This is something that isn’t discussed enough in the mental health community. It is natural to want the acceptance and love from your father, especially early in life. When an individual receives the opposite, and instead endures neglect, or abuse it becomes what is referred to as the “father wound”.

It is normal to want to matter, and think that we are important in our fathers eyes. The Father Wound can also be described as a deficiency of love from the father whether intentional or unintentional. This wound may be the result of abuse. This abuse may be verbal, physical, emotional, mental, sexual, or spiritual. It often finds expression through controlling behavior and oppressive domination as well. The wound may be the result of absence which may be caused by divorce, separation, or abandonment.

The Father Wound can affect daughters by giving them a negative view of how she sees men and women. Women who grew up wounded by their father often find themselves attracted to the men who can be neglectful, angry, abusive, and difficult to be around. Because they never got the role model and direction needed from a father figure, they learn to make up their own ways of understanding and attracting males . This can lead to negative coping skills such as sexual promiscuity, total avoidance of intimacy, isolation, substance abuse, anxiety, and depression.

Other signs of the father wound:

You find it difficult to trust men

Your father was highly critical of you

You often feel abandoned

You feel you need to be perfect to please him

Your father disapproved of you or your behavior

Your father didn’t have any time for you, or little time

You felt scared of your father

Your father withheld love, food, or other essentials as punishment

Your father was physically or emotionally absent

Having an unavailable father usually provokes one of two reactions.⁣⁠

1) “I don’t need his love”. So instead, I will punish him, withdraw and close down. We stop expecting anything from him to protect ourselves from being hurt. Maybe we become rebellious and act out in different ways.⁣⁠

2) “If I do this or that I will be good enough and he will love me”. This results in the performing child, in the overachieving child, the good girl. Here there is a tendency to lose the self to what we imagine dad wants us to be. We abandon our true self, in order to be what he wants us to be.

As adults, we can continue this behavior with men. Either pushing them away when our needs are not met or chasing him and doing anything for approval and affection. ⁣⁠Whichever you choose, there is a cause and effect, and so a cycle is repeated.

If you are aware that you are still playing out some of these childhood patterns, please be gentle and compassionate with yourself. These are subconscious patterns and you will continue to play these out until you heal these parts of you, and create more conscious awareness.

You can break the cycle!

If you want to know more about breaking the patterns, you can find the link on my website to set up a consultation.

As always thank you for being here with me,