Crap- reading this thread is making me want to BURY my head in the sand.
Starcat- I WAS your brother and I see D3 sooooo much the same. The attachment d/o thing is something I am really interested in. I don't think it's an accident I opted to work with EH kids. I can relate to many of them. My mom gave me, on mother's day (as a punishment I guess?) when I was 8, a poster my father made when she and I came home from the hospital. She told me that I should have it since he'd clearly loved me more since before I was even born. There's much more to the story but the jist of it is that I wonder now, reading your post, whether I knew even before birth just how much my mother resented me... Interesting stuff.
You know, maybe I need to be reading this thread bc it is making me determined, even if I have to fight a wicked battle, that I will NOT have the girls alone with AH but nor will I stay in the same house for a moment longer than I need to.
I guess the one thing I can remind myself of when I feel like the antithesis of mother of the year (most days) is that I love my kids with every fiber of me and have done the best I could under the circumstances to keep them safe and that since the instant I learned I was pregnant I have wanted and tried (even if I have failed at times) to put them first. That's got to count for something right? God knows where I learned to be a loving mother since my own mother tells stories to this day (and proudly) about how she would have been okay never actually giving birth to any of us-- she just liked being pregnant and the attn it got her. My blood runs a little cold everytime I hear that...