Monday morning quarterbacking

I have a great respect for counselors and shrinks, but there are times when I think they are a lot like Captain Janeway of Voyager. Let me give you my take on it. If you ever watched Voyager, and Janeway and the crew encountered two alien races at war with one another. She would almost always believe that the first race she encountered MUST be telling the truth and she would help them work against the other race. Then, at some later point, she might come in contact with the second race and realize that either A) both were at fault in this war B) she effed up and believed the wrong aliens or C) she should have followed the prime directive and stayed out of it. But, I digress.

What I'm bitching about is the fact that some (not all, because I've had some great counselors who explained to me where I was at fault in disputes and helped me find the courage to face loved ones and apologize) in the counseling profession automatically believe their patient is a martyr and don't see the perspective of the other people in the peron's life. It is a long story and I don't want to go into it, but just suffice it to say that a loved one of mine has effed up almost every part of his life and he STILL manages to make himself the martyr and put his selfish needs above those of his children. Burns me up. If I burned every bridge I had ever taken, I would swim across every river and ocean to be near my children and do what is best for them. ARGH!

Anyway. Some more judgmental comments about a topic that I don't have all the information on, but I can't help it. The local story of the assholes who locked their difficult child in the garage and didn't send him to school for the past three years is in the paper again today. CPS is trying to get their parental rights terminated. I think this is a good idea. One of the mom's on our soccer team is representing the so-called mother in this case. She said there is a lot to this case that hasn't come out in the media, but being a good attorney, she won't tell me either. The things I have heard in the news accounts is that the mother of this child (the mother in this case is his step-mom and the mother of his two younger half-sisters) is missing. No one knows what happened to her. Hmm. The dad was booted from the Army for being nuts and he converted to the muslim faith for his wife. Ok, there are a few strikes against him there. The worst part of this, to me, is that the two little girls were forced to participate in the abuse and watch it. These kids are screwed up for the remainder of their lives. I really hope they can do some good for them. Evidently psycho dad's mom had custody of the boy in Illinois, but the child was never returned to her after a visit to his dad. But, this is a red flag to me - she didn't come after him? I mean, what kind of people are we talking about here? If I have been awarded custody of a child, guess what? That means he is MY responsibility and I'm going to do what it takes - if it means selling blood to buy a bus ticket - to get to my boy and take him home. People just amaze me on a daily basis. About the time I think nothing can surprise me. It does. Children are such a gift from God and as trying as it can be to raise them, it is a job that you can't quit. And, if you want to quit, you better damn well quit and find someone else to take your place. You can't just walk away from it.

Nothing like opening the newspaper or Internet news to get me riled up in the morning.