A Letter to the Girl with Daddy Issues

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Dear Broken Girl,

You are chasing attention and affection in all the wrong places. Playing pretend because you think that’s as good as you can do. You think that you will never find a better man. You don’t respect yourself because you’ve been disrespected and disregarded.

You’ll grow up not believing that love is really real. You’ll see your friends and other couples getting married. They will plan their dream weddings and you wonder how it can be real. Can two people really be that into each other?

You feel small like you might just shrink away. There’s no way you will ever have support as they do. Watching as their family supports them and lavishes them in love and gifts.

It’s like watching a movie but your happy ending never seems to play out like that. Your world is filled with cheaters, liars, and narcissists. Man, you sure can pick them, they seem drawn to you. As if they can see “daddy issues” stamped across your forehead. They can see that you are the embodiment of what it means to have no self-worth. Plus, there’s no one to stand up for you, no father figure to keep the guys accountable for their actions.

You feel like you NEED a man. You need approval. You just want someone to take care of you. So, you lower your standards and accept what you can get in the moment because it’s better than being alone…right?

But you never feel satisfied. There’s no contentment in trying to persuade someone into treating you right. You are tired of the cycle…so tired. They always disrespect, they always cheat, they always leave, and then it’s back to square one. Sometimes you’ll ride the cycle with some guy for a long, long time, back and forth. Sometimes you just move on quickly to the next one.

But the thing is you’re smart. You may not know how smart you really are. And one day, when you can’t, won’t do it anymore. You will see it’s just not worth it because you are worth more than anyone ever told you.

When you slowly begin to heal, when ounce by ounce your confidence grows, there will be a shift. Seeing everything for what it really is and you know you can’t ever go back to feeling like that again.

It’s NOT too hard to have better. It’s not too much work, because it is a necessity. Necessary that you don’t settle or be treated for less than you deserve. You may just find that this whole time you really didn’t NEED anyone more than you needed to love and respect yourself.

Love Always,

The Girl That’s Been There