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I Don’t Know How To Convince My Daughter To Care About School Right Now
My daughter’s psychiatrist starts every session with the same question.
“How are you feeling?”
She directs the question to my daughter, but invariably glances at me.
I’m not sure why I’m required to be present at these appointments. I assume it’s so I can weigh in on my daughter’s mental health. Most of the time I am completely silent. I sit helplessly beside my struggling teenager while she explains that getting out of bed isn’t as excruciatingly difficult as it was a month ago.
“I don’t think about dying anymore,” my daughter replies. Her smooth brow furrows. “Sometimes I wonder what the point of getting out of bed is though.”
A thousand invisible daggers stab me in the heart as I watch the top three quarters of the psychologist’s face react to this bit of information.
A thought skitters across my exhausted brain, “Why hasn’t she figured out how to center her camera yet?”
I like this woman. She is kind and measured and clearly enamoured with my daughter. Perhaps she doesn’t want to show her entire face. I can’t blame her. I hate seeing my aging, puffy visage on video calls.
