As long as I can remember I have always been mommy’s little girl. I never left her side when I was younger; I would laugh with her, snuggle with her during movies; cry into her shoulder when I was sad, and hide behind her when I was scared. Never have I thought that my relationship with her would grow so far apart that I felt that I never knew her. She became a stranger to me.

My mom had developed a full on depression, and she wasn’t herself anymore, and that was hard to cope with. My mom was withdrawing from everyone; she was distant, unresponsive, and just not herself. I would try to have conversations with her and it was just a one-way conversation, just me talking to myself; I couldn’t help but get angry and frustrated.

Being fifteen, I could pretty much take care of myself, but like all teenagers, I was lazy. My mom started to drift and I had to start being more independent. I had to start washing my overflowing hamper of clothes and be able to find rides for myself. I had to start learning how to cook because if I didn’t my sister and I would probably starve. I started doing things around the house for myself because I had to and I didn’t have a vigorous mother to do it for me. At one point I didn’t even have a mother.

My mom ended up leaving the house. She believed it wasn’t healthy for my sister and I to be around her. I never really knew where she went and she refuses to talk about it, but wherever she went the people there encouraged her to come back.

When my mom was gone I wasn’t sure what to think; I was confused. My dad sat my sister and I down during that week and told us, “ Just know it’s not your fault your mom left. She is having a hard time and needs a little space.” Strangely, I wasn’t sad or crying, I was angry. I kept thinking why would my mom leave; she can’t abandon me like this; who does she think she is? After the week was over, my mom came home, I refused to talk to her. I knew she was hurt by this, but she hurt me when she left and I wasn’t so forgiving anymore.

Everything that was going on at home, I kept to myself. My secrecy was a terrible mistake because it made me a bitter person; I used to be the person who lived life to the fullest each day and didn’t have anything to take my sunshine and positivity away, but now I could feel myself losing who I was and I could feel clouds rolling in creating a storm. I knew I couldn’t keep all of this to myself or I might explode.

A couple weeks later I went on a retreat for a church youth group called Crux. People told stories about the hard times in their lives and it showed me how strong they were, especially when they were able to get through it. During the retreat we did a faith walk and I just started to bawl. I told everything to my leader Jen. I remember the exact words she said to me. She said, “ Maureen, you have real feelings too and you are feeling them. You can’t worry about everyone else, you have to start taking care of yourself.”

Jen ended up introducing me to a social worker named Phil and I told him everything I told Jen. I told him how I felt abandoned, angry, and miserable that this was happening to me. He recommended me to have a friend I could talk to or start seeing a therapist. I wasn’t the person who liked to share feelings, but the bottle of emotions inside of me finally exploded.


I finally told one of my friends. I chose Isabel because I knew she was going through a similar situation and I felt I could relate to her. Isabel told me, “I know you are not the person to share feelings, so write them down in a journal; that is what I do because I hate sharing feelings and I want to show people I can be strong.”
I started a journal, but the one thing I could not get off my mind was how she said she wanted to show people she was strong. I thought you can only be strong for so long, until your rock hard base begins to crack, and I felt that my rock hard base was crumbling beneath me and I needed to repair it. That is exactly what journaling did for me. When I had a bad day or just needed to get something off my chest, the first place I would go was my room; I would bury my head in my journal and write until I had nothing left to say. I was finally doing something to help me. I could feel myself smile a little bit more everyday even though everything at home was getting worse.
My dad’s birthday rolled around and he was working in Milwaukee. A feeling of excitement overwhelmed me when my mom thought of a great idea to go visit him. We went up, but I could tell something was wrong with my mom; she constantly batted her eyes together as if trying not to cry and continuously sniffled. Something was bothering her, but she wouldn’t talk to me; all she did was turn up her Jesus loving music, which I hated and she knew it. I felt like she was purposely trying to annoy me. We took my dad out to a pizzeria called DeMarini’s. My mom was very quiet at dinner and she barely said one word, likewise for me. I just listened to the sounds of other family’s laughing and telling memories of good times; I could feel the wide, laughing smiles on the other families faces, but I noticed my family wasn’t smiling at all; we barely had spoken words to each other except, “What do you want to eat,” or “Does that sound good to you.” I didn’t feel like we were a family anymore, I felt like we were five people that looked like a family, but we were actually five people forced to be there and hated one another.
After dinner we went back to my dad’s hotel room to have some cake, the best cake there is on the planet, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting; we had it on everyone’s birthday, yummy but something wasn’t right; it didn’t feel like old times. My dad had a blue four and a green six on the cake representing him turning forty-six. The candles flickered and my dad briefly paused before he was going to make a wish; enough time for me to look around the room at no one paying attention, no one smiling, everyone had a face that said get me out of here. Then my dad blew out the candles and the room became darker.
Like every other birthday we posed for a picture, but this birthday when we posed for a picture we were all wearing masks that said we were happy, but on the inside we all just wanted to be away from each other. My mom told us where to stand and she refused to get in the picture. We were all leaning away from each other and as soon as my mom snapped the picture we all migrated away from each other. We all could have been scattered across the globe, but we wouldn’t care. We would enjoy finally being away from each other. I hated it. I realized at that moment I didn’t like being with my family anymore. I didn’t feel like myself when I was at home. I drove home with my mom sleeping next to me, my sister crashed out while laying across the backseat; cars rushed by on the highway and the only lights visible were brake lights and the dim lights that lined the highway. I couldn’t help but think why does this have to be my family, why does this have to happen to me; did I do something to deserve this?
I became more mature from dealing with this at home. I persevered and started to care more for myself; I wanted to keep my life under control before I tried to tackle anyone else’s. I just wanted the storm to clear and the sun to shine as fast as possible, but you can still find your way when the storm is happening, all you need is a light.