Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

6/30/202

Max spends 90% of his time in his bedroom, in the dark, on some kind of media: Nintendo Switch, Google Pixel 3, a giant monitor. F. and I have been panicking over this, in general, but also because now he is truly depressed—lethargic, sad, angry—and we’ve never seen him like this before.

I’ve started making him lunch again; otherwise he just doesn’t eat until dinner time, except for unhealthy snacks like granola bars and pizza. I’m helping him study for the permit test, apply for a store clerk job at our food co-op, register for classes in the fall. My counselor tells me to stop helping, let him fail on his own. But that doesn’t seem right. He’s facing staggering losses. Plus, he recognizes that he is depressed and in need of help.

I had hoped Max would bypass the teenage angst, that he would sail from high school into college, his happy self, eager to do well, excited to try something new, full of dreams. But we humans aren’t built to endure severe and chronic uncertainty and threat. These things wear us down, physically and emotionally.

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says we must “water the seeds of happiness” first, and only then tend to the needy and wounded parts of ourselves. Otherwise, where will the energy come from? Meditation is a tool for touching that place inside where a simple, joyful, unwavering peace abides. For a half an hour, I can dwell there, and get up feeling refreshed—on a good day. But there are times when it doesn’t work the way I want it to: I’m distracted, hijacked by feelings that insist on my attention. Sometimes I feel, not released from my body, but dissociated from it—a result of anxiety, not enlightenment. Sometimes I float around on a “spiritual” cloud of denial for a couple of hours, then collapse into the grief or anger or fear I’m drowning in.

Max has been living in his own denial. He’s refused to accept that he is any different from those around him, that his ADHD and LD could limit him in any way. He has insisted that he get all A’s, win every tennis tournament, go away to the best culinary arts program in the country. Now, though, Covid has imposed severe losses, and he can’t avoid his grief and rage. For the first time, he recognizes limitation and fear. “It feels like I’m missing something. Like I don’t have what other people have. What if I can’t keep up in college?”

I get it. I’ve been trying to be the perfect mother, tirelessly and flawlessly stepping in where needed, hovering anxiously and bulldozing obstacles away. This is what parents do, at least at this point in our cultural history. But there’s a time to let go, and that time is now, and I’m so scared to do it. Will he survive his mistakes? Will he learn from them? The ADHD experts say they don’t—or maybe it just takes multiple smacks on the head for the learning to sink in.

I want to say, “You’re a man now. You have to make your own choices, and live and die with the consequences.”

But I’m struggling to do it.  I'm just so tired.