Friend needs help

My friend is the kind of person who looks stronger than he feels. On the outside, he’s calm, dependable, and always trying to keep it together for his little girl. He’s a single dad to a four-year-old daughter who absolutely adores him, and every decision he makes revolves around giving her the safe, loving childhood he never had. He tries his best every single day, but the truth is he’s exhausted and carrying more pain than most people could imagine. When he was five years old, he was kidnapped and taken away from everything familiar. For years, he was forced into violent fights for other people’s entertainment, moved around the world like he was property instead of a child. He survived things no kid should ever see. By the time he escaped at sixteen, the damage had already settled deep into him. Even now, years later, he lives with severe anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, and nightmares that can wake him up shaking in the middle of the night. He takes medication just to manage the memories and function through normal days. What makes it harder is that he hates letting anyone see him vulnerable—especially his daughter. He’s terrified she’ll look at him differently if she sees him during a panic attack or after a nightmare. So he hides it. He smiles when he’s tired, tells her everything is okay even when he’s barely holding himself together, and pushes himself past his limits because he loves her more than anything. But he can’t do it alone anymore, and admitting that was one of the hardest things he’s ever done. Asking for help doesn’t come naturally to him because his whole life taught him that depending on people was dangerous. Still, he’s trying. He reaches out because he wants to be a good father, not because he’s weak. Underneath all the trauma, he’s a genuinely caring person who never got the chance to be a child himself, and now he’s doing everything he can to make sure his daughter gets the childhood he lost.