The biggest insult that I received when I was a child was being called a "Daddy's girl" I couldn't stand that phrase because it was a lie...a painful lie. Whenever family would come around, they would look at me standing next to my father and say that lie over and over again. I would respond by smiling on the outside while I cringed on the inside. They had NO idea that the man that stood next to me was a man that I looked at as a monster. As a child, I saw my father abuse drugs and alcohol regularly. I saw him abuse my mother and brother...regularly. My innocent eyes were raped with visions of violence and pain...regularly.
As an adult I understand that many of the issues that I've endured were mostly tied to the issues that I had with my father. I believe that there are thousands of women out there who are suffering because of Daddy issues. Your self-esteem is suffering, your marriage is suffering, your ability to parent effectively is suffering, your dreams are SUFFERING because the first most important male figure in your life...made you suffer.
Thinking retrospectively, I had developed many negative characteristics because of the strained relationship that I had with my father. Insecurity was a huge one. I was always unsure about myself because my dad never assured me of anything. He never reflected my beauty or acknowledged my greatness. He never said, "I love you" and he never showed me any type of affection. I didn't feel safe with him for obvious reasons, I was always on guard...always had the wall up. I had to protect myself because the person who was supposed to protect me was the same person who was attacking me and my family. So from the very beginning, my impression of my father was negative. I identified him as my enemy. I didn't realize how much anger I had inside myself because of him. Now that I look back on it, I was a very angry little girl. I didn't display anger in the way that you might be thinking. I wasn't fighting in school, having angry outbursts, or bullying other kids. I was a very good student, always brought home A's and maybe a B or two every report card, I was always on honor roll and was inducted into the junior honor society in middle school. I was even the school's spelling bee champion. On the outside it seemed like everything was great, but on the inside I was in constant pain. I remember me and my friends walking home from school many days and hearing my parents arguing from outside of my house. Try explaining that to your friends as they awkwardly walk away from you. In my mind I didn't know what they were thinking about me or my house. Every time I stepped into my house I felt like I was stepping into a line of fire...a war zone. All I could hope for was that no one was hurt. Can you imagine a child never wanting to go home? Yeah, that was me.
I watched my father cheat on my mother with multiple women. I watched her cry and then deny that she even cared. I listened as he made phone calls that caused him to whisper in our house. I watched him hurt her over and over again. I watched, I listened, and then I recorded all of this in my mind because that's what kids do...they record everything whether they're trying to or not.
High school was the point where my anger began to peek out. I was still a good student but my behavior was getting careless and my judgement was getting cloudy. By this time I've transformed from a angry little girl to an angry teen girl. I've already learned that when it comes to men, cheating was something that women just dealt with, whether they liked it or not. I learned that the way to cope with pain was to deny that you were feeling it. I learned that men break promises and they lie. I learned that you can't believe that a man will help take care of you so you must always ALWAYS take care of yourself. I learned that no matter what, you stay in bad relationships. I applied this tainted knowledge to my social relationships. Each act of disrespect, abuse, and selfishness that I saw from my dad chipped away at the amount of respect that I had for him. By the time I got to high school, I had no respect for my dad at all. NONE. l began to explore relationships with boys when I was in the ninth grade and because I had no covering and no teaching from my father, I was just "out there" winging these interactions based on a faulty model of loving relationships. When I should have been focusing on going to college, I was instead focusing on having a boyfriend; this is a direct result of having a father be INACTIVE in the life of his daughter. I got into two relationships during my high school years and both of them ended in very ugly and painful ways. I was cheated on and lied to and I dealt with things that I could've easily walked away from but I didn't because I never saw one single woman in my family walk away.
When I was freshman in college that's when my anger took over. College is a different ball game people...it is! Teens are now entering the developmental stage of what psychologists call emerging adulthood; the age range for this group is 18-29. This is a very confusing time for young people because there is an awareness of getting older which causes them to pull away from the immaturity and naivety of adolescence while they're also pushing themselves to be more responsible as they move closer towards adulthood. Research has shown that emerging adults feel "in-between" those to worlds and even though they are experiencing more responsibility they don't necessarily feel like an actual adult. Identity is a huge concept at this stage too because young people within this group are trying to figure out who they are and what path they would like to take in life. I had no identity as a young adult. I defined myself based on what the world thought of me which led to me having very low self-esteem. I tried to combat low self-esteem with loving the wrong men because these men gave me the attention that I always wanted from who?....MY FATHER. Even though these men were wrong for me they paid attention to me, they told me that I was beautiful and that they loved me. I mean yes the men were lying (lol) but still they told me what I wanted to hear, things that I wish I could've heard from my father. I didn't know that I was smart, beautiful, or that I was a queen so when men told me these things, lie or not, I was hooked.
Another Daddy issue that I developed had to do with trusting men. Me not being able to trust my dad led to me to associate and be in relationships with men who were not trustworthy. Isn't that ironic?? I was so hurt and angered by my father's lies and contradictory behavior that you would think that I would run FAR away from that type of man...but no. Ladies, it's important to see here that we have the tendency to be attracted to men who are just like our fathers; that could be a good thing or a bad thing. I didn't make the conscious choice to pick men like my dad but psychologically I did that because my father was my FIRST and ONLY example of a man, so since childhood my brain had been trained to think that this is the type of man to look for in a mate. Being with men that I couldn't trust only exacerbated my trust issues and I believed that no man could be trusted...no man.
Every romantic relationship I ever had was a some type of filler. I had such a huge void within myself. A huge hole left in my heart caused my dad and everything that he didn't do. I unconsciously used these bad relationships to fill this hole, but with each hurt that I endured that hole just seemed to get larger and deeper.
FATHERS I need you to understand that your role in your daughters life is SO IMPORTANT for their development and well being!!! You are the key that unlocks everything within your daughter! YOU set the standard for her and she will be using YOUR example to measure EVERY male interaction she has!
DAUGHTERS I need you to understand that we all come from different backgrounds. Some of you may have great fathers. Some of you may have been abandoned and/or rejected from your fathers. Some of you may have know idea who your father is. Some of you (like me) may have had your father present in the home but he was absent is all other areas of your life. No matter what the circumstance just know that you have a father and His name is JESUS. The Bible says:
"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you;
He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."
~Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)
Today, the relationship between my father and I is in a much better place. All I can say is PRAYER WORKS! I still don't consider myself a Daddy's girl BUT I am my father's child and I'm proud of that. Ladies, if you're single PLEASE take this time to work on yourself and resolve not just your Daddy issues but ALL of your issues. A future marriage will not survive if you take out your anger towards your father on your husband. To all of my married ladies, if your marriage is suffering because you expect your husband to make up for everything your father did to you STOP IT NOW. Stop making your husband an involuntary victim of YOUR past and YOUR pain.
Please watch these links below, they are extremely powerful and will help you to heal. Stay uplifted and encouraged!
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