u/According_Grape5790

Anyone else just feel completely stuck?

I’ve been separated for 15 months and we have a 9yr old child. Last year he went on a rampage, and I’d dealt with a lot of these but this time I’d had enough. Called the police, he was removed and I was given a protection order. I offered him supervised visitation, and said I wanted him to get mental health help (has ADHD and BPD and made suicide threats), as well as drug rehab and DV perpetrator intervention to have further contact with our child.

He flat out refused. Said his mental health was fine, his drug use was because I stressed him out, and he wasn’t a perpetrator and was actually very restrained for not bashing me. He also claimed supervised visitation was manipulative and he didn’t need it. Fast forward to now, he hasn’t seen our child for 14 months, family court has ordered him to address his mental health and drug use and is not allowing any visitation.

I have had to recount my abuse so many times and he’s never even been charged with anything. I saw a psychologist and DV counsellor and had to go through it with them, then 2 different mediators prior to family court, to a different judge for the protection order, then in 3 different family court affidavits, then to a court social worker, then to a co-parenting course provider, then my psych left the clinic so I just had to repeat everything to a new psych. And now my child has been ordered to do therapy so I needed to give the history to the new therapist.

The person who did the assessment for the co-parenting course said I seemed cold and detached, and indicated that he didn’t believe me. I’m just sick of going through this. I can’t move on when I’m constantly re-living the past 12 years. Videos of what he did have gone to the court, police, the social worker, child protection department, his lawyer and mine. I’m glad I had video evidence because he denied everything but all these strangers have seen inside my home, saw what he did, heard me pleading for it to stop and breaking down. I’m upset and angry and feel resentful and like I can’t get away from it.

Anyone else feel this way? When did things get better?

My eldest is turning 18 soon. I’m a single parent and low income earner and have a pension card. She is in year 12 but intends to continue studying and go straight to uni next year.
We recently had to visit a licensing centre and it occurred to me that she could get a discount on her license and car rego because she’s on my pension card. They said the discount only applies to the cardholder, and as she’s the registered owner of her car and not the main cardholder, no discount.

Can she get a health care card when she’s 18? Will this come automatically when she is approved for youth allowance or does it need to be applied for separately? I’ve checked and she should be eligible for YA based on my income (I only work part time as I’m carer for another child who is disabled).
Also she finishes high school 2 months after she turns 18. Can she apply for YA as a full time high school student as soon as she turns 18, and then what happens to it when she’s waiting to hear if she gets accepted in to university? Does it pause over the summer holidays? Or does she need to enrol her in to university first to get youth allowance? Sorry not sure how this works!