Confused: Is there any forums available that could help me deal with my feelings on the way my twenty-four year old daughter has chosen to live her life? She has been in jail two times for shoplifting. Drugs are involved, she won't work (couldn't pass a drug test)! She has gone such an extreme opposite of how she was raised. I'm the one it seems that feels all the remorse and shame. The guilt is overwhelming! Maybe I was so protected growing up that I didn't realize this type of lifestyle actually existed. Well, I certainly know now! I'm fifty years young but feel much older from the stress she has put me through. I'm such a sponge when it comes to her. I feel my daughter is still in there somewhere. People tell me 'tough love". Gosh, is that easily said. I haven't found any resources to help a parent in this situation. I know I couldn't be the only one!
Thank you for allowing me to ask this and thank you to all that reads this and maybe you will know a direction I could go to seek some help for me. I have done everything humanly possible for my daughter. Mom needs some advice handling my conflicts with her behavior.

Do a search on Tough Love. You should find support groups.

One of the hardest things in the world to do is to back off and let someone you love reap the harvest of bad choices they have made. It sounds like you may be a little too concerned about what other people will think of you because of the way she's acting. You can't shield her from the consequences of her choices, and you aren't doing her a favor if you try to. She's 23--time to grow up and take responsibility. Back off and let her do it, however painful that may be. Make sure she knows that you're backing off BECAUSE you love her, not because you're ashamed of her.

Cool your jets man. Let her learn life the hard way.

Tough Love, definitely. She needs to quit her ways before she ends up in jail permanently, or worse.

Hang in there, she is still your little girl even if she doesn't show it. Let her know that even though you don't approve of what she does and the person she is protraying herself to be, that you are still her mother, still love her and have open arms waiting.