A million years ago I became a mentor to an incredible person named Dawn. She was 8 years old when we met, and this Fall she'll be a high school sophmore. The entire experience with Dawn has been filled with pain for me, because I love her so much and feel I can't be what she fully deserves, and because I re-live my own miserable experience through hers. After dropping her off after our visits, I sob all the way home. I want to HELP HER. I want to give her the childhood, and now teenagehood, that she deserves. That won't make her go insane. But I am so limited! And there is such guilt in that, because I sure as hell am bitter than nobody saved me when I was trying to survive in her shoes. She's the scapegoat to every insecurity and asshole bone her (step)father has. And she is the only one with adult sensibility in the house; it's been that way since she was tiny. She's so smart. And she's punished for it anytime it makes her parents feel stupid.

When I talked to her tonight, she sounded so horrible, so dying inside, stiff and numb, and couldn't really talk because of the tension that hinges on her in the house. She said she'll try to call me tomorrow so we can plan to see each other; it was too bad there tonight for her to even go into it. I hung up, walked the dog and cried, and called her back and told her that I want her to come stay with me, as long as she wants and is able, even if I have to be at work during the day. Just so her soul can breathe a little.

How do I deal with the fact that she is living daily with the nightmare that I can only visit in tiny, therapy-sponsored doses? Am I too damaged to really help her, or is that a cop out because I don't want to get too close to my own horror that lives inside from all those years? I have to quit letting myself believe she's as happy as she usually seems, and remember this phone call night and the reality she hides from me. I need to see her every week, no matter what it does to me.