How to combat daddy issues

Are you someone who constantly requires reassurance or attention? Do you find yourself attracted to older men? Do you unintentionally yell “Yes daddy” every time you find yourself in a chokehold? If so, you may be part of the vast majority of people who have daddy issues. We are the 99 per cent. We are not “daddy’s little girl,” we are unsuccessfully filling the void with sexually aggressive and fleeting encounters, whilst lactating tequila and cursing the night sky.

Men, same goes for you. Are you a commitment-phobe who doesn’t rely on anyone because people are unreliable? Were you left waiting in parking lots, for an extra half an hour after soccer practice ended, while facing the judgemental gaze of passing parents? When they asked if you wanted a ride, did you painfully decline, saying “Oh, I bet he’ll be here any minute now.” That too, sounds like a remarkable trait of one with daddy issues.

With my unprofessional expertise and precarious guidance, here are a few tips in combating our collective malady:

1. When doing the Rorschach test, instead of letting each inkblot envelop you like the disapproving eyes of your unloving, absent father, try to blur your vision so you see a bat or Satan instead. Let the enthusiastic nods of your psychiatrist reflect your improvements.

2. Teach yourself how to throw a ball. Throw that ball further than any insult your father has ever thrown at you. Watch that ball soar. Ha ha, fuck you dad.

3. You know how some people end up figuratively “marrying their dad” by choosing a spouse with similar traits as their parent? Well, some people in the world have literally married their dad, and that person isn’t you. Remember this and rejoice that you are not part of the inbreeding population.

4. Stab your thermostat. The thermostat represents everything wrong in your relationship: why does he care more about the thermostat than me? Why do you insist I live in a tundra? Is this the same temperature as your cold, dead heart? Yes, the thermostat will surely be the end of all of us.

Though these remedies cannot make up for the years of internalized agony, a distorted perception of your childhood, or all the times you wondered if he would be proud, at the very least, you can now throw a ball, and what is life, if not a series of people perpetually throwing balls at one another?