When the Damage Starts Early: How My Father Shaped My Insecurity
A reflection on identity, broken beginnings, and the long road to healing.
Let me say something up front:
This isn’t a “bash my dad” post.
This is a “tell the truth so I can finally breathe” post.
Because the truth is, a lot of the shame I carried—and still carry—about my body, my worth, my femininity, and my ability to be loved didn’t come from magazines or social media. It started much closer to home.
It started with my dad.
A House Without Safety
I grew up in a broken home. Not just in the logistical sense, but in the emotional, spiritual, relational sense. My father wasn’t just difficult—he was cruel. He belittled me constantly, usually wrapped in sarcasm or some backhanded “joke.” He compared me to athletes, celebrities, and models, saying things like:
“Why don’t you look more like her?”
“You’d be a lot more popular if you lost some weight.”
“You’ll never get anywhere if you keep acting like that.”
Words meant to fix me, I guess. But they only broke me.
He treated my mother even worse. He’d mock her appearance, roll his eyes when she spoke, criticize everything from the way she made dinner to the way she aged. He wore her down—piece by piece—until she barely spoke above a whisper in her own house.
And I watched.
As a daughter, I absorbed it all.
Not just the comments he made about me, but the way he treated her.
And without realizing it, I began to believe that this is what women are—disappointments. Unlovable. Too much or not enough.
What It Did to Me
I carried that view into my teenage years like a lead weight. I hated how I looked. I hated how I felt. I hated how I didn’t fit in and didn’t know how to fix it. I thought love was something other people got to have. I liked the idea of love, sure. But deep down, I thought it was fake. Or worse—conditional. You’re lovable only if you’re beautiful. Quiet. Thin. Smooth. Submissive.
Marriage? No thank you. I didn’t want to become my mother, and I didn’t want to end up with a man like my father.
I know not all dads are like mine. Some of my friends had incredible fathers—gentle, faithful, strong in the way real men are strong. Men who built their daughters up instead of tearing them down. Men who reflected God’s fatherhood.
I just didn’t get one of those. And it left a mark.
The Snowball Effect
When trauma isn’t addressed, it doesn’t just sit quietly in a corner. It rolls downhill. It grows. It sneaks into how you see the world, how you see yourself, how you treat your body, how you handle affection, how you receive love.
“Daddy issues” isn’t just a joke—it’s shorthand for a deep wound that compounds over time if it’s not brought into the light.
I’ll write more about those layers in future posts. But for now, let me tell you something important:
That snowball doesn’t stop on its own.
If you don’t interrupt it—through truth, healing, grace, and intentional work—it just keeps gaining weight and speed. And the longer it rolls, the more damage it does. It starts as a comment your dad made when you were 8... and shows up as self-hatred when you're 28. It starts as fear of being rejected... and turns into you pushing away the very people who love you.
The snowball isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s subtle:
The way you flinch when your husband gives you a compliment.
The way you apologize for taking up space.
The way you shut down emotionally when your husband tries to get close.
The way you want to pull away when your husband kisses you, even though part of you longs to feel safe in that affection.
The way you only give half-hugs or stop yourself from lingering too long in his arms.
The way you hide behind perfectionism, humor, or isolation.
It gets into everything. But here’s the grace: once you see it, you can stop it.
Not all at once. But brick by brick, with bread for the journey.
The snowball effect doesn’t have to be your forever story. It’s just the story so far.
Then I Met Michael
I met my husband in college. And without exaggeration, he changed everything.
Michael is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. He’s a devout Catholic, steady and quiet in a way that disarms you. He introduced me to spiritual truths I’d never fully grasped. He challenged my cynical view of love—not just with big speeches (which he’s surprisingly good at), but by living something radically different every day.
He never saw me the way my father did.
He didn’t flinch at my insecurity or run from my baggage.
He just… loved me. Gently. Fully. Sacrificially.
He didn’t ignore my flaws—sometimes he’d gently name them, and yes, I’d get defensive—but more often than not, he was right. I needed to hear those things, even when I didn’t want to.
And over time, that love began to chip away at the false image of what a man, a husband, a father was supposed to be.
But let’s be honest: the damage didn’t disappear overnight.
When the Past Comes With You
Even now, as a grown woman with a PhD in counseling and a deep love for Christ, I carry that childhood wound into my marriage.
Sometimes I project my pain onto Michael. I expect him to hurt me the way my father did. I flinch at kindness, brace for rejection, or pull back from intimacy because I still struggle to believe I’m lovable in that way.
And I hate that. I hate what it does to us. Because Michael isn’t my dad. Not even close. He’s a good man—better than I deserve most days.
But this is the work of marriage, right? Not perfect people having a perfect relationship—but two wounded people choosing not to give up on each other.
That’s holiness. That’s love.
Why This Matters So Much
If you’re a woman who’s faced challenges growing up—whether it was with your father, your mother, or anyone else in your home—I want to gently urge you: don’t skim past this. Don’t read these words and think, “Yeah, yeah, I already know all this.”
Knowing about your past isn’t the same as letting yourself feel it. Recognizing the patterns isn’t the same as grieving them.
We have a tendency to brush off our stories, especially when they’re painful. We minimize. We deflect. We compare ourselves to others who “had it worse” or we numb out with busyness, humor, or spiritual bypassing.
Now hear me clearly: I believe in prayer with my whole heart. I believe it changes things. I believe in surrender. I believe in miracles. Prayer is the lifeblood of healing. But prayer isn’t meant to be used like a band-aid to cover a wound we refuse to clean. God wants honesty in our prayers, not performance. He wants intimacy, not avoidance. And that means bringing Him the whole mess—not just the parts we’ve already sanitized.
Trust in God is essential. But using faith to avoid our humanity isn’t holiness—it’s hiding. Jesus doesn’t bypass our wounds. He enters them.
And if we’re going to heal our wounds, we have to understand where they came from. Period.
A doctor doesn’t write a prescription without first making a diagnosis. That would be dangerous. In the same way, if you’re carrying insecurity, self-hatred, anxiety in your relationships, or a deep sense of unworthiness—you have to look at the root.
And yes, that means looking back. Not to wallow. Not to blame. But to name what happened and invite Christ into it.
Because if you don’t name the root, you’ll spend your whole life trying to fix the fruit—and wondering why nothing’s changing.
Understanding, on a deep level, where your pain began is not optional for growth. It’s essential. You can’t surrender wounds you won’t admit are there.
So as you read posts like this—or journal through your own story—I invite you to pause and ask:
Where did my wounds begin?
What messages did I receive about myself growing up?
How are those old lies still shaping the way I live, relate, and love today?
This kind of reflection isn’t self-indulgent. It’s sacred. It’s part of healing.
And you’re allowed to go there. In fact—you need to go there.
Christ wants to meet you in the roots. And so do I.
If This is You Too…
If you had a father who tore you down, who made you feel like you’d never be enough, I just want to say: I see you. And I’m sorry.
You didn’t imagine it. You’re not too sensitive. And the ache you feel isn’t weakness—it’s evidence that your heart was made for something more.
Healing takes time. It takes truth. And it takes people—especially good men—who model what real love looks like.
Michael has been that person for me—a vessel of grace, sent by the Father Himself. His love hasn’t erased all the wounds, but it has softened them. He reminds me, over and over again, of who I really am—not through perfection, but through faithfulness.
Yes, it’s true: only the Father in Heaven can truly heal the deep places in us. But He doesn’t always do it in isolation. He sends people—flesh-and-blood instruments of His mercy. For me, one of those people has been my husband. His love participates in my healing, not by replacing God, but by revealing Him.
And that’s what I’m learning to receive. Slowly. Daily. Sometimes tearfully.
You're not broken beyond repair. You're not too much. You're not alone.
You are worth the work of healing.
And we’re in this together.
With love and an honest heart,
Claire Elise Bennett, PhD
Wife, Mother, Counselor, Daughter of the Church
