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Wondering why your usually talkative daughter remains quiet for most of the time? A young woman shares her thoughts, through an open letter which might help your depressed teen girl.
Dear You,
The toil of time and the inevitability of nature have moulded your baby-girl into a budding young woman. As your girl goes through this metamorphosis, her journey of discovering herself begins.
For the first time she realizes that life, after all, isn’t a bed of roses. Her emotions run through her veins and display an intense urge to break free. She isn’t yet accustomed to this world and hence, finds herself in a curious plight. Minor issues are Gordian knots for her and they are capable of leaving her in quandary.
This is the time she experiences her ‘firsts’- first physical changes, first emotional dilemmas and of course, first love! Hit by Cupid’s arrows, as she wraps herself in luminous passion, destiny executes its customary ploy.
Unrequited love or a failed relationship engulfs her in frustration and insurmountable hopelessness immersing her in acute depression.
As much as it’s easy to fall in love, it’s equally difficult to confront a heart-break. Moreover, ‘firsts’ always hurt the most and leave a scar as deep as a crevasse. With this heart-break your girl feels like her world is slowly dismantling. The sporadic pestering of her mind finally convinces her that she has no reason to exist. Not anymore.
This might fail to make sense to you but her age and circumstances makes her depression justified. Amidst threatening solitude, she keeps all to herself. Whom shall she share all her feelings and perceptions with?
She knows that you love her but she doesn’t want to bother you with her issues. Few days back you told her that she is a grown up now. Isn’t it a shame if she still requires your help? Her friends might make fun of her by calling names if they get to know. And even if she shares all her feelings with you, will you be able to understand her? Won’t you judge her and impose your perceptions upon her?
After all, you both are not friends who share a particular generation and even certain similar circumstances. So, how about sprinkling a dash of friendship in the relationship you share with your daughter?
Tragedies do not warn you before their advent but you can certainly circumvent it by holding your daughter’s hand at the dawn of her teenage. If you succeed in being her best friend, then she will introduce you to her dark and deep secrets. You can guide her and even pull her out of her miseries. Instead of treating issues like sex, menstruation and relationships as a social anathema and taboo, speak to her frankly and also hear out how she perceives them.
If your thoughts do not chime well with her and you think that her perceptions aren’t what it should have been, then teach her the do’s and don’ts. However, teaching doesn’t imply forcing your inflexible views on her. Put forth your views and see how she reacts to it, if she doesn’t take it positively then justify your opinion to her.
You are the one who can tread her through the paths that life has in store for her. You are the one she leans on for support. Hence, guiding the apple of your eye out of her emotional traumas and emptiness isn’t that tough for you. In the process all of you will get to know all of her.
All it requires are the correct steps and attitudes with a vibrant tint of empathy. Do give it a thought!
With love.
From someone.
Image of young girl via Shutterstock
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