Please for the love of god help me, I don’t want to live like this anymore

Warning, baggage incoming, so if this isn’t for you, I’d skip this post. But I’m just really looking for advice on how to get out of the situation I’m in and go be a capable human being.

I (M23) live with my single mother, and have done so since I was 11, when she divorced my father for multiple cases of cheating as well as for being cold and emotionally abusive towards her and me while she struggled to fight off severe C Difficile and constant migraines. Their relationship had been going downhill for a few years at that point. Regardless, my father never really taught me any life skills himself, even when I did have ample time with him, and his way of making up for the divorce has been basically just to spend lots of money on me when I was with him, and later on to send me regular funds (I won’t specify but it’s between $100-$200 biweekly). He started doing this when I turned 18. In school (mainly high school) I frequently 1) faked being sick so I didn’t have to go, as I was extremely jaded due to bullying plus hormones plus usual teenager difficulties, or 2) would actually get sick and miss several days at a time just frequently enough that I would struggle with grades. Because of this, my mother (who had recovered mostly from the C-diff by around 2015-2016, but would not fully recover from mourning until much more recently) did not encourage me to get a job, and I didn’t have any motivation to do so anyway because ew more work. My father was content with being my main source of income, so I received zero motivation from him either. Essentially I was never really taught discipline by anyone. Fast forward to 2019, I’m a college freshman, have had a car since senior year of high school, and I finally feel like my life is starting to look up. Have plans to join the Peace Corps, then join the US Coast Guard afterwards with a relevant degree. But life said “nah” and mere weeks before my final I was struck with POTS syndrome. I didn’t actually receive a diagnosis for it until a year and a half later, and that entire time I had to withdrawal from all my classes, and stop considering the possibility of getting my first job to manage my declined health. I would have vertigo, severe constant fatigue and frequent dizziness, and nearly constant heart palpitations. Where before I was an athletic and fit individual, now walking down the cul-de-sac for more than a hundred steps or even to the mailbox was a challenge that left my whole body overheated and prickly. Every night I was wracked with heart palpitations, and would frequently wake up suddenly with a rapidly fluctuating heartbeat that I would need the help of my mother to help settle down. Every night I would go to bed having to accept the possibility that I might have some terrifying heart problem and may not wake up. I was already a fairly depressive and emotional person before this, but POTS is what truly crushed my spirit.

I’m happy to say though that 4 years later, even though pots is still an overshadowing demon that affects every facet of my life, I’m overall doing much better now and can hang with the average person when it comes to fitness again. I just have no choice but to follow a rigid framework, a tightrope of sorts, that I must walk in order to minimize my symptoms and not go backwards. It’s EXTREMELY easy to go backwards. But for once in my life I actually took the initiative to get in good shape again, and though I’m not in as good shape as I was before this whole mess, I’m proud of how far I’ve come in this regard. It’s one of the only things I’m proud of tbh, as I haven’t done much else to get my life together. In this time, friends who I thought would support me have shown their true colors and lost interest in me, since I could no longer hang with their activities. Guess all I was to them was an accessory. Oh well.

Now, my mother doesn’t really have much knowledge of financial literacy beyond the bare minimum she needs to live hand to mouth and ensure that I have proper medical care if necessary. And with my father’s money coming in regularly, i pretty much have all my needs met, on top of extra money that I can spend frivolously on fleeting interests that I’ll likely abandon due to, again, my lack of discipline. My mother has actively discouraged me from getting a job as well, her reasoning being that I may not be physically ready to handle that level of stress (debatable), encouraging me instead to focus on my college classes, aka the occasional one or two online classes I take each year. I’m taking a yoga teacher course monthly, as I have experience with yoga, but I don’t know if that’s what I really want to do. My heart isn’t really in it.

Meanwhile, while I love my mother very much and we overall have a good relationship, she’s very bossy and draining to be around. She talks nonstop, repeating herself over and over, and will become very snarky and aggressively defensive if I put up and resistance towards her, being sure to position me strategically as the wrongdoer in the conversation turned argument as quickly as possible in order to avoid criticism. I just want to get away from her and have some agency in my own life for once. This includes my father too. He’s extremely possessive of me, and treats my time with him almost the same way you would go about the acquisition of money. I don’t blame him necessarily, but it feels hollow and selfish. There’s this nuance to my relationship with him, where I feel like he is unable to be a truly loving, supportive father despite supporting me financially and wanting to go do fun hobbies and trips with me. It’s hard to pin down. And I don’t think I can explain in full detail why I feel repelled by him, but maybe you can put it together. I still love him. I just don’t love having to rely on him.

All this said, I feel miserable and stuck. I am surrounded by a home I’ve outgrown, and since Covid especially, I haven’t been able to make up for all of this lost time. It’s clear to me that my parents won’t help me get out into the world beyond what they’ve already contributed. It has to be up to me. But I know I’m not ready. The idea of going out there and fucking up royally because I don’t know the ins and outs of life is terrifying. I’ve never dealt with having an income, taxes, nothing. Not to mention I’m a kissless virgin. I just feel so lost…

To anyone who can, I would really appreciate some guidance on how to take my life back. I can’t keep living like this. I don’t want to be a neet, guys.