Motherhood and Teens

So, I am writing here because I don't think any of my people read this...

That being said:

Last year I got 'custody' of my niece.  She is 17, she has been tossed aside by everyone.  Or she tossed them aside, I am not sure which.  Whichever, she has been basically on her own since she was 14.  She has had to manipulate and fight for anything she got.

It has been a longstanding dream to be reunited with my brother's children, whom I lost contact with after they went back to their mother after living with me for a few months more than a decade ago.  In fact I keep specific emails open because of that dream.

But now, I think that it is useless.  I think that she is just using me until she gets a better ride.  And I don't think she has any affection or loyalty to me at all.  I talked to a friend who works with 'at risk youth'.  And she said she has attachment disorder and that she doesn't have the capacity to feel those things for me.  And that a facility with trained people is the place for her.  But she is graduated from High School and she is almost 18 so that is not going to happen.  And instead she is going to go out into the world this way.

On the one hand it is easy for me to say that the things that trouble her is trivial when they cause her to overreact or that her behavior is unacceptable no matter where or with whom she lands. 

All I know is I have NEVER been prepared for a teenager and NOW I know I am not prepared.  I am completely out of my depth.  And all I have known how to do is protect myself from the fall out and I do that by closing off my heart and my 'sensitive areas' from her venom.

I know every abused person says this but she is not always venomous, but when she is WOW!  And I find that I am not willing to wade through the venom to get to the good stuff.  I find that the more I am around her the more convinced i become that she will do as her parents did so often and that is get me all attached and involved only to take the kids away from me for god knows how long.  I find myself unwilling to go down that heartbreak again.

But Mother's aren't supposed to give up right?  I think that it is a blessing in disguise that I never became one.