Question:

My 20-year-old daughter is suffering from depression and a serious health problem. She is seeing both a therapist and a psychiatrist, but that doesn’t seem to be helping her since she doesn't want to help herself. I’ve developed anxiety and depression because of her situation. Watching her emotions go up and down every day is devastating. I really don't know how I can help her. I know I need to let go and move on with my life, but how much do I let go?

Phillip Replies:

First, let me say that I'm truly sorry to hear about your daughter's condition. It's disheartening to be young and feel as though a medical condition is defining and limiting your life. Likewise, it's very difficult to be a mom who feels helpless in relation to your child’s well-being.

In response to your question about letting go, I want to clarify that “letting go” does not mean that you cease to care about your daughter. Letting go, in dharma terms, means that you are not demanding a certain outcome to your daughter's situation, nor are you demanding that your daughter deal with her health problem in a certain way. Of course you still care about your daughter, and you have a goal of helping her in whatever way you can, even as you accept that there are limitations to what you can do.

So how do you go about this? First, make sure that you're keeping your heart connection with your daughter open such that even if you disapprove of how she is coping with her situation, you don't close your heart. Secondly, make sure you have done all you can to help her understand her alternatives for dealing with her health problem and the probable outcomes of each of those alternatives. Also make sure you’ve done all you can to help her understand her alternatives for dealing with the depression. You might even consider the possibility of enlisting your daughter’s closest friends to help her envision positive steps she could take.

Having done these things, your role then becomes that of holding the possibility that your daughter will move beyond the depression and begin to deal sensibly with her health issue. Holding the possibility is not the same thing as making a demand of her.

Getting on with your own life means not contracting into your daughter’s problems but rather recognizing that this unfortunate situation is another instance of the unreliability of the conditional realm. When you move forward in your life with joy, you cease to burden your daughter with your own unhappiness; at the same time, you’re showing your daughter your determination to find meaning in life however it shows up for you. This is the gift of the dharma; the more you develop it in yourself, the more your daughter may be inspired by it.