “don’t you dare get out” and then I tried to get out she grabbed me by my hood and tried to pull me back in. And another at the peak of my eating disorder we got into an argument about food and she stormed into the lounge room where I was sitting and she threw her food at me.

I feel so trapped, and my anxiety and depression keeps on getting worse I just can’t deal with this anymore. And I’m so scared to tell people because I don’t want to make things worse and I’m so scared that they are going to think I’m attention seeking.

I don’t know what to do