"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." -Ernest Hemingway

I have two wonderful children and they are the center of my responsibility, thoughts and life.  They have divinely given talents that make their capabilities unlimited.  I am amazed at the thought of where they can go and what they can do in this life.  They have the potential to leave the world a better place, the very most desire that burns inside all souls.  They can actually make their mortal time matter.  Knowing their potential makes their trials during their sojourn on earth have a point, but they don't make it easier to watch as the person that loves them most, as the person that wants them to suffer the least.

My thirteen-year-old daughter has depression.  It is not just  a down-in-the-dumps, teenage, she'll get over it, sort of thing.  My thirteen-year-old daughter has depression.  It is the I spend nights watching her sleep and hoping that she will still be here in a week, check her arms for self-harm, what does that phone call from her principal mean, kind of depression.  It is a terrible thing to watch because she hurts so bad and I can't do anything about it.  Watching her waste away is watching what I love most leave to be replaced by a shell.  Instead of a bright laughter, her eyes spill tears of frustration and hopelessness.  She doesn't want to be sad.  She doesn't want to be permanently broken beyond repair.  She wants to be normal and cry over boys, not numbness.

The depression also feeds my motherly insecurities.  Every mother knows that feeling not being good enough. All of my children's faults can be traced to my lack of good parenting, or the influence of my bad choices. Their lack of perfection has to be my fault because it could not be theirs.  This is the downfall of all mothers.  We simply are not good enough for our own standards, and therefore carry all responsibility for our loved ones' lives.

It is a difficult disease that robs the victim piece by piece, until they are no longer the same person.  It is also a shameful disease that has always been misunderstood.  I can't tell anyone my daughter is this sick because their contempt will not make it easier for her to heal.  I can only trust those professionals I have hired to try to find her cure, hoping that they do before her will to live completely distinguishes into darkness.  It is very much a race to find her strength and to mend her brokenness, without a known deadline, or a known fix.