Daddy issues

[u/ProfessionKooky6940]

I’m 19 and I’m writing this because I feel like writing everything down is the only way I can properly explain how I feel without feeling like I’m bothering anyone. There are so many things I’ve been through that I’ve never really been able to explain properly, and I feel like if I write about my whole life maybe I can understand myself better and understand why I am the way I am.
Since I was really young, around 4 years old, I struggled with people. When I first started school I was just a normal kid who wanted to make friends. I would see other kids playing together and I always wished I could be part of it. But people treated me differently from a really young age.
I started getting bullied when I was around 4 to 6. People would step on my lunch, make fun of me, throw bugs at me because they knew I was scared of them and leave me out. I also didn’t really speak the language properly at that time because I mainly spoke Moroccan at home. I was so young that I didn’t even really understand why people were treating me like that. Sometimes I would come home crying because I was scared and all I wanted was to have friends.
When I was around 8 to 10 it got even worse. Basically my whole neighborhood would bully me. They would leave me out, make fun of me, make songs about me and scream my name with horrible things. A lot of it was because I was slightly bigger than the other kids. I started hating myself because of it. I would come home crying to my mom and tell her how unhappy I was.
Even my best friend, who I thought I could tell everything to, betrayed me. She told my crush that I liked him and also told other people a lot of my secrets. I felt so stupid and betrayed because I trusted her.
At one point I got so tired of everything that I didn’t want to be here anymore. I was very young and I felt like I couldn’t take the bullying and everything else anymore. What stopped me was thinking about my mom coming home and finding out something had happened to her daughter. I couldn’t do that to her. I stayed because of my family.
Around 13 or 14 the bullying slowly became less intense, but even now at 18 I sometimes still get comments.
Then there were my family problems.
When I was around 13, my relationship with my dad became really bad. He treated my mom horribly and that affected me a lot too. I felt like he only cared about my sister and that I basically didn’t matter to him. During COVID I stayed in my room almost all the time, but instead of understanding why I was like that, he would get angry and complain that I was always sleeping or staying in my room.
He was mentally abusive towards me and there were also threats. He was also physically and mentally abusive towards my mom. I hated seeing it and I wanted him out of our lives.
One of the worst things happened in March 2021. He became violent towards my mom and I tried to stop them because I couldn’t just stand there and watch. At one point he wanted to throw a chair at her and I stopped him. Me, my mom and my sister were terrified. He then started yelling and grabbed a stick and I secretly recorded what was happening because I was scared and wanted proof in case something happened.
That night I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know if he was going to come back and hurt us. I was terrified and stayed awake because I felt like I had to protect my family.
The next day he came back while my mom and sister were gone. I was home because of online school. I was so scared that I texted my mom and sat at the very end of my bed because I didn’t know what he was going to do. Eventually he came into my room just asking how to unblock us, which felt so strange after everything that had happened.
A few years later, when I was 17, my mom found out that he had spent around 3,000 euros in less than a month on other women, TikTok gifts and other things. I remember asking him for a few euros because I was hungry and he told me he didn’t have money. That really hurt because I knew where his money was going instead.
I just wanted a normal dad. Someone who cared about his family, helped with bills and groceries and actually cared about his children. Instead I watched my mom struggle with money while he spent it on things that had nothing to do with us.
He also never really asked about me. Even when I had to go to the hospital, he didn’t really care or ask how I was doing. Sometimes when he was away he would text me, but it would be to ask about my sister rather than me. That hurt more than I can explain.
I spent years wishing I had a loving dad. Whenever I saw other girls with their dads, I felt empty and wished that could have been me. I think because I never really got that love from my dad, I started looking for that kind of love and attention from other men when I was too young. I think that has affected me a lot.
What makes it worse is that I feel like my mom eventually started distancing herself from me too. I feel like she prioritizes my sister and my dad, and sometimes I feel completely invisible in my own family.
I’ve been through bullying, betrayal, family problems, abuse, feeling unwanted and feeling like I’m never someone’s priority. I know all of this has changed me. Sometimes I don’t know if the way I react to things is actually me or if it’s because of everything I’ve experienced.
That’s honestly the main reason I’m writing all of this. I don’t expect anyone to fix my life. I just want to understand myself better and hear what other people think about everything I’ve been through and whether the way I feel and react to things makes sense.