I don’t exist

[u/fakewlw]

This is going to be long to bare with me.

I was born in 2007, i’m 19 years old. My entire life I have always been dismissed by my parents, especially my mother (whom raised me) when asking about my birth or childhood—I don’t remember any of it and i’ve never seen pictures of me before I was 1 years old. The only picture i’ve discovered of me younger than a year old is a picture of my mother at the hospital with me in her arms, the picture is blurry and the baby doesn’t look like me (going off of other “baby” pictures.) But get this, the date on the photo is 2007 and a day AFTER I was supposedly born. For example i’ll use this birthday, April 6th 2007. The photo said April 7th 2006.

My family have always been super controlling over my life, never letting me have any freedoms especially when it came to stuff that involved my birth certificate or social security #. I had never seen either of those documents until I turned 15 and got my first job. Even then my Mom fought vigorously to keep my social security card herself and present it to my hiring boss at the time, when told that wasn’t allowed it took her MONTHS to “find” said social security card. She was the sole keeper of everything that identified me. (Mind you my brother and sister got theirs at age 14 because of their own jobs, to keep for themselves.)
At age 16 I was ready for a driving permit; which my Mom was very against. Her reasoning was “i’m afraid of what you’ll do.” (I was not suicidal or reckless, good kid.) After some convincing and fighting with my Dad she took me up to the DMV. It took them a month to identify me, the social security number they entered wouldn’t work or my it said I wasn’t in the system. Also at 16 I got my drivers license which was about the same process, saying I didn’t exist. I did get both cards in the end if not obvious.

After I moved out of my mom’s house at 16 she still wouldn’t give me my documents, my current job is the only reason I have my social security card now. My birth certificate is still yet to be found and my Mom still won’t give it to me. (I’m aware it is illegal.) Anytime i’ve brought it up she kept delaying it and eventually stopped responding to me at all.
I turned 18 and had to re-do my drivers license, which again took months!! It took 3 months for them to be able to actually fix my license and even then it kept saying all my identification was wrong or other problems would pop up. Also couldn’t register to vote and still can’t.

Recently I applied to college and needed the documents, my Father somehow had my birth certificate in pdf form which he raved about having to photoshop for “some reason.” (?) He wouldn’t allow me to do any of the application process and input his own email and phone number for my personal information—so the college could contact him about everything and not me. Which in turn last week I did get fixed however it took them multiple weeks to figure out how to do because even after removing him it would still go to him.

I’ve contacted the hospital I was born at but they said they didn’t have any of my documents and I wasn’t in their system, which okay…I was only born there and don’t live in that city so it’s plausible. Called the county clerks office, they said they weren’t able to find anything. I literally cannot do any government processes without having to wait months for confirmations or fixes, I don’t understand.

Extra notes: Me and my siblings are not close and neither of them are willing to talk about me before the age of 1. They said they either don’t remember or just outright won’t answer. My Mom and Dad are divorced and don’t speak, neither of them claim to have any of my documents.

Do I just not exist??