My father got into trading stocks and started neglecting everything else
My father has always been interested in trading but his demanding job kept him busy. He started getting into trading a few years before he retired because his friend who worked directly under him got him into it. He started trying things beyond stocks. He gave my passport without asking me to some shady group who promised insane returns for some online trading stuff and it eventually was revealed to be a scam. He will let the world know if he gets a profit of even 100$ but he will never discuss all the losses so far.
He tried to get my cousin and some other people into it. He basically gave them free money and asked them to try it out. They obviously liked the money and told him what he wanted to hear. When they asked for more money, he understood he did something dumb. The man who is great at his job at a top position in world renowned company is not the same man when he tries to explore other sources of income. He does the dumbest shit for some reason a man of his intellect normally wouldn’t. For instance he gave away free land after buying a property and other property value increased because a road got wider and he was surprised.
He retired a few years ago and it’s gotten worse. He started to renovate the house against my mother’s wishes because the house was enough for them. He wanted an office and extra rooms and decided to leave it incomplete with maybe 10 or 5% of the remaining work because of arguments with the workers or money issues. We think he lost his retirement fund trading. He’s been roped into more complicated real estate deals in another state and get rich quick schemes too. He crashed the car nearly a year ago and hasn’t gotten the damage fixed.
House is basically breaking down where plumbing issues, electrical issues and door hinge issues are all just ignored by him. He doesn’t care about anything but trading. He bought a monitor when he could barely pay electric bill and hid it for months cause he was afraid my mom would disapprove. He was convinced if he got 4 or 5 monitors, he would be better. He already has 3.
He’s really happy when he gets enough money from trading money but he doesn’t tell us he borrows from people until it’s time to pay and then he’s all stressed and using our home medical blood pressure device to tell mom he’s too stressed until she caves in and pays his debt. My mom had to spend all her salary paying off his debt. He doesn’t even go out with her unless it’s related to work or he wants to book something in person. I don’t even recognize him. He had a well paying job and now he’s falling for every scam left and right.
I just don’t know how to help him or my mom. He doesn’t listen to anyone but his friends. There’s nobody older than him in the extended family to talk to him. He dismisses everyone else. I told her trading is basically gambling and he’s probably addicted. There’s no way to get him some therapy since he’s only gone to a psychiatrist a few times for work related incidents and thinks there’s nothing wrong.
I don’t even recognize the man I used to look up to. I’m not sure what happened. He never saved money while he was working because he give away a lot of it to anyone who asked and it feels like at some point he panicked and he tried to get as much money when he was about to retire.