There but for the grace of God ...

“How’s your day going?”
 

“Um fine ha, it’s school so it sucks. You?”
 

“Ok, except work sucks. Let’s run away.”

An unremarkable text exchange between my daughter and me Monday morning, except that it came right after I read a news bulletin from the local newspaper that a 17-year-old girl had jumped to her death from a downtown building.

I presume I’m not the only parent who reached out to his or her child in that moment, just for a connection, however tenuous, or even felt, as I admit I did, a moment’s gnawing “my God, could it be” fear. Even after that passed, I ran to the men’s room at work because I felt like I was going to throw up. 

(Parenthood is great, but there’s a darkness to it: It teaches one what Fear really is.)

See, I have a 17-year-old daughter who suffers from depression and anxiety. She’s doing ... well, like she said, “um fine” now, but I am under no illusions, and neither is she, that she is cured or that her struggle is over. She’s managing it well now, but she has thought of suicide before and even attempted it once. 

I am a writer, so I always presumed I would write about this someday, and this just felt like the day. I got my daughter’s permission to do so and let her read it before posting. She did not change a word.

I did not know Trinity McDonald, but I look at her pictures and a video or two posted online and she strikes me as a spectacularly charming and lovely girl, the sort of person that others gather around just to bask in her presence. A video showing her playing ukulele and singing, utterly unselfconsciously, made me laugh and cry simultaneously. How could such a girl be so depressed that she would even think of, let alone carry out, suicide?

As I’ve learned from my wife, who also suffers from depression, this is one of its most insidious aspects: Things are fine, I have a great life, why am I so depressed? That guilt feeds the depression, and vice versa.

Trinity could be my daughter, also a spectacularly charming and lovely girl. My daughter tells long, involved, entertaining stories, often with multiple sidebars, about various adventures at school and with her friends (Her oldest brother, at the end of one of these, once said, “Sarah, maybe you should think about the point of what you’re saying before you say it,” and she looked at him like he was an alien being.)

God forbid you interrupt one of her stories, or you’ll get a glare and she’ll say, “OK, I’m done. You don’t get to hear the rest of the story now.” Sometimes I get impatient in the middle of these tales, but I also marvel at her energy, her verve and her appreciation for life’s absurdities.

My daughter laughs easily, gets most of my jokes, is a keen commentator on my many foibles, makes me watch “Wife Swap” with her so we can make fun of it together and is fiercely loyal to those she loves.

The sarcasm gene runs deep in my daughter, but so does the kindness and empathy. 

And so does the depression. At its darkest, almost three years ago, we weren’t sure she was going to make it and her parents weren’t sure we would either. We gained enormous respect and admiration for the doctors, nurses and staff at our hospital’s adolescent psych unit, where they perform emergency triage on broken souls, where they tolerate no bullshit from patients or parents because they’ve seen and heard it all before.

I am an absolute believer in therapy and carefully monitored medication. 

And I am a believer in random texts every now and then just to connect.

 “How’s your day going? Band?,” I texted to my daughter this morning.

“Oh I have a lot to say,” she answered.

I can’t wait to hear it.