To The Daughters Of Abusive Fathers...

To the girls who didn’t have amazing dads. To the girls whose dads abused them, in any form. To the girls who’s relationship with their fathers are too complex for anyone else to truly understand. 

I hear you. I understand. 

​I understand the confusion Father’s Day brings. I get how it’s difficult for you to articulate it with your friends who cannot relate because they were lucky to have fathers who treated them the way a daughter should be treated. I understand.

And to the daughters who’s abusive fathers are not on this earth anymore, I understand you, too. I understand the mourning of a father who you still loved even though he mistreated you. I understand the struggle of wanting to linger on the good memories, but having his words “bitch” and “whore” overtake them with force, like a knife popping a child’s birthday balloon. 

I understand that no matter how awful he was, there will always be that part of you that misses him because he was still your father. He still raised you. And there will always be apart of you who wishes he could have been different. But he wasn’t. He was an abusive father, and he will always be. 

I’m here for you. I get it. I am one, too.