I just joined this forum just to reply to this.... wondering if the OP is still around.
I quit as a Girl Scout leader (after 3 years) last May, and I'm now continuing as a "regular Girl Scout parent volunteer" in a different troop. It was a rather ugly break-up because I think my original troop parents expected me to keep providing free childcare and putting up with their abuse for the next 10 years. Now it's 8 months later and I'm still experiencing waves of sadness and anger and guilt over the whole thing. I still have to see the previous troop members' parents all over town and it fills me with anxiety (I'm already an anxious person naturally). As cookie season begins.. for the first time with me not acting as both troop leader and cookie manager (ugg).. the emotions are starting to get more intense again. I feel guilty for "abandoning" my original troop. I feel total rage at all of the parents who failed to help make it work (and then got mad at me for fleeing). I feel deathly uncomfortable about the idea of running into my old troop members (many of whom are still active in local Girl Scouts and who I will definitely run into at events). And I feel blinded by anger at Girl Scouts in general for setting up such a nightmarish process for volunteers. Everything about the organization and its rules seems designed specifically to run troop leaders into the ground and spoil their relationships with other parents.
Anyways... If you are still around... I'd be curious to hear how things went for you and if you're feeling any better about the whole thing a few years later. Right now I'm just struggling to understand why the whole experience is still so painful for me. Am I just that much of a nut?
I'm not sure. This seems like a uniquely appropriate forum to vent about this topic.. since another source of friction in my troop was that an outspoken lunatic parents in my troop was very much a "woman of faith"... her "faith" was "so important" to her... that it really inspired her to want to decimate her quietly agnostic troop leader. Not that I make a show of my lack of faith. But I don't attend any of the big churches in town and she was constantly needling me trying to figure out if I maybe attended a different one?.. and I tried to be vague about it.. but I believe she determined that I wasn't a person of faith and decided that I had to suffer for it.
Basically, I'm sitting her wallowing in misery and feeling angry and sorry for myself to the extent that I googled something along the lines of "feeling guilty for quitting as girl scout leader".. and this forum post came up. So here I am. <3
I quit as a Girl Scout leader (after 3 years) last May, and I'm now continuing as a "regular Girl Scout parent volunteer" in a different troop. It was a rather ugly break-up because I think my original troop parents expected me to keep providing free childcare and putting up with their abuse for the next 10 years. Now it's 8 months later and I'm still experiencing waves of sadness and anger and guilt over the whole thing. I still have to see the previous troop members' parents all over town and it fills me with anxiety (I'm already an anxious person naturally). As cookie season begins.. for the first time with me not acting as both troop leader and cookie manager (ugg).. the emotions are starting to get more intense again. I feel guilty for "abandoning" my original troop. I feel total rage at all of the parents who failed to help make it work (and then got mad at me for fleeing). I feel deathly uncomfortable about the idea of running into my old troop members (many of whom are still active in local Girl Scouts and who I will definitely run into at events). And I feel blinded by anger at Girl Scouts in general for setting up such a nightmarish process for volunteers. Everything about the organization and its rules seems designed specifically to run troop leaders into the ground and spoil their relationships with other parents.
Anyways... If you are still around... I'd be curious to hear how things went for you and if you're feeling any better about the whole thing a few years later. Right now I'm just struggling to understand why the whole experience is still so painful for me. Am I just that much of a nut?
I'm not sure. This seems like a uniquely appropriate forum to vent about this topic.. since another source of friction in my troop was that an outspoken lunatic parents in my troop was very much a "woman of faith"... her "faith" was "so important" to her... that it really inspired her to want to decimate her quietly agnostic troop leader. Not that I make a show of my lack of faith. But I don't attend any of the big churches in town and she was constantly needling me trying to figure out if I maybe attended a different one?.. and I tried to be vague about it.. but I believe she determined that I wasn't a person of faith and decided that I had to suffer for it.
Basically, I'm sitting her wallowing in misery and feeling angry and sorry for myself to the extent that I googled something along the lines of "feeling guilty for quitting as girl scout leader".. and this forum post came up. So here I am. <3