I am a single mother raising my biological son, Kevin, who is 5 and my niece, Dareen, who is also 5. My sister gave up full custody of her daughter to me, as she was unable to care for her, well, she chose a really bad boyfriend over her baby girl.
Taking in Dareen has been more of a challenge that I would have though, not just in additional time and financial constraints but in the emotional memories and reflexes that are brought up from this new life change, that have begun to burden me with reminders of my own past abuse.
With this new found stress of raising a second child on my own, I found myself reverting to instincts of anger passed onto me by my dad, who would react with rage to every minor irritant he assumed we had caused. Knowing that, like me, Dareen was wounded and damaged from previous years of abuse, I decided to seek help through outside sources to help raise her.
However, throughout the experience in both parenting classes and seeing my very own shrink, Doc Wilson, I started discovering more about my own self than I would have imagined. As the layers of pain were peeled off like the skin of an onion, I found healing and wholeness.
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