Tonight I meet with my attorney to sign custody of B over to the foster parents that had her when she was placed with me. The place she hated living when I met her. The rest of this blog entry is filled with I, I, I and me, me, me, just so you know. And whining. Lots of whining.

The week before Christmas B screamed at me that she'd rather live in DJJ than live with me anymore and that she never should have left their home. So I gave her permission to return to them, they of the enabling and sabotaging behavior. And because they make a "Lifetime Commitment" to these kids, they took her. I've made it clear to B and clear to them that this is B's choice, not mine. But I allowed it because I could not go through what we went through in September again.

Back in September, when the big problems first started-not coincidentally the anniversary of her move in date- B called in an abuse report on me. It was on her cell phone. As were the text messages to her friends bragging about having done it and the end result was that I could not force B to get a job, nor could I enforce her having to do chores. I was there when the investigator told her that if she didn't do her chores I had to do them. I was there when she told B that I could not even force her to stay in school because she was 16. So, not only did I almost lose my job over this because I work for our child welfare agency, but I lost any ability to parent her at all. Going back to counseling didn't help.

You experienced adoptive parents will realize that B was given all the control in the house which made her feel unsafe. She had to no longer believe that I could keep her safe. Add to that the holidays and her 17th birthday looming right after the move-in anniversary plus the fact that she'd never lived anywhere this long and I don't know that I could have done anything to alter the course we were set upon. I truly don't know if I would have done it if I could, never having forgiven her for falsely accusing me or trusting her with anything again. After all, any time anyone background checks me again, for a transfer in my own agency or trying again for a correctional officer position even, I will have to relive this because I will have to explain it and career options that were once open to me will be (unofficially) closed.

I'm embarrassed at work and embarrassed in my personal life. I am injured financially. I have suffered the loss of relationship with the only person I will ever call 'my child' yet she's hurt me so badly I'm not sure I would choose to try again to repair it. I have failed to heal this child, mostly because she does not want to be healed. And now I doubt that she will ever heal, or succeed, because this family will not take her to the special school program I took her to and she is no longer able to attend public school because of having entered this program. She will not pass a GED. There is nowhere for her to work. So she'll sit at their home until she turns 18, just like she did after getting expelled for drinking on campus when she was with them before.

And it causes me to question, yet again, what's wrong with me that I'm so hard to love, so hard to live with? That even a child who had nothing and no one to call her own before I gave that to her wouldn't stay either. She's probably not even most of the problem here, I probably am. I have failed again and this time I further damaged an already badly damaged child.

I'm so very, very tired. I don't sleep well. I eat everything that's not nailed down. I've lost my sense of humor. I pray constantly now, so I guess there is a silver lining. I just wish it brought some peace to me. My fibro is flaring up very badly from this stress and I'm constantly in pain now. I have to force myself to get up and go to work and it gets harder and harder to do every day. Because, really, what's the point?