C has developed some lovely friendships with LGBTQ kids across the city but one of the things we have noticed is how emotionally fragile all of them are, C included. This fragility means that her friendships are fraught with worry. As with so many LGBTQ youth, suicide attempts, counseling, depression, self-harm and bullying are constant themes. And it's exhausting for all involved.

"I haven't heard from X and he was talking about killing himself. I need to go make sure he's ok!" X lives 30 minutes away with an alcoholic mother, an absent father and a teenager brother who is trying his best to manage it all.

"Q has been abandoned at a fast food restaurant. We need to go get him!" Q has a tendency to be mistreated by so-called friends who use him for his money and his generous heart and then dump him.

We are so proud of C for her desire to help everyone and fix everything. But we worry about the toll all of this takes on her. She's fragile enough without absorbing the issues of other fragile kids. This weekend a friend who I haven't seen in several years reached out to me. She wondered if we might connect our daughters to see if they gelled. Both of them are struggling to build strong friendships, particularly with folks who live nearby, and she thought it might be fun to introduce C to her daughter L. We sent them to a movie night for local LGBTQ/ally teens to hang out. And it seemed as if it might be a really good thing. When I picked C up a few hours later, I asked her how it went. With a sigh she answered, "She's really nice but she's a popular kid."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know, good at fashion and make-up and stuff."

"Well, you can be good at all that stuff and still be a lovely person." "She WAS lovely, but I don't think she's going to want to have anything to do with me. She was all dressed up and she looked really pretty, and there I was in baggy jeans and a stupid Marvel t-shirt."

Then the tears started. Why did I let her go out of the house dressed like that? Why can't she figure out the rules of social engagement? How will she ever get a super close friend? How do you know when you're close enough friends to put your head in someone else's lap? Why can't she look like that? Huge tears rolled down her face and she was sobbing. Big ugly, heaving sobs.

We made it in to the house and she collapsed in the front hall, positively inconsolable. All of her insecurities, confusion, social awkwardness, fears, sadness, the political uncertainty -- all of it -- came out. She sobbed for an hour and there was nothing we could do or say to help. She just needed to get it all out. Finally she climbed on to the couch between me and her dad, snuggled up and fell asleep.

This is an unimaginably scary time in the U.S. for so many of the marginalized. Add to that a hot mess of hormones and the additional trauma of navigating teenage years, it's no wonder she's feeling so overwhelmed. It's agonizing to know there's nothing I can do to fix things for her. It's heartbreaking to see your child hurting; to know the layers of pain exist but not to be able to get in between them and lessen the misery.

There's a happy ending to this story: C was invited to L's house the next day and they spent hours together doing make-up, going for coffee and generally being 15-year old girls. I'm hopeful this friendship can be a stable source of happiness for her, but I'm under no delusions that it will be smooth sailing from here on out. I'm so grateful for L's mum being this kick-ass example of a strong yet vulnerable woman for our daughters, for reaching out just when we needed it most, and for believing there's some sort of divinity, whatever it might be, that brought our girls together in this way. I'm cautiously optimistic and hoping C can find some hope, and more importantly, some self-love through this relationship.

#frienship #selfcare #selflove