In public, I’m an outgoing perfectionist. But at home, I’m shut away. I hide in my room behind locked doors, tapping furiously on my keyboard or curling myself into a ball on the fluffy carpet floors, sleeping. I refuse to go out. Because I can’t for the life of me face my mother.

When I do leave my room, here’s how it usually goes: The dinner table, initially serene as my smiling dad wolfs down big bites, is instantly blighted when my mom shoots me a question. It hits a sore spot.

“Honey, how are college apps?”

“Mom, you know I asked you not to talk about that during dinner time.” I pronounce the words slowly and clearly as to calm the anger simmering in me.

“Then what other time can I ask? You’re always in your room! It’s like you don’t want to talk to us at all!”

“I’m busy, and I’m working on my applications!”

“Then can you show me?”

“Well, how about you tell me how your job search is going?” I say. I want out.

I instantly regret it. I, too, have hit a sore spot. My mother quit her job to take care of my older brother and me and hasn’t had a full-time job since. We all know she loves this unemployed life.

“Why can’t you be less controlling? I’ll worry about my own things,” I shoot across the dinner table.

“If we’re going to talk about boundaries, why do you keep testing mine?” She doesn’t back down.

My mom slams the chopsticks on the table. How disrespectful. Just like that, we’ve forgotten why we were here, gathered for food my mom meticulously prepared and the exchange of our daily stories. I fly to my room, lock the door, and duck under my thin covers to shield myself from the world around. In the darkness, I’m spiraling, rethinking what I should have said, even considering if I’m only obligated to love her. Tears stream down my face. None of us knows how to fix this.

With college just one year away, I am so excited to just be free. Free from my mom’s nagging. As I stepped into those infamous teenage years, I felt increasingly disconnected from my family. So I shut myself away in my room.

School has halted plans to reconcile this crumbling relationship and created more of a rift. Between my academic responsibilities and other mental health challenges, it feels impossible to prioritize my relationship with my mom.

Growing older and navigating through my own challenges means realizing my struggles with my mom is just what I’ve needed to get where I am today as I form my own values and identity.

Advanced Placement courses on top of community college courses, a 20-hour-per-week badminton team, piano, working at six publications, and traveling for extracurriculars leave me desperately trying to finish my assignments until sunrise. I’m still trying to find friends at school, sitting alone almost every day. And then the identity issues hit me. Under the weight of all this, sometimes it feels like I’m suffocating. Each new issue makes it harder to justbreathe.

It isn’t surprising that I’ve ended up depressed.

I have tried to take care of my mental health, even though taking that first step felt enormously difficult.

I finally worked up the courage to visit my school therapist. I instantly opened up, and she beamed back, explaining, “Research shows it’s developmentally normal!” Normal for a teen to develop their own ideas and an identity away from home so that one day they’ll feel independent.

As much as I’ve beaten myself up over my problems, it’s also true that not all of these things are within my control. My therapist was trying to tell me it’s normal. It didn’t register until much later, and how soothing it felt to come to that realization. I was healing.

As I near high school graduation, I’m feeling a wild concoction of emotions. Happy that I’m nearly out of my mother’s grip and excited for new friends and more challenging classes. At the same time, I’m also afraid I’ll leave home and never look back. That, if I don’t tell my story, write it down, press it between the pages like a maple leaf, I’ll forget altogether what it means to be my mom’s kid. Because tucked behind the wounds and scars we inflicted on each other, there are potent memories. How my mother’s face lights up as she brags about me to her friends. The way she pries open doors (bye, privacy!) and announces that she bought me a new jacket because she thought I’d like it. The times I attempt to help her sort through a friend drama, and give her big, warm hugs when she needs them.

All this makes me think that I’m not quite ready to let go. Growing older and navigating through my own challenges means realizing my struggles with my mom is just what I’ve needed to get where I am today as I form my own values and identity.

One day, I want this column to reach her, to show her how much I actually do care, that there’s nobody else I’d want as my mother. Because I do love you, Mom.

Published in partnership with allcove, a space for youth to find community, support, advice or even just a moment of pause.

Children’s Health Council has the privilege of working closely with young adults and helping to elevate their voices and perspectives. The views expressed here are those of the individuals featured and do not necessarily reflect those of Children’s Health Council. In an effort to share these voices authentically, some content may differ in tone or style from our typical materials.