Well, here we go again.

First of all, hello to anyone I invited here from MySpace :-) I can't do a preferred list blog over there anymore because certain people on my friends list will see that they're not on it and get all pissy. And I can't let them on it because I might be talking about them ;-)

Anyway...the point of this particular rant. A lot of you have met me relatively recently so you don't know the saga of my stepdaughter. She is 19 now (20 in August) and it's an understatement to say she has major problems. When her parents divorced, her mother got primary custody of her (she was about 3 then) and her father, my husband now, got custody of their son (who was 5). When my SD was 10, her mother kicked her out when she claimed her stepfather at the time -- mom's husband #3; she's on #4 now, and my hubby was her first -- molested her. We already knew she was a troubled child and we didn't want to believe her allegations because we knew she was pretty much a pathological liar and she wanted her stepfather out of her life so her mother would be all hers (not realistic as you can see by the number of husbands, but hey, the kid was only 10). We also didn't want it to be true because we didn't want her to have been molested. :-( However, to be fair, I have to say that she has never changed her story about that incident one iota in nearly 10 years. Anyway, without hesitating, her dad and I jumped in the car at about 9:30 PM on a work night and drove to meet them halfway. Thus, my SD came to live with us. We hoped she'd have more stability here and would even out.

We were wrong. The next almost 6 years were a nightmare. As she got older, some of her behaviors softened but others, combined with the preteen and teenage hormones, made her nearly impossible to live with. She fought and argued with us almost constantly. I also made the mistake of taking on far too much "parental" responsibility for her and her brother because both their parents seemed unwilling or unable to handle it...mostly their mom but their dad is an avoider too. This also caused some major fights between my husband and me...for some reason sometimes he'd just blow up at me for something he felt I did wrong in my treatment of his kids and he even said to me once that if I didn't want to be part of the family I could just get out. It was horrible.

When our baby Michelle was born early and died, things really came to a head. I don't know exactly what triggered my SD becoming totally uncontrollable; maybe it was a combination of her sister dying (though they never even "met") and that she had just turned 16 herself, but she started having the Dept. of Children and Families called out on us every few weeks and then she ran away. She was found at school 2 days later and threatened to harm herself or us if she had to come home so under Florida's "Baker Act" she was put in a juvenile mental health facility for a couple of days. It was no better when she came back home but she did start going to counseling again (she was in counseling for a while when she first moved in) and I thought maybe her counselor was making headway. Then in January 2005 she ran away again -- this time we didn't know where she was for 2 weeks. Finally we found she was up near her mom's house again...her mother adamantly denied having known where she was but we don't believe her. Fortunately, though, her mother said she would take custody again since she had dumped husband #3 and moved on to #4 by then. We could finally breathe a sigh of relief...our house was (mostly) peaceful again.

Of course, when SD turned 18, she immediately left her mother's house and ended up marrying the guy she'd been seeing for 2 years. Of course everyone thought they were nuts, and sure enough, after about 5 months, he left her. That started her on her habit of bouncing all over the country for a couple of years...finding someone on MySpace or wherever to feel sorry for her, staying with them, leeching off them until they got sick of her, then moving to the next place. She went back with her mom twice but didn't pay rent or go back to school like she promised so she was out again, and off to a few more states.

Now to the present. Late last week she called her dad to say she was in a mental health facility again (this was actually the third time she'd been in one), for depression, and my husband told me it was the first time he actually heard her sound defeated and lost. So of course he started to worry and said maybe she should move back here. OMG. I don't think it was a complete shock to me that he'd suggest that sooner or later but I was hoping he wouldn't. Last night she was talking to her brother online (she's back "home", wherever that is) and told him to ask their dad if he would order her a pizza because she had no food and her roommate wasn't around. I pointed out that we couldn't do that because she'd have to present the credit card at the door if we used one. Then DH (dear husband) said now he was worried she wasn't going to eat. He told his son to tell her to call him today if she wanted to move back here...and she did, and apparently she does.

I just don't know how I am going to handle this. Nobody REALLY wants her to move back here but her dad would rather deal with her as she is than find out she's dead in a ditch somewhere. On that level I can understand, but I know my stepson doesn't want her to move back, and I know I just can't trust her. My stepson wants to move out anyway, and he might actually motivate himself to do so now, but what about me? I'm not so worried about how things will go if her dad is home...he can handle her, and I will make it clear that I am no longer going to be the go-to person when it comes to her...I don't care if he has to work 40 hours a week and I only work part time. What I really worry about the most is what happens if he's not here -- if he has to go into the office or on a business trip -- or if neither of us are home. I told DH today that he, his son and I will have to have a talk about our concerns and how they're going to be handled, as my DH often thinks his way is the only way...but we live here too and this house is just as much mine as it is my husband's.

Well, sorry this has been so long but I had to explain a lot. I have been quite depressed lately as it is and my husband and I have been struggling...there is no way having my SD back here is going to help things on those fronts. I have counseling tomorrow...poor woman is going to get an earful. (*sigh*) Thanks for listening.