the ugly face of a mother's love

My relationship with my first-born daughter Lee has been giving me nightmares.

I hate it when my fear whispers into my dreams, wrapping its fingers around my neck, pulling me out into entirely too early morning hours to remind me, as I awake with a gasp, that sh** is out of balance.

Last night, I dreamed that I had yet another argument with Lee, who is now 18 years old. She can vote, she could start her own, independent life, but she is far from it. She is, at heart and in essence, still a child. I don't know what we argued about, but I remember that, once again, I walked away exasperated, recognizing that the only solution to the problem would be for me to care less.

"You know what's the best part about life?" she asked as I walked away.
"What?" I asked with a tone.
"Death,"  she said, effectively taking a hammer to my heart.

I imagine, this dialogue sprang from my fears over thoughts of hopelessness Lee shared when she was deep in depression a few months earlier.

I am not sure whether caring less would be a viable solution.
Aren't we always afraid for the lives of our children?
How can the average mother ever discard the care for her child? Kids become adults, but mothers remain mothers. The problem is that mothers don't usually express their concerns for the well-being of their children with picture book examples of "care taking". Their true love and worry for their kid is often manifested via compulsive micromanagement and an ongoing guilt-trip commentary. I know it from my own mother, who surely loves me more than anything. So why does a mother's care assume this ugly form of condescension and continuous critique?

Even though I know my disapproval of pretty much every one of my teenager's actions isn't helping, the words still leave my mouth, sometimes creating havoc, sometimes disdain, but definitely always - discontent and, probably, a dented self-confidence as I have yet again established that I am superior in my ways of thinking. Forget that my ways may actually be better sometimes (e.g. "yes -- you do, in fact, need to eat real food and can't just have a toddler sized meal once a day and assume that will do in terms of nutrition.") -- it's not the point.

I don't know how to let go. The only way to disengage from this un-motherly behavior would be not to care at all.
The fact that my daughter seems to have issues with food (one can count the things she eats on two hands) is a permanently lodged thorn of concern. She also doesn't regulate her sleep, her electronics use, her insane work load from school, or the general need for physical activity and sun-light. As a result of the mismanagement of all these variables, she often dips back into anxiety and depression.

Maybe she just has to go through all of this to understand the importance of self-care. Maybe she has to hit rock-bottom and pull herself out on her own to learn how to live a good life. But it is hard to simply bare silent witness to this learning process - and if we are lucky, it will be a learning process. The fear in my head not allowing me to STFU is based on all the scary stories out there, how depression can lead to suicide, skipping (or discarding, rather) the whole part of learning and process.

In my dream last night, I didn't respond with care or compassion. I, as in real life, expressed my worry in the form of anger and what I said came out as a dismissive and furious guilt-trip.
Well, if you're going to kill yourself, then I hope you're aware that you are going to be taking not only a sister from your sibling, but also a mother. So you'd be taking at least three lives, not one.

Maybe my nightmare was only a portent of what was to come.
My daughter had been feeling so much better after almost a year and a half of an ever growing anxiety and depression. Finally she seemed to have come out and back into the light. She wasn't scratching her face anymore, she reconnected with her friends, she made us laugh with her bubbly personality every day, and she regained her appetite. But when she returned from her father's house later that day, I realized my dream had been a premonition, or perhaps just an intuitive connection to my child's well-being. She had changed during the few days she spent at her Dad's. She was exhausted and not feeling well. Not feeling well in the way she does when she is dipping deeper into a dark mood. Four days of sitting inside the house doing nothing but stare at a screen did immediate damage to her fragile and only recently recovered well-being.

Now it is up to me to make sure she eats a few nutritious and balanced meals, gets enough sleep, and goes out for social contact and some sun. But, it can't always be me. I have to figure out how to let go and she has to figure out how to take over.