I’m your child. I’m a part of you.

You never recognized just how much I needed you growing up. You never cared, to be honest.

I needed my father to get the monsters under my bed. And I needed my father to fix my knee when I fell and scraped it.

I needed my father to take me to the father/daughter dance at school.

And I needed my father to show me how a man is supposed to treat a woman. I needed my father to protect me from getting my heart broken by the guy I was dating.

And I needed my father to be a grandfather to my child.

I needed my father. I just needed you there.

But your addiction was too strong.

You needed the alcohol, the pills, the needles in your arms. You needed them more than you needed to be a father.

Growing up with you as a father was unbelievably toxic and damaging.

I never had any healthy self-esteem as a normal person should. It set my path for future relationships to look for guys like you.

I always thought that because my own father didn’t love me, I wasn’t capable of being loved.

So I dated guys that treated me poorly, lied to me, cheated on me, called me absolutely horrendous names.