Hi there,

For years, I've been working in therapy to connect with my true self and deal with my core issues. Where I'm at now is needing to grieve the dad I never had - my dad has always been physically present in my life, but he was so damn scary that I didn't want him near me. I had to kind of block his presence out of my consciousness. So, there we were living together - with me pretending he wasn't really there, like it was just a dream.. Like none of it mattered.

Now I feel it does matter. I'm so sad I basically didn't have a father! And I feel it would really help to read other people's stories, too, to see that I'm not alone with this. So I thought I'd start this thread where we can share our feelings.. Whatever you feel like sharing. How being fatherless has made you feel, how it has impacted you and your life, what difficulties it has presented.. Not to necessarily get advice, but just so we can share our stories.

I'll start by sharing that I feel absolutely worthless, like it would have been better if I was never born! I know this comes from him, my dad, feeling this way, and I know something or someone did want me here - because I am here! - but I can't help feeling like I never should have been, and I just need to share this and be heard..

Another thing I've noticed is not feeling like I deserve to be looked after. I've never truly cared about my appearance - on the contrary, I've wanted to destroy it so the pain within could finally be seen on the outside as well! Only recently have I started to realise this is because I didn't and don't have a dad, and how important a father's presence - emotional and psychological as well as physical! - is to a girl's development.. My therapist once said little girls should be able to 'parade' in front of their fathers' loving attention.. I never had that

[TishaBuv]

My father was severely depressed, had a nervous breakdown, and chain smoked himself to death, died when I was 12.

I felt love for him and didn't think he wasn't necessarily what a father should be, as I didn't have other role models to compare.

No, I never paraded in his loving attention, either. I wasn't even a blip on his radar. But keep in mind that I am 50, and his generation, I presume, did not have the same mind set as fathers do now. He told my mother he didn't even want to see us kids when he got home from work. We should be fed and in bed. That was totally unrealistic, of course, and never happened.

Gotta run right now. More to come...

[TishaBuv]

It wasn't until I started seeing movies where fathers love their daughters or social things like father/daughter dances, much later in my life, that I even thought my father/daughter relationship was even different than others.

For one, it greatly impacted my life financially.

And it impacted me most in that I never felt safe and protected.

When I started with boys and sexuality, I had very low self esteem.

BTW- my mother told me she got pregnant with me to stay married to my father. So I was only born as an obligation. Do I care?

The good news is I am in this world and I did end up marrying a loving, dedicated man.

The bad news is I have an emotional disorder and have a very hard time acting normal and loving to this very nice man. I'm sure this is because of both my parents' dysfunction, possibly genetics, possibly a learned disorder for me.

[TishaBuv]

Had my father lived, I'm sure he and my mom would have divorced. He's have grown and evolved along with the rest of society. I'd have maintained some kind of relationship with him and most likely his new family.

I'd have had it out with him, for sure.

I feel that even my thinking about this now, my talking here about this now, somehow communicates to him. I know he was a good man and I loved him. I forgive him for his MI. He was a victim of severe abuse from his corrupt father, who burns in hell.

Sorry for going there. But it's true.

[MickeyCheeky]

I'm sorry to hear this.. Hope therapy will help you to find a way to cope

[TishaBuv]

As for caring about my appearance...

We must work with what we have. Plus, I never thought for a second that I would be safe if I let myself go.

Also, my father told my sister she should be a Vegas showgirl.

[Zedsdead]

Originally Posted by not.dead.yet

Hi there,

For years, I've been working in therapy to connect with my true self and deal with my core issues. Where I'm at now is needing to grieve the dad I never had - my dad has always been physically present in my life, but he was so damn scary that I didn't want him near me. I had to kind of block his presence out of my consciousness. So, there we were living together - with me pretending he wasn't really there, like it was just a dream.. Like none of it mattered.

Now I feel it does matter. I'm so sad I basically didn't have a father! And I feel it would really help to read other people's stories, too, to see that I'm not alone with this. So I thought I'd start this thread where we can share our feelings.. Whatever you feel like sharing. How being fatherless has made you feel, how it has impacted you and your life, what difficulties it has presented.. Not to necessarily get advice, but just so we can share our stories.

I'll start by sharing that I feel absolutely worthless, like it would have been better if I was never born! I know this comes from him, my dad, feeling this way, and I know something or someone did want me here - because I am here! - but I can't help feeling like I never should have been, and I just need to share this and be heard..

Another thing I've noticed is not feeling like I deserve to be looked after. I've never truly cared about my appearance - on the contrary, I've wanted to destroy it so the pain within could finally be seen on the outside as well! Only recently have I started to realise this is because I didn't and don't have a dad, and how important a father's presence - emotional and psychological as well as physical! - is to a girl's development.. My therapist once said little girls should be able to 'parade' in front of their fathers' loving attention.. I never had that

My situation is a little different, but I am fatherless nonetheless.
I grew up with my 3 siblings, always feeling like the 'odd one out'. It didnt help that my mother is narcissistic and used me as a scapegoat. My sisters were always prettier, more talented and got the 'good genes'.
My father and I had a decent relationship.. but it was different than my sisters and brothers relationship with him. We got along like friends.
When i turned 18, i had a shocking message come through asking if I wanted to know the truth about my life. Of course I did, i found out i had a different father, he had left when I was around 2-3 years old. I had simply forgotten about him and started calling my step dad, dad.

I felt hurt, betrayed. I wanted to know why I wasn't good enough for him to stay in my life or important enough for him to keep in contact. I felt deeply wounded that my 'dad' and his whole side of the family weren't actually related to me at all.. and worst of all. Everybody knew and none of them told me.
On top of that, my mother was disgusted I was sad about it all. She said I had no right to be upset and should be grateful I had a father at all.

I suffer with deep insecurities and a need to please people. I have low self esteem and my 'man picker' is broken. I have yet to have a respectful meaningful relationship with a man and im 26 years old.
I realize now that I can never change the past, and that i have no control over other people and their actions. What they choose to do, is a reflection on THEM and not myself. I continue to work on living in the moment and gratitude. Not knowing my father doesn't bother me at all anymore. But I know finding out the way i did, left it's mark.

Thank you all so much for sharing! For the first time ever, I've felt the shame from my dad's emotional abandonment of me lift a bit as I'm learning I'm not the only one who's gone through something like this, who's feeling these emotions.. Thank you so much

I'm hoping to hear from fatherless daughters specifically as I believe it's a different kind of relationship than that between a father and a son - both with unique characteristics, and consequences when the relationship doesn't work. But on some level, a loss is a loss, and I also welcome stories from anyone who's had a dysfunctional relationship with they're dad

[*Laurie*]

My father, whom I adored, divorced my mother (after 25 years of marriage). He moved to a different city and I rarely saw him. They divorced when I was 7; he died when I was 25 - that was almost 30 years ago. Fortunately, I had an outstanding male therapist for 6 years in my late 20's-early 30's. That helped some. Overall, however, not having a father in my home really messed me up. I certainly don't expect ever to heal entirely from being a fatherless daughter. It's that much more painful because my older sisters did grow up with our father.

[Fuzzybear]

[Bill3]

[it'sgrowtime]

Trigger warning******

My dad drank himself to death by my early twenties. It took him about five years of dedicated effort. He also made suicide attempts when I was in highschool. He called me once crying, begged me to come over or he might kill himself..told me I was his only hope. I can't even remember if I went now; I just remember rolling on the floor in anguish, listening to his pleas. Somehow I "worshipped" him (fear I guess) and went mostly numb early on in life. it's confusing that my dad taught me so many things...how to read, write, bike, drive, philosophy, music, literature, art... He gave my dull religious life color. But, he was so angry, dangerous, sick, and pitiful, too. He always found ways to devalue me, because he was so self-obsessed, even though self-deprecating. Its been so difficult to make sense of who he was, and how he affects me. When I started counseling a couple years ago, I was afraid to talk about him as if he might rise from the dead and get me. Realizing i subconsciously believed something so impossible helped to open my eyes to trauma. I had trained myself all my life to put his needs first. I've fought like hell to convince myself I had needs, and that my needs matter. I'm still working to face all he did to me. I can't say it, because I'm still so terrified deep down. I feel like my world could crack apart when I "go there." I'll get there little by little though until it's aired out and reincorporated.

So that's my fatherless daughter summary. Thanks for making this thread so I could air out some of the stuff still stuck in me. It's hard to admit my experience because I had always kept it so secret.

[it'sgrowtime]

Trigger warning************************

Keeping going...I'm feeling fired up rereading my post. Burns in my stomach. I have so much unexpressed anger towards...whatever the hell happened.... Its unexpressed because I had so much pity for him. I hated watching him suffer through his issues. I could not understand what was happening all the time. He cried a lot, laughed a lot, sang a lot, screamed and yelled, became violent and so incapacitated. I don't know why I have to respect him?! I feel like he tortured me. I want to tear his image apart limb by limb. but then I smile at him instead. I can't see him straight, because when I do it immediately warps me. I disassociate. It's horrible because shouldn't he be a moot point? Yet he lingers like a ghoul in my stress and fear responses.
He just confuses me. Like when I was a teenager, he drove me around drunk on joy rides to the liquor store, too fast around tight curves and hills. He thought it was funny to launch his car off the bumps...he would cheer and make me cheer. He's drunk and I think I'm going to die, yet I can't care because then I'll ruin his fun, or I'll seem like I worry too much and I should LIKE this impromptu show of drunken stupid. He's hurt I don't trust him. Seriously what is this about? It seems like he enjoyed scaring me when I think over things...but then he frames everything as special and meaningful and a gift for me, that I am wretched if I don't accept it. Like mol*st me and give me a toy? Why should his type of soul murdering violence be viewed as more benign than mine, where I can't hardly express a fantasy of violent revenge to myself? I think I've done well dumping this here on this post. I have a nasty worry about influencing people, hurting people's feelings. But I feel like writing this will be a healing choice that I made.

[*Laurie*]

I'm so sorry for all the pain in this thread. I hope healing for all of us.

Originally Posted by not.dead.yet

Where I'm at now is needing to grieve the dad I never had - my dad has always been physically present in my life, but he was so damn scary that I didn't want him near me. I had to kind of block his presence out of my consciousness. So, there we were living together - with me pretending he wasn't really there, like it was just a dream.. Like none of it mattered.

Sounds exactly like my childhood.

[Entity06]

My father moved with another woman when I was not even 2. That's not the biggest problem, I can understand marriages not working out, falling in love with someone else, etc. Problem was he wasn't around much til I was 7, his new relationship ended and mom convinced him to just move in a bigger apartment together(not in a getting back together situation but just to live together so he'd be around more).

Well, he wasn't around much more after that either, being a busy businessman. Then, when I was 14, he got cancer and died within 5 months, the day after Christmas.

Anyway, I think that even though his initial absence from my life had already planted the seeds of abandonment issues and everything that may come with not having a sufficiently present father in one's life, the affect I am most painfully aware of is the great fear of such illness, of dying like that.

It's like a sort of specialized hypochondria that stresses me all the time and more so since my life isn't going well and I fear dying young without experiencing love. Having this extra fear of terminal illness makes that fear of dying young seem somehow more possible.

Other than that, I'm sure it's affected me in many different ways and that a lot of my anxieties and fears are in part fueled by my father. What's worse is that since he died, 15 years ago, I haven't had any close relationship with a man at all since apparently men can't see anything attractive in a non-conforming woman like me.

It's probably affected my relationship with my mom as well, through the way her own experience with my father affected her.