One of my 17yr old daughters seems to be struggling with teenage yrs harder than my other 2 children. Her mood swings are quite pronounced and I tend to find myself feeling hypervigliant toward her partly because of my history of alcoholism, but that started at 14 and shes never walked in legless yet, and then theres the history of mental health, my own and what I know of my birth mother. I've talked about this some with T about how I am feeling around it all.

So this week her phone broke can you imagine what a catastrophe that is for a 17yr old? , so for my sake as well as hers I went out and bought a cheap one for her to use until her one is fixed, partly because I remember what 17 was like and how much it means to be in touch with peers, and partly because I want to know shes got one to contact me when shes out incase of emergency's, even this I struggled with wondering if I were being codependent? and I was caught between thinking about the times T is kind toward me when I feel I dont deserve it and thinking well if I am being codependent then thats just where I am right now and perhaps in the future I'd make a different decision, so I stopped beating myself up, something I've not normally been able to do, I gave myself a break, but then my daughter was moaning about this cheap phone , how she can't do this or that with it and I got angry and told her to give it a rest and to look at the positive, I mean shes got a phone now at least!

She then went sulky and I felt I'd not handled it how I wished I had and walked away and gave myself some time, and what it reminded me of is the times I want T to be part of my moods/anger/rage/fear and how she remains "still", and how when we're through it, and I feel as if I've perhaps annoyed her, she remains as gentle and caring as she always is, and I walked back into the living room where my daughter was sitting with her phone, and gently stroked her head as I made me way through to the other room, just to let her know, I still care, and that felt right, it felt like the relationship I have with T, how she "strokes" my head with her kindness and how I feel someone has taken my "distress" and loved me still.

When I came back into the living room she was laughing on her phone with a friend and the world was right again for her.

I can honestly say hand on heart, without the therapy relationship, I wouldn't have been able to do any of this! and made me realize by my going to therapy its healing effects ripple out much further than just me and my problems.

I love therapy!