My darling middle daughter, my Beltane Baby, turned 12 years old today.
Buttercup is a magnificent person, if I do say so myself. She is funny, with a lightening fast wit and the ability to quick-draw a pun that amazes me. She is also smart, interested in everything from the theories of quantum physics to Celtic folklore, and her greatest academic love is pinnipeds. She is a self-described “crazy seal lady” and remains determined to be a kickass marine biologist one day. She also has a heart as big as the sea that her beloved seals swim in, demonstrating empathy and compassion as a kid that most people never achieve even in adulthood. She would save the world if she could, and shows every indication of giving it a good try whether or not it is technically possible.
She has brought joy into my life since the day she was born, and I am grateful to have this delightful child as my own. However, there is no denying that parenting Buttercup is challenging. She’s is smarter, more willful, and more determined than I am … and she’s been bucking to displace me as alpha female in the house since she could walk. Buttercup is determined to be her own master, which is great except for the fact I have to tell her what to do until she is old enough to be in charge of her own life. She IS the resistance, and some days I feel like the Borg. Plus, she has always been hella cute, so it is hard to stay mad at her after she rebels.
The hardest thing about parenting my beautiful Buttercup, however, is the fact she has OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, which is just hell to watch your child deal with. She has fainted at school from a panic attack, cannot order food for herself in a restaurant without feeling like she’ll puke from nerves, and has a hard time believing anyone really likes her as a friend. She also thinks she is ugly (see above pictures for proof this is a delusion) and that she is fat (again, above pictures). The fact she thinks she is fat terrifies me, because people (especially girls) with OCD/anxiety are at much higher risk of developing anorexia or bulimia. One bright spot — although I cannot prove to her that she is pretty, I was able to take her to the doctor and get medical confirmation she is on the low end of the normal weight for her height/age. Facts help her understand what she ‘sees’ in the mirror is just a lie that her anxiety is using to bamboozle her into hating herself.
She’s in therapy, and it IS helping, but it takes time and there is no magic fix for mental illness. Watching your child suffer — being unable to make the pain stop — is a form of torture for a parent, makes the therapeutic process seem to move like cold treacle on icy glass. I want to scream and rage until the anxiety flees from my little girl’s head … but that isn’t an option. And the fact I cannot fix it for her makes me feel, irrationally, like I am failing her as a parent.
There are so many ways I feel like I am the worst mother she could possibly be saddled with. For one thing, I have Asperger’s, which means I cannot read facial cues well. My daughter suffers from selective mutism, so in times of greatest need she tries to communicate with me using her eyes and facial expressions … that I cannot decipher. It’s like she is a deaf child signing to a blind mother. I want to tear my hair out in frustration when I cannot understand what she is trying so hard to communicate to me. To make things worse, I have PTSD and sometimes – in spite of my own decades of therapy – Buttercup’s symptoms of anxiety trigger me. I cannot handle it when people distort reality (I didn’t do it, and if I did do it then it was no my fault), but her anxiety makes distorting reality her knee-jerk defensive response. It can get real ugly, real fast when that happens. Since I am the adult, it is my fault when it escalates. Thus, I have to live with the knowledge that I have failed my child yet again.
Compounding the pain is the fact she was so fearless, such a lively little scamp, before the anxiety set in a month after her fifth birthday. I miss that brilliant wee Buttercup who boldly challenged life and enthralled everyone who met her. I want her to be free from the OCD tyrant that bullies her in her own head, so her sparkling inner self can shine before the whole world again. She’s the same wonderful person as she was before anxiety got her, she just cannot show it the same way she once did, and it breaks my heart.
I cannot cure her anxiety disorder. That’s the terrible truth. All I can do is love Buttercup, and try to be the mom she needs me to be, and try to be strong for her as she negotiates therapy and learns to cope with or control her anxiety.
It doesn’t feel like enough.
Especially not in comparison with the overwhelming love I have for her.