Thanks for all the replies, I am in a strange state of mind lately, I'll try and explain but I'm not sure if I can.
As I said in my original post I have always been unconfident, shy and nervous. From the age of around 8 I became the kid that nobody wanted to play with, the boys would make fun of me and the girls would roll their eyes at me and tell me to go away. This basically went on all the way through school and although I wouldn't call it bullying it was certainly social exclusion and I'm still not sure why it happened.
When I was about 9 or 10 my parents split up and there was quite a bit of arguining going on around me, my mum went to bits basically and me and her ended up living with my grandma (who's husband sexually abused me), then I was sent to live with my auntie, then back to my mum again.
Around this time my mum seemed desperate to get a man and joined dating agencies in order to do so. I remember a few different men coming into the picture and going straight back out of it again apart from 1 who lived at the other end of the country. She was besotted with him and would do anything to be with him. I remember one time she went down to see him on the saturday and was supposed to come back on the sunday as it was my birthday. On the sunday she phoned my grandma and said she'd missed the bus . Another time she took me down there to meet him and he made it obvious I was not welcome, when we got back my dad and grandma had got together to report her to the social services so more arguments.
When I was 11 my father died and it really destroyed me, I had nobody to talk to about it as everytime I brought it up to my mum she would say things like "stop blaming me!" (which I never did) and "I knew him longer than you did" for gods sake he was my father...not a mate .
Then she got with this other bloke, everything was ok at first, he seemed nice and I was promised that we wouldnt need to move out of our house and I wouldnt need to change schools (I was 11 at the time so just started secondry school), I had already changed schools 6 times since I started at 5. Needless to say within a few months we had moved out of our house to live with him and I had to change schools. This is when things started to turn sour, he made it obvious that he didnt like me (the feeling was mutual at the time) and would get ready to go the chippy, ask everyone what they wanted and then hold his hand out for money when I told him what I wanted. (remember I was still a kid at this point). His parents hated me and would come into "our" house and completely blank me, even on my birthday. My mum never stuck up for me and now says she was 'torn' between us and was frightened of losing him.
Needless to say I went off the rails as a teen, started taking soft drugs, drinking, smoking etc. None of which my mum really tried to stop. I left home at 16 when he said that if I didnt take a crappy dead end factory job for £1.99 an hour rather than go to college I would be thrown out so I saved him the trouble. I also remember hearing them talking in bed one night and I heard my mum say "I do love her, but sometimes I wish it was just me, you and the bairn (meaning their daughter).
I had nowhere to go so ended up being found wandering the streets by my cousin who took me in and I lived with my auntie (a different one) for a while. There she set me off at college and things were looking up...I couldnt get used to the lack of freedom though and ended up getting asked to leave after going out drinking one night.
Then I ended up in a student house sharing with 3 women and 1 man...I was only 16, they were all in their late teens/early 20's...I was still at college re-sitting my GCSE's.
Whilst at college I met a lad who I thought I liked, looking back I liked him because he was the first decent looking kid to have ever shown an interest in me! So we got together and I became very possessive of him, made him give up his friends (who had made it obvious that they didnt like me, one even told me face to face).
Then things started going downhill at the student house, they all got together and told the landlord that I had been stealing from them, they later admitted that they just wanted me out because my music was too loud. I ended up getting thrown out for theft though (which I was innocent of) and I went to live with my boyfriend and his family. I got pregnant pretty quickly at the age of 17 as I felt I wanted a baby so that I could be a good mum, we moved into our flat and he was working...things seemed ok but then we moved onto a council estate and things, again went downhill, he packed in his job, we had horrible neighbours who kept causing trouble for us, he started to hit me and then whilst I was pregnant with our 2nd child he told me he had been seeing a 16 year old girl.
I eventually managed to get a house of my own after lots of mental torture and I lived on my own with 1 son and 7 months pregnant with our other. He ended up moving back in with us before the baby was born but it wasnt to last eventually, after 8 years together we split for good.
I didnt feel I was ready to be on my own, Id only ever had 1 proper boyfriend before and wanted another, I dont know why. I quickly got involved with another man who was no good for me, we were together for a year and now I'm single again and in a strange frame of mind, I feel I want something out of life and I am determined to get it, I just dont know what it is.
Sorry this is so long.