Not sure if this is the right place, but I wanted to start a discussion for women who feel unloved by their dads. This is something I struggle with immensely despite having done therapy, and right now I feel it'd help to simply have a place where I can go when I need to, to share my thoughts and feelings with people who 'get it'. I hope this'll help others as well.

What I'm struggling with most at the moment is this feeling that I've missed out on something essential because my dad didn't love me. Like there's a part of me that never got to develop because of this, and I have these horrible thoughts of what if it's too late to 'fix' this. That 'all is lost' simply because I didn't have a father who would have loved me. Then part of me gets really angry at the thought of my whole life being dictated and ruined by something I had no control over...

I think that thing that's 'missing' is self-esteem... I feel that all I have is the experience my dad 'gave' me of being worthless. Sometimes I find myself thinking it would have been better if he'd hated me, that at least that would've been some kind of reaction - but to think I made no difference whatsoever feels almost intolerable... With him, I feel I've got to experience first-hand what I've read about the opposite of love being not hate, but indifference

Well, just getting this out helps... I'm starting to see that that is what he thinks of me, not what I think about myself. That his views aren't the truth about me, and that I can decide for myself who I am and what I want to be. I don't need to be dragged down forever simply because he didn't love me. I'm saying it now, he was an IDIOT, and it's his loss