Eye Contact: Crack for Girls with Daddy Issues

I have daddy issues. As I normally do with painful experiences, I poke fun at it in my stand up quite a bit. "I call that my daddy issues laugh." is one of my best.

I once heard a spoken word poet say, "Us of the fatherless tribe love men differently." This line has stayed with me. So I want to take a minute of your time to explain what effect this has had on me.

My dad has been an alcoholic since the early 90s. My mother put up with it until I was in kindergarten. When they divorced, I was too young to really see how big of an effect it would have on my life. I just thought, "It's better for my mom this way." Don't get me wrong, it was. She has become an independent, strong willed woman. She has helped me see that you don't need a man to survive and I can't thank her enough for instilling that in me early on in life.
But once they were divorced, my dad became a shell of a person. He drank all the time. This man made six figures but lived in a house on Leo Street. One word: Ghetto. The reason he moved to that God awful place? So he could afford more beer. Milwakee's Best Light. Nasty. I will NEVER drink that shit because of him. I just remember the garbage bins overflowing with cans, the sink overflowing with dishes and the laundry baskets overflowing with dirty clothes. He slept through most of my childhood. I mean it. I had to wake him up to take me home. I would go to his house on the weekends and play the Sims 2 the whole time and then wake him up to take me back. We never laughed. We never talked about life. I played, he slept.
One day, I had finally had enough. It was New Years Eve and he had me for the night. It was about 10:30pm and he was asleep. I tried to wake him up to celebrate but he wouldn't. So I called my mom and asked her to pick me up. Then I wrote him a note saying he needed to get help. That note was the last time I told him that I loved him and meant it. I was 12.
After that, I stopped seeing him for about 2 years. I stopped visiting because I couldn't be ignored anymore.
My eighth grade year, with much guilt tripping from my mother, I reached out to him again. I wanted to visit on Thursdays. The first one was okay but as usual, I came home feeling like poop.
After that, every Thursday after school I would have a voicemail when I turned my phone on saying he couldn't come get me. I lived in New Carlisle and he lived in Dayton. For those keeping track that's only a 30 minute drive. He said it would take to long to get me and drive me back. All would be able to do is eat then I'd have to go home. It's not worth it. Or "You're not worth it." as I heard in my head.
After that, I was done. I gave up on a man that had given up on himself years before that. He kept up with my brothers and would only invite me to dinner if they were there too. I invited him to my shows in high school and he came to one.

But the scars of that failed relationship effect my outlook on men. I feel I have to do more to make them pay attention to me. I always thought, "Maybe if I was cooler, they would like me." I now realize this comes directly from my daddy issues. I never had a man show me how a man should treat a woman. So for a long time I handed my heart to people that didn't deserve it and lost parts of myself.
I also feel like I need a man's attention because I didn't get it as a child. I kid you not, sometimes I feel a physical aching when I want a guy to pay attention to me. Eye contact is like crack to me. It has made me do things with men that I necessarily didn't want to do, just so they would "like me".

The first step is admitting you have a problem. I know that this aching for men may never go away. But being aware of it's origin helps me control it. When I feel that aching, instead of acting on it, I can stop myself and say, "You don't want that."
So for all of my fellow women with daddy issues, stay strong and remember they don't define you. You define you. I know that I am a strong, intelligent woman who can provide for herself. Remembering that keeps me focused on my future and out of trouble.

Thanks for listening. Come back for more.