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So the teen daughter got kicked out of the group home one week after going in. She is now on the caseload of the juvenile justice people and if she doesn't straighten up this time it's off to boot camp and they only take them for a year. So I'm seriously hoping that she straightens up and quick! She has been somewhat better since coming home but it's been an adjustment. I feel mean all the time :(
Hang in there. When my youngest ended up in the system, and eventually in foster care, it was the best thing that happened to both of us in the long run. She lasted two days in a group home before she ran, and was in a juvenile lock-down facility for 60 days before going into foster care.
She found out home wasn't nearly so bad after all!
((((((((hugs)))))))))
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
I hope Christmas brings you some relief. i certainly have to say I feel "mean" a great deal of the time (although of course I don't have children). My boundaries are pretty up there. I'm no longer the people pleasing wimp I was. I'm not in World War III all the time but if someone crosses my boundaries or wears me out I take action and I review it. I think for me that's incredible progress.
A few of us were standing around the parking lot after the meeting last night discussing feelings. One was a new comer and her mother and she was describing what she was currently feeling in her relationship with her alcoholic. She looked kinda shocked for a minute after being told that she could choose whatever she wanted to feel, that feelings were choices also and there was no law that said she had to feel a certain way about a certain thing. She knows that the way it has been for her on feelings has come from the culture on how she was raised and she was surpised that even if her situation was pleasant she could choose to feel happy. "It's all an inside job" she was told. She went home happy and mostly because she had just learned another tool.
If you don't like feeling mean? Feel something else.
What you are going through with your daughter is one of my greatest fears. Being a parent is so very tough at times. I know when I feel "mean" with my teen son, it is often rooted in my feeling out of control. Your family will be in my prayers.
Blessings, Lou
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Every new day begins with new possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace. ~ Ronald Reagan~
Sometimes what you want to do has to fail, so you won't ~Marguerite Bro~
