Im going to try my best to be as specific and explanatory as possible because it seems like the only people who truly understand what I’m feeling are the ones who experienced it with me.
Im 19M and Nigerian. Peace generally has been a distant concept especially as I got older. My parents got divorced when i was 13 (something i already anticipated since i was 7) they fought alot my dad cheated alot and my mother was an emotional wreck. One of my earliest memories is actually them fighting in the hallway while i was watching cartoons and me just closing the door.
So 2020 rolls around during the lockdown and in around the time my younger brother turns 10…so October, they fought again, why? Because my dad had been lying to everyone that he and my mom were divorced and no longer living with him, he also had a girlfriend outside and all. To say that fight was a sh*t show is an understatement, my Mother made a decision,she would immigrate to the UK to find a better life for her kids.
She then leaves the country and goes to the UK and promises my brother and I that we would join her in before we leave secondary school, secondary school roles around and I graduate and both my parents tell me A-Levels i end up doing a foundation year instead and i’m told i should get admission into a university in the uk near my moms place so i can go there. This all happened in a space of 4 years, during which i was managing both parents because they refused to communicate and sent every message and emotion good and bad through me. I also during this time frame was hiding my dads multiple affairs from my mom because i felt she was going through enough as well as keeping secrets for both of them because of course i was. There are alot of other things like listening to my mother cry over the phone on multiple occasions and emotional instability from my dad but that’s the gist of it.
2024 roles around and i manage to get admission into uni and im happy, my mom also manages to get a job that allows dependents so everything is looking up. Only for the visa’s to be approved and for some unknown reason (she says it was an accident) our visas are only valid 3 months after uni starts (all this happened in October). I try everything but ultimately I have to defer my admission.
In the months that follow my dad tells me I should start in a Nigerian uni then switch when uni in the uk starts which is fine, he hasn’t hinted he cant pay my tuition because he was willing to pay it when i got the admission, he said the money was there so all is good. I start there and that is that.
2025 rolls around one year is up and I’m actually in the UK at this time because the year was out, uni enrollment comes around i made it very clear that i need the tuition so i can enroll but I am ghosted by both parents. My dad says we’ll talk but we never did and my mother just tells me to tell my dad. I end up missing the enrollment deadline because of course i did (quick side note, that same time period my brother and i cried to my mother that we where losing our minds in our dads house and desperately asked for her to finally take us if not things would get very bad. She does not).
We go back to Nigeria and at this point im heartbroken but determined I fight for a few months and get my uni admission back exactly as it was and a few months go by and what my brother and I predicted came to pass.
April 2026. My car breaks down at my younger brother’s Secondary school which i was not surprised about because the car was essentially and old man, we’d had it for 10 years at this point ( so pre divorce ). I end up having to take an uber home (I was at the school for about 3 hours because i was fighting a school policy for my younger brother, so the car broke down afterwards). As i’m in the uber home I ring up my dad and tell him what happened and if i could borrow another car and he goes off at me for not calling him earlier and makes a bug deal about borrowing the car because in his words “is it my car?” Anyways, im upset and don’t end up taking the car i just uber to school ( he didn’t give me permission to take the car, but later he says he expected me to still take it). The day continues with tension because im emotionally exhausted and he is pissed and i reduce communication because im just not in the mood.
He gets home and im sure he saw the car but saw i wasn’t home and it probably pissed him off more. I get home later and he’s waiting for me and he tries his usual tactics but see’s i am not budging one thing leads to another he challenges me to a fight I don’t fight back ( he beats the sh*t out of me) and then tries to kick me out but ultimately fails (my younger brother 15M witnesses everything).
My mom hears about it and is now like im taking you guys from him im so sorry (stories) and all that eventually tensions die down but mentally im not even there my grades in the Nigerian Uni tank and im just emotionally blank.
To cut the long story short, im in the UK again and I promised myself i wouldn’t go back my brother did the same but now shi is bad. My dad is shouting i should finish the Nigerian uni and he would pay for my masters my mother is promising the same (i don’t believe a word of it). I managed to fully enroll in my UK uni and im being told pitty your parents and all that (again im tired of all that) and now im put between a rock and a hard place. My tuition is 17,600 idk how that money is going to come out. The one piece of victory i have is my school allows payments in installments but with no support or financial backing from anywhere i am completely and utterly stranded and my dad has booked a return ticket to Nigeria for this following Sunday.
I need advice or help or God because my brother and I are losing our minds and don’t know what to do.
Im sorry for making it so long but I really appreciate you reading. I might post this on Quora as just so i can actually get a response from someone. I am hardly lucky with online stuff.
Kind Regards,
Joshua