What It Means To Grow Up As ‘The Fatherless Girl’
The fatherless girl is someone I have always identified with. She has a darkness to her that she hides flawlessly. When someone mentions her father, habitually, she says she does not have one. The words roll off the tip of her tongue so fluently it’s almost as if they had been rehearsed. She isn’t afraid of being loved, she’s afraid of being left. Because she’s learned that even the people who promise to love you unconditionally will eventually leave.
She associates commitment with attachment, and attachment means loss.
The fatherless girl has a wildly independent spirit. That’s because she needed to grow up a little sooner than others.
She was forced to accept to an apology that she didn’t receive.
She had to piece back together a large part of her soul that was missing. The fatherless girl needed to be independent, so her independence is something she takes pride in. Her strength has developed through coping with the absence of a father in her life. It’s taught her how to be independent and self-sufficient. These are the traits she admires most about herself.
The fatherless girl knows exactly how to avoid conflict because she’s seen how easily it will make someone run. She needs to stay on good terms with people she loves the most because she fears that they’ll leave. She knows it all too well. She’s non-confrontational, often very shy, and has a terrible habit of neglecting her problems instead of dealing with them head on. She comes across as a warrior with a brave and courageous heart, but she is extremely timid when it comes to face-to-face contact. She uses sarcasm as her first language.
Sometimes she wonders if she’s just damaged and incapable of finding something real.
The fatherless girl has trusted men who didn’t treat her properly. She wants to find someone to take care of her like every father should. She has a strong desire to feel protected and consolidated but will likely push away when her feelings become too much to handle. When you get too close to the fatherless girl, and things get too real, too fast, that’s when she runs. She is searching for the part of her that went missing. She craves the man she can put all of her trust in. The man that would do anything for her. But he fell short to all of her expectations.
The fatherless girl knows very well that people can leave, so she clings tightly and detaches lightly. She can’t let herself get close to you unless she believes in you. She needs to keep the people she loves at a distance, just close enough to reach, but far enough to let go of if she needs to. She hates being labeled as damaged, because she’s not. She doesn’t want to be known as the sad girl, just looking to fill a void. The girl with daddy issues. The girl who wonders why the one person that’s supposed to love her unconditionally could up and leave, with no explanation at all.
She does not want any of your pity, because she’s had enough of it by now.
You probably won’t always understand the mind of the fatherless girl.
It’s complex and bewildering. But you should appreciate her for the fiercely independent and resilient woman she is, and remember that she is slowly learning how to swim again after being under the waves for so long. 
