Dear Melissa:

I re-read your posts this morning looking for a fresh understanding.  You started your thread 11 months ago (Nov 30, 2021), with this sentence: “My daughter developed anxiety and then depression after the pandemic started“. Still in your original post: “She was developing normally until the pandemic“.  You closed your original post with: ” I was a pretty happy person until now. I miss it“, and in your 2nd post, you wrote: “I am trying to accept that I can’t go back to how I was“.

Today I am thinking that maybe the trouble in regard to your daughter’s mental health started before the pandemic and therefore, not at all related to the pandemic, but you were not aware of it. What got me thinking this way is re-reading what your therapist told you last year, something that I dismissed earlier. Here are quotes followed by my comments:

“I have..  given her countless hours of attention. Encouragement, lots of supportive listening. …my therapist says she might be manipulating me to get attention… My daughter is still doing terrible. She says I am not validating her enough… She has thoughts of suicide a lot but says she can stay safe for now after we discuss it… She is coming to me for comfort and I don’t know how to respond anymore. It’s been over 2 years. She does go to therapy and she is polite, takes meds, doesn’t do drugs… She says she wants to go to the hospital. ‘To get help’… She does come to me for comfort a lot“-

-what if before the pandemic, for a long time, she felt unattended, and this is why she’s been seeking and receiving lots of your attention in the last couple of years… but it is never enough for her: she needs and wants more and more of your attention and validation…  trying to make up for the lack, earlier.

What if she mentions suicide a lot so to alarm you and keep your attention on her? “She… says she can stay safe for now after we discuss it“- sounds threatening, as in saying: I will keep myself safe for now, only for as long as we keep discussing this/ for as long as you keep your attention on me!

“She says she wants to go to the hospital. ‘To get help’“- sounds like she is angrily protesting: I am not getting help here, so I want to go to a place where I can get help!

“She does go to therapy and she is polite, takes meds, doesn’t do drugs“- maybe her anger is hidden underneath her politeness and medical compliance.

In regard to your therapist’s suggestion last year, you wrote in your original post: “my therapist says she might be manipulating me to get attention. I don’t get it- she seems truly miserable“- the two are far from being mutually exclusive: mental illness and manipulation often go hand in hand: she may be manipulative and truly miserable at the same time. If this post rings true to you, please let me know and we can talk about it further.

anita