Dear Vesper:

I want to review what you shared in this thread: five months ago, while you, your husband and son were all at work, you received a text message from your 21 year old daughter stating that “she was sorry to leave without saying goodbye, but it was better this way.. she loved me, that she was going to live with a friend and that I shouldn’t worry”. She then shut off her phone and boarded a flight.

About your daughter and your relationship with her before she left, you wrote: “We never fought.. she went through some teenage angst at around age 14; she snuck out of the house and lied to us and wore a lot of black lipstick.. normal teenage stuff, but our discipline was always fair and level-headed. There were no beatings or screaming fits or drama. After she matured a bit, she became my kindred spirit. We baked cookies together and texted each other memes and introduced each other to new music”.

Eventually, in the last five months, you reconnected and you met the man she is living with. You wrote: “I now understand she wasn’t running from us, but from herself: That she’d been struggling with crippling self-esteem issues for some time, and depression and anxiety. She met a man she felt truly listened to her and when he offered her a new life, she took a leap of faith with him”

What you can’t shake, you wrote, is your guilt: “How did I  not recognize she was so miserable before she left us?.. She was HERE and I could have done more- or spent more time with her- or listened better”

“- I think I may have the answer for this question. I know this answer is true for some parents and it may very well be true for you too. It is certainly true for me in regard to a child I was very close to. I will answer using the first person, as it is true for me: I cared so much about him, so much wanted him to not hurt, to not feel the excruciating feelings I have felt as a child, and onward, that I couldn’t, wouldn’t hear his distress. I heard some, but put it away from my mind as soon as I could. My empathy for him was extreme (and as almost anything extreme, it is ineffective). It hurt too much to see him hurt. He told me at one point, still younger than 10 I believe, he told me: you are not listening to me!

I was shocked, why.. I care so much for him, of course I am listening.

But I wasn’t listening because I was not removed enough from him emotionally to really hear him as the individual that he is. My mind was distracted by my own overwhelming emotions and conflicts, not yet resolved.

So I see that it is possible for you too. There she is and she seems unhappy, but you say to yourself: oh, this is normal teenage stuff. And so, you put it away from your mind best you can, so to not feel the pain.

Can this be the case, do you think?

anita