It’s 3:15 am and I’m at the ER watching my daughter try to sleep after she attempted to kill herself only two hours ago. I thought we were doing better. I thought we were making progress. I thought we were past these horrible thoughts of self-destruction that have plagued her, consumed her, eaten away at her bit by bit since that horrible Friday in May, when we first discovered the marks on her wrists. The cutting. Her first attempts to feel something.
Anxiety has always paralyzed her, stopping her from being her true self, the little girl I once knew—the one who would talk to anyone, play with anyone, examine, explore, pretend, imagine anything. Uncertainty stalked her slowly, crept into her mind, planted the seeds of doubt—and with that doubt, anxiety attached itself to her inner core. She fought so hard against it—and armed with a script or a song or a month's worth of rehearsals, an audience would never presume her affected by it, those doubts and uncertainties and worries about not being perfect.
But soon, anxiety went looking for companionship. It wasn’t enough to simply plant seeds of doubt and stir the jittery, fluttering feelings of uncertainty in new situations. Anxiety might cripple, but it needed a partner to kill. And if anxiety is a bitch, depression is a belligerent, malicious whore without a soul.
Her first year of high school was nearly done, the pandemic had already claimed her last six weeks of class, her first high school musical, countless concerts and performances for her choir, and all of her budding friendships and social gatherings. Suddenly her entire life was erased as if it had never mattered.
One Friday in May she spills over with emotion, and we begin the journey of seeking help. It’s not just one trigger, but many. It’s not just one cause, but a running list. The crush on the senior boy who will never return those feelings, and the fear that no one will ever notice her or love her in that way. The low self-esteem and worthlessness which plague her every second, combined with the typical teenage “I hate my parents” mantra. Sprinkle in the pandemic social isolation, and her nature for perfectionism and compulsion to view mistakes not as necessary parts to learning and growing, but as testaments to her utter failure as a human being and her mind was ripe for suicidal ideation. Anxiety laid the foundation for disaster. Depression took the pile of materials dumped upon it and twisted them into a hideous house of torment.
She already has a counselor, but we need a pediatric psychiatrist for medication, and with COVID that means doctor appointments and therapy sessions via FaceTime. Suddenly I’m camping out on her bedroom floor, so she feels safe at night, so I feel safe at night, so I won’t wake to find that she’s discovered all the Advil in the house, or searched the garage for rope.
She’s afraid of communicating face-to-face, her shyness overwhelms her, guilt slowly eating away at what little is left inside her. So we text daily. I check in with her. We talk about everything and nothing. Maybe we should go to the hospital? Check her in for a few days. But that comes at a price, both personally and financially. For a girl who is incapable of handling the unexpected, leaving her alone in a hospital setting with no phone, no electronics, and no visitors appears overwhelming. We talk about doing partial or outpatient therapy through some local hospital programs, but with COVID, many restrictions are still in place. The result is something she doesn’t want—more zoom sessions with strangers.
The first medication gives her headaches so we try another. That one helps a little, but not a lot. She still has thoughts of self harm. She makes a noose out of belts, but it doesn’t work. She’s still not the vibrant, creative, stunning girl she once was, but sometimes she starts to smile more and I start to breathe. I’m waiting for her to come back to me. The one who used to tell me all the gossip, share the memes and cool tiktoks, show me the sketches she was doing, play board games and watch horror movies with her dad, sing show tunes in her room ALL DAY LONG.
We decide to increase the medication to see if it helps her. She continues to talk to her counselor. She’s more active now with her friends, gaming with them online, chatting in discord servers, going on socially distanced meet ups. We look at colleges online and take virtual tours, and she creates a Top 6 list. She smiles at the one that says it's pet friendly. She gets a new hairstyle, some new clothes, learns to do embroidery all by herself, creates a new drawing style, and purchases a new pet that swims around in her room.
I let myself believe she was better. I let myself believe we were out of the darkness and into the sunshine. I let my guard down, and she paid the price. She hid things from me and from her therapist. Like before, she put up her defenses and smiled through her pain. Depression came for her, and this time, she sank her claws so deep, there would be no letting go.