Alyssa

Don't have much time--really should have left for work already, but needed to just vent for a minute. Alyssa had another meltdown yesterday in the car on the way home. I know she was tired--she had to stay after school for chorus practice when she is ordinarily taking her after school nap by this time. She started in on her brother the minute he got in the car. How she hates him and wishes he would just go kill himself already. When I intervened and told her we didn't talk to each other like that, she informed me that I needed to shut up my stupid ugly face before she punched me in it; how I am always taking everyone else' side and on and on. Admittedly I lost my cool with her and smacked her in her mouth. Which of course made everything go down hill much faster! It ended with me pulling on the side of the road to separate the oldest and the youngest (one in the front, one in the backseat) because my son lost his cool because she was talking to me that way. I didn't sleep last night because I feel so guilty for losing it on her in the first place, and because I know she needs extensive counseling and possibly medication at this point, but I can't work out my work schedule to get her there. I can't tell her father (God she acts more like him every day; according to him I am the problem, although he has lost it on her several times recently and even told her how much he hates her at one point). This is my baby--I know she doesn't mean the things she says when she gets in one of her moods, but damn it is hard to be emotionless and coolheaded when she starts (which is just about every single day and certainly every time she doesn't get what she wants the minute she wants it!) She triggers me because I see so much of his actions and hear so many of his words in her little 13 year old self. I can't go through this with two of them. It is tearing me to shreds and causing me to lose more sleep than I was originally.