Shell Shock

I haven't been blogging lately, because I'm so overwhelmed and angry and disillusioned about the past few weeks with the teenagers we work with, that I'm scared of what depressing or fatalistic things I might write. I'll try to be factual without getting crazy.

One girl's father told her he doesn't want her anymore, and signed custody over to her abusive mother and her mother's abusive boyfriend, who she escaped from last summer, when she came to live with her dad. Her mother told her she doesn't want her either (she gets more money and party time with her friends this way), and sent her back to her father, who again told her he doesn't want her, but had no choice but to take her. She's twelve, addicted to hard-core porn, and sexually assaults boys her age. She obviously didn't get that way all by herself. No one seems to be trying to get counselling for her. I'm not even sure if it's available here.

Another twelve-year-old girl was looking forward to a Christmas visit from her mother. She has only seen her mother a handful of times since infancy, and couldn't stop telling us about the upcoming visit. Instead of a visit, she got a phone call from her mom. I learned about this over a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. She didn't cry about it, or even dwell on it much. She just said it, like it was the most mundane thing in the world. "My mom called and said she's not coming. She never wants to see me again. She doesn't even want me to call her." Then she went back to pining over her boy-interest.

A third twelve-year-old has been bounced through five or six homes in the last year-- all extended family-- and is now living with her dad's new wife, who is living in a half-finished house around the corner, while they wait for her dad to complete his prison term. They rarely have food in the house, and have to cross the street to use the shower.

And that's just a few of the girls. The boys are a whole other story, and just as deeply in need. But they all walk around like everything's fine.

What the heck are we supposed to be doing here?