It's only January 13th?

This year has already been very trying for me. Though, overall, I feel pretty good about things, I have had to face a lot of my old "demons" and I'm not sure how things will turn out.

Last summer, I was at a point at work where I was pouring myself into clients with no boundaries to my involvement in their lives, their current situations. It was very unhealthy. I let myself get emotionally involved in several different kids, to a point where I found myself seeing a counselor to deal with a depression that, at the time, I didn't know where it had come from. I later learned that this depression was a consequence of a lack of boundaries and a lack of the ability to be objective about the kids that I was working with.

I didn't know how to deal with their situations--and I didn't realize that it wasn't my job to do so.

Over the course of the months of November and December, I was able to gain new perspective on things. This has allowed me to become a more objective, and ultimately stable, social worker in a lot of ways. I will admit, I'm still learning when to do the extra work for the client and when to let them do it themselves, and I'm still learning not to have expectations beyond a certain limit (this sounds cold to me as I type it--like I said, still learning). But I think I'm doing a lot better this month/year.

On the other hand, I think that God (whatever you would like to say) knows that I'm working on these things and is giving me an opportunity to grow. Several kids that I was very emotionally involved in and had moved on after summer ended are now back in the city and back in my life. I'm struggling with not being too involved in their lives right now because, when it comes to these particular kids, that is all I know. I find myself pulling my hair out in the evenings at the center because I don't know how to deal with the emotions. I find myself not even wanting to talk to these kids.

Any social work advice from anyone on this topic? Should I let someone else work with these kids to get them the services they need or should I figure out how to deal with my emotions and work with them anyway? If so, how do I deal with the emotion overload?