“I believe your daughter is depressed,” she said. “This isn’t to say that I am certain just yet. I need to spend more time working with her, but you may want to consider medication.” Essentially, she explained, my five-year-old daughter is walking through a ground fog, and working her tiny body overtime in trying to get out.
Why did I instantly feel like a failure? Like all my emotions, my pain, my idiosyncrycies were somehow jumping from my frazzled brain to hers? This has nothing to do with me.
Or does it?
She has my blood. My eyes. My drive. And my inability to turn off a need to save everything. Every spider. Every person.
Her heart bleeds, and I want desperately to turn it off. Like a faucet that has overflowed a tub.
“What are you coloring, honey?” the counselor asked while my daughter doodled. She had a sun in the sky, which I am always looking for—does she still see light in her day? But, around the sun were black clouds. And as the counselor continued to talk, she drew more and more raindrops.
She looked up at the counselor, and I could see her breaking. Her nose running. Licking her lips. She was on the verge of crying. On the verge of falling apart. But she forced it down. Way back down.
And I hated myself for ever showing her how to do that. Hate myself now that I hurt too much when she cries to see it for what it is worth.
How could I have been so blind? So ignorant of the blatant signs of her pain?
And why do I still have the smallest feeling that this “can’t be my daughter. My daughter can’t be depressed.” But, then, a friend said to me, “How could you expect her not to be?”
And that is true. How could I expect her to do better or be better at this than I am. I know I am depressed. But I can take it. Can process it.
But how can her poor tiny body possibly take anymore? Damn!
Why her? But asking that question means that someone else would have to fill her shoes. Why any of them? Why?
Her body is tired and her mind is worn. I’m desperate for a way to help her feel the light again. Not just pretend. And not just in a drawing.
Why did I instantly feel like a failure? Like all my emotions, my pain, my idiosyncrycies were somehow jumping from my frazzled brain to hers? This has nothing to do with me.
Or does it?
She has my blood. My eyes. My drive. And my inability to turn off a need to save everything. Every spider. Every person.
Her heart bleeds, and I want desperately to turn it off. Like a faucet that has overflowed a tub.
“What are you coloring, honey?” the counselor asked while my daughter doodled. She had a sun in the sky, which I am always looking for—does she still see light in her day? But, around the sun were black clouds. And as the counselor continued to talk, she drew more and more raindrops.
She looked up at the counselor, and I could see her breaking. Her nose running. Licking her lips. She was on the verge of crying. On the verge of falling apart. But she forced it down. Way back down.
And I hated myself for ever showing her how to do that. Hate myself now that I hurt too much when she cries to see it for what it is worth.
How could I have been so blind? So ignorant of the blatant signs of her pain?
And why do I still have the smallest feeling that this “can’t be my daughter. My daughter can’t be depressed.” But, then, a friend said to me, “How could you expect her not to be?”
And that is true. How could I expect her to do better or be better at this than I am. I know I am depressed. But I can take it. Can process it.
But how can her poor tiny body possibly take anymore? Damn!
Why her? But asking that question means that someone else would have to fill her shoes. Why any of them? Why?
Her body is tired and her mind is worn. I’m desperate for a way to help her feel the light again. Not just pretend. And not just in a drawing.
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