A little Lost

We are having some major issues right now with Elizabeth. As you know she has some major issues with her mom and just life in general. Well she’s been seeing a counselor for a few months now and to some degree things have seemed a little better but in others not. Well last night things really came to a head. First her mom called to tell me that Rachel (E’s younger half sister) read something on her MySpace that said she had been cutting on Jan 2 and dripping hot wax on her arms. That she was pissed off at her dad because his friend was over and that they were drinking and having fun and she was in tears in her room. Well her mySpace is private so I can’t read it to see that. Her mom didn’t want her to know that it was her on the phone but that sort of was impossible since when I first saw the call I said “oh it’s your mom” but when I got off the phone I didn’t say anything. E asked me what she had wanted but I told her nothing. Little while later she got up from the Living Room and took the phone into her room. This isn’t uncommon, I thought she was calling Aimee her girlfriend. I decided to take the opportunity to call her mom back so I could talk to her a little more, but when I called she said she was on the other line with Elizabeth because E had called her. Well little bit later she came out of her room sat on the couch and was crying while on the phone. I acted like I had no idea that I knew she was on the phone with her mom and asked her what the matter was and she sort of whispered her mom was going off on her and being stupid, she then told her mom that she was going to call her back in a little bit. So she got off the phone and she started bawling and saying she didn’t want to go home. She was suppose to be going home this morning and didn’t want to go. So I asked what was going on. She said her mom was going off on her about her cutting and that if she didn’t fix things ASAP and get them under control that she (Nina) was going to control them for her even if it took 30 years or some thing like that. Well that obviously upset E. So we talked for a bit and I told her that if she didn’t’ want to go home it wasn’t my decision, that her dad and mom had an agreement for 2 weeks at each house and we were stretching that to 3 at our house on a fairly regular basis. Told her she was going to have to talk to her dad. She calmed down a little, I called Robb to see if he had some time while he was at work to talk to her, he didn’t really but did it because she was upset. Guess in the process of all this happening last night he missed a few tows. Anyways, she told him she didn’t want to go home that she didn’t feel safe and that she wanted to stay and he told her he’d talk to her mom in the morning. So I figured okay, means she doesn’t need to go home first thing tomorrow before school, we’ll wait and see how things play out. After that I told her she needed to call her mom and tell her she wanted to stay. She asked me what she was suppose to tell her and I told her “the truth”. Well that was a LONG conversation. I thought E handled it pretty well. She told her mom things she’s been holding in for years and that she didn’t feel safe at her house because of her and her step dad fighting all the time and throwing things, etc. Well her mom was not taking any ownership for anything, kept telling Elizabeth she had things she(E) needed to work on and that she had emotional issues. Of course I’m only hearing half of the conversation and little bits and pieces here and there when Nina was very loud but I thought Elizabeth did a good job communicating with her even if her mom was very defensive which I guess should be expected. Well after that she and I talked some more. She decided she’d write her dad an email about things. It was about how she finally took the step she’d been fearing to take to live with us FT and get out of her mom’s house etc. That she felt better about things and like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Well while she is writing this I get a call from Robb on my cell, asks me to go somewhere to talk where she can’t hear. So I go out in the garage. He tells me he just got off the phone with Nina and he was getting really pissed off with the whole situation because Elizabeth is manipulating both sides, which I know to an extent is true but not 100%. So he tells me that she HAS to go home that he is not going to let her manipulate the situation anymore and enable this to keep going on. That Nina is really upset about what E said and feels like E is betraying her and everything she has ever tried to do for her. Anyways I tried to tell Robb what I observed from the conversation and he immediately cut me off and told me that I needed to be working with them on a united front and if I didn’t feel it was right well that I could be doing this on my own and dealing with her. I am think WTF, where the hell did that come from? Well he later apologized and listened to what I had to say, said that he and Nina decided that we are going to have a family meeting with everyone on Monday evening but they aren’t telling Elizabeth. I think a family meeting is great so we can all communicate together but to blind side her with it just doesn’t seem right to me. I’m feeling so in the middle at this point, I don’t think that Nina is a master manipulator and is manipulating not only E but also Robb. So I have no idea how things are going to play out at this point. He talked to Elizabeth again told her she needed to go home in the morning, that her mom wasn’t going to hurt her and she’d be safe and that she just needed to calm down and he’d talk to her first of the week (the Monday meeting but not telling her about it). So she’s upset again, writes him another note saying how the tables turned, her life is F’d up, her mom is going to smack her around when she gets home that she wants to shoot her self, etc. By this time it’s midnight and I’m exhausted but wide awake because I’m worried she’s going to do something to herself. So they get off the phone again. WE talked a little more. He calls again to talk to me, asks me how it went over. I’m like NOT WELL obviously. He says well she just needs to go home and work things out all of us together. That we as adults are communicating enough about things and it’s allowing her to work it from both sides. Again I agree with that to an extent but feel she also has some legitimate concerns about being at her moms. He listens and says we just all have to talk about it that she still needed to go home. So that was about it for last night, one long ass night. Got her to go to bed, not sure how much either of us slept. Robb got home about 4:30 this morning from work so I obviously didn’t get to talk to him anymore this morning. I had to take her home before school on my way to work, I just didn’t have a good feeling about it and felt like she shouldn’t have been forced to do that but she’s not my daughter and my hands are sort of tied in the matter. She knows her dad loves her and I think she is seeing what her mom is doing to him to so understands some. She sent me an email just a little bit ago saying that she knew that I was trying to help her and that she loved me and thanking me for trying to help her through this stuff. God this is breaking my heart. I did confront her about the myspace blog last night too and she denied it said those things. I asked her to see it and she was hesitant at first but then later after I’d been in the garage showed it to me but I knew she had changed it, she erased the parts about cutting and the wax but left the rest. But her mom has already printed it so she’ll be confronted with that lie, this is not the first lie. I gave her several opportunities to come clean last night but she swore up and down it wasn’t true. This is the same thing she did a few years ago when we caught her in another lie on the computer. And she lies/exaggerates other things. So I understand Robb’s concerns, I mean I guess I could be totally wrong about some of the things I think are true but I’d rather error on side of caution.
So this is my life for the moment.
If you read all of this you are a saint! It is helping me to vent about it and get my thoughts together. I know she is lying about things and is manipulating just the same as her mom I’m just not sure what to do about it and thus why I’m feeling a little lost. I obviously only have so much authority in the situation which is the other complicating factor.
Well I guess this is long enough.