Growing up without a father

Around the age of 5 my parents got divorced, for the next 5 years I’d visit my father on the weekends. During that time I never really thought anything of it, honestly I thought it was kinda normal having divorced parents granted I never really had any friends when I was younger. Around 10 years old my father got remarried and I stopped going over to his house on the weekends mainly because he moved in with his wife who had 2 kids which occupied the 2nd room in their 2 bedroom home. From there I started seeing him less (about once a week for a few hours). Growing up I lived with my mother and brother(4 years older) in a small suburban town. Growing up(10-18:present) my father was rarely around so I never really developed any sort of strong connection with him, I’d see him at family functions, he was more like an old school friend that you were kinda friends with. Around 14-15 years old I legitimately started thinking about our relationship or lack there of, and I began to get really sad because he never made an effort to even try to start to build any kind of relationship. This lead me to start thinking that it was because of me, I started thinking that i wasn’t worth to get to know and I never really thought about myself in a positive light. I just didn’t feel worthy of love and didn’t think I deserved. I had a decent relationship with my mother, it got kind of ruined shortly after her marriage with another women and I got bullied in school for it( I’m not homophobic by any means, I was just an ignorant 15 yo who was embarrassed and confused). I became distant with her and at this time I found marijuana. I’d smoke with my neighbor or usually by myself, I become psychologically hooked on it, I’d just smoke and ride my bike after school. It just stopped me from thinking i was piece of shit. This kinda started my infatuation with drugs, quickly moved to uppers. Adderall being my drug of choice. I just never really felt enough or like a sense of being content. Which I believe is contributed to never having a strong male figure in my life. Adderall just kinda calmed by brain down and allowed me to feel a sense of satisfaction. I’m 18 now and reflecting back on my previous years I never really considered on how much of impact it had on me. I know I can’t change anything in the past but i do believe it’s good to reflect and figure out how problems started and work on ways to solve them in the future.

/r/Drugs Thread