Helpless

My daughter told me something this morning and I am still trying to process it…but it oozes of sadness and depression. It is so hard to be a teenager. There is so much pressure. Everything you do is the HARDEST THING EVER. Your hormones are out of whack. You feel like you should be independent, but yet you are not quite ready – there is very little good about it when you are in it. That is the place she is right now. It is a dark, unfriendly, unhappy place. She misses her sister so much. They had just gotten close, and then Cassie up and went away, across the country, to school. Now, Brittany is left here, left behind. Her life stays the same while Cassie’s is exciting and new. She is left here to deal with her day, to deal with me, to deal with high school.

Do you remember being a teenager? Remember how hard it was to feel like you knew everything, but had control over nothing? I do. And even though I remember it, I really don’t know what to do to make her feel better. I don’t know how to help her – how to prevent her from making some really bad decisions. I am torn about suggesting therapy – an outlet to talk about things with a neutral party – because it feels like I am shirking my parenting duties. I really want to fix it – to help her understand how this isn’t as grim as it feels to her right now…but I don’t know how.

How is it that I can have gone through the same types of things and have no inclination of what to do? God, this whole parenting thing feels so overwhelming sometimes.