Posted by Greg on April 23, 2002, at 20:37:20
In reply to Re: Sorry to butt in... » Greg, posted by medlib on April 23, 2002, at 17:08:40
> Hi Greg--
>
> Please give yourself a break! You have teenagers at home; *of course* you cave, who could do anything else? I think that the only thing more stressful than *being* a teenager is *having* a teenager; the rewards seem to come at such a high price. I'll be thinking of you and your daughter tomorrow, hoping things go well with the therapist. Both of you are lucky to have each other, and to have a chance to intervene early (although "early" seems to get earlier every year). However scary things may be at the moment, they are likely to prove a blessing in disguise.
>
> I wish I had been able to "cue in" to my daughter's difficulties when she was 14; it might have prevented so much damage. I was naive, and totally clueless about relationships (still am). Fortunately, my daughter is tougher than I am and managed to survive me *and* her traumas. She still has her problems, but, at least they aren't *my* kind of problems, and she seems relatively happy and successful.
>
> Fingers crossed for you---medlib
>
> P.S. What is ASH?Hey Med,
You're definitely not butting in, I appreciate all the support I've been getting. It's been making a tough time a little easier.
I'm trying to be too hard on myself over this. But I know that before I started getting help for my own depression I really put my wife and kids thru hell, and I was really tough on my daughter. I can look back now and see that I had some pretty unreasonable expectations of her and how unfair that was. I can't use my disease as an excuse for the way I treat others either. The only thing I can do now is try to make it right. She knows I'll be there for her. I just wish she had come to me sooner with this, maybe we could have saved her some pain. I don't think anything hurts worse than to see one of your children suffer.
It just seemed like it was a whole lot easier to be a teenager when I was a kid... I'll be sure to let everyone know how things progress.
Oh, ASH is an acronym for A Safe Haven. It's a Yahoo depression support group that myself, Tina, Shar and a few of the others started about a year and a half ago.
I hope you're doing well and thanks again for the support, I couldn't get by without it.
Greg
poster:Greg
thread:111
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20020416/msgs/120.html