It has been a rough day today.  My daughter and I have spent the better part of the day arguing.  In a way you could say it was my fault.  For the last three years, when the depression and anxiety were at their worst, I sort of checked out on the family.  So now that I am trying to check back in, it is a difficult transition.  Before it was much easier for me to say yes or pretend like I did not know she was doing something she was not supposed to.  Or when she was being disrespectful.  Quite frankly, it was just too much work.  Now that I am trying to check back in, I am not allowing her to get away with certain things anymore, including being disrespectful.  This has caused many conflicts between me an her.  She had gotten in the habit of parenting herself until my husband came home, and now that I am trying to do my job as her parent, she seems very resentful.

She could be resentful of the fact that I checked out in the first place.  I guess if I were a kid and my mom quit paying attention to me like she used to, and also quit paying attention to other people and things, I would feel very sad and angry.  When I have talked with Anna (my daughter) about how the last few years have made her feel she was very candid “frustrated and we have a messed up family” are the things that she said.  It is hard enough for an adult to understand that the depression changes who you are,  I would think that it would be even more difficult for a child (no matter how smart) to understand.

I feel so selfish.  I feel as if I have been thinking only about myself during the last few years, and even during my recovery process.  The truth is though, when the depression was at its worse, I was incapable of doing anything for anybody, and now I have to concentrate on myself a great deal so that I can get better.

I need to think about this further and see if i can figure out a balance between concentrating on myself to get healthy again and having the reserve mental energy to pay better attention to Anna.  I think this will be an excellent topic to bring up to my psychologist this week.