Dear “a Mom,”
A few more things, less ordered and quasi-poetic. You say, “Time seems to be collapsing.” You also say that she sleeps a lot. It’s good that she sleeps a lot because this article refers to a study of almost 28,000 teens where researchers found that most of them were not getting the recommended nine hours a night.
“The most important thing to remember is that your relationship with your child is changing.”
“As your children grow, they need you less.”
From Wikipedia: A 2016 genetic study concluded that the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) may have lived in deep-sea hydrothermal vents 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.[61]
It would be helpful to know your daughter’s personality type, i.e. the Myers-Briggs type indicator.
I don’t have kids. So in offering you advice I’m like a mechanic who’s never driven a car.
At the root of your problem is the profound and vexing truth that as human beings we are powerless over other human beings. This is such a huge truth that it should be written in Latin on public buildings.
This truth does two things. It rescues other people from our tireless attempts to fix them. And it throws us back upon ourselves, the self, which is our proper subject.
I’ve never been a parent but I know what it is like to want to help someone who is unreachable. What I have learned is that all we can do is try to approach people with love. A lot of that means shut the fuck up. And shutting the fuck up, for some of us, is the hardest thing in the world because using words is how we wield what we think is our power but it’s not. It’s our weakness. Whatever you think is your power is probably your weakness. As it is mine.
The things we tell ourselves: That because we feel powerful we are powerful. That because we think things make sense they make sense.
As if she has climbed a tree and you have resisted calling out to her telling her to come down, you have watched nervously from below as she navigates the branches. You have pretended not to be watching as you watch. You busy yourself with a tablecloth for the picnic you are planning, while she is up there in the tree, testing the branches, moving farther up, moving farther out on a branch that may break or may not …
Now here is an interesting statement you might think about: “I never insisted she do anything she wasn’t comfortable with and now it seems she is uncomfortable being in the real world.” Do you see the possible connection? Her relatively protected status may have given her the expectation that life can be lived without discomfort. That might lead her to think that when she feels discomfort there is something wrong. Whereas, discomfort is actually a form of intelligence.
If you have shielded her from discomfort and disappointment, well, you can’t anymore. This means that you yourself are going to be uncomfortable, watching her be uncomfortable. But you have weathered more discomfort than she has. Maybe you can share some of that with her – how to deal with life when it’s uncomfortable. As it will be. As you know. As perhaps you would like to avoid telling her. But which she undoubtedly already knows.
You know exactly what is going on but it hurts anyway.
The things you used to do won’t work now.
This is going to be a really hard time and your daughter is not going to help because she’s got her own stuff to deal with so I suggest you orient yourself toward finding support for yourself. That might mean friends, it might mean family, it might mean groups of parents, it might mean a lot of things but I sense that you are strong and independent and that habit of independence might get in the way of your seeking the outside support you are going to need. Because who is looking after you? Who is looking after you?
