No One Can Make You Feel Less: My Story of Breaking Free From Expectations

“You think you’re better than your own family now, huh?” Mom’s voice ricocheted off the kitchen tiles, sharp as the edge of the knife she was using to slice apples for pie. My hands trembled as I gripped the counter, not daring to look up from the pile of homework I’d dragged into the kitchen for the illusion of company. It was the third time this week she’d made that comment—and I still didn’t know how to answer.

I was sixteen and felt like I was suffocating in our modest Indiana home, the air thick with the scent of cinnamon and unspoken resentments. My mother, Linda, had worked two jobs most of her life, and she wore her exhaustion like armor. From the time I was little, every good grade, every ballet recital, every polite thank you at someone’s dinner table—all of it was measured on the Linda Morgan scale of worthiness. And I was forever teetering between almost-enough and disappointment.

My brother, Jacob, seemed immune to this scrutiny. He was two years older, a high school star quarterback with a grin that could melt anyone—except, apparently, Mom. She loved us both, but I was her project, the one on whom she pinned her own dreams. “You have to be better, Katie,” she’d whisper after a parent-teacher conference, her eyes shiny with hope and warning. “We’re not like the others. We have to prove ourselves.”

But better never seemed to come. Not when I made Honor Roll, not when I got the lead in the school play, not even when I stopped eating dessert for a month so I’d fit into the dress she’d picked for me for Homecoming.

The breaking point came on a rainy October Thursday. I’d spent the whole night before rewriting my English essay after Mom said it wasn’t good enough. My teacher, Mrs. Edwards, handed back the paper with an A scrawled in red. She stopped me after class. “Katie, can I talk to you for a second?” I nodded, dread knotting my stomach.

She closed the door, lowering her voice. “You’re a brilliant writer. But I can tell when someone else’s voice is living in your words. Why do you let it?”

I stared at her, stunned. She leaned in, her eyes searching mine. “No one can make you feel less than you are—unless you let them.”

I barely heard the rest of what she said. That sentence echoed in my head all day, reverberating through my bones as I walked home in the drizzle. No one can make you feel less.

At dinner that night, the storm outside matched the one brewing at the table. Mom asked about my essay. I handed her the paper, hands shaking. “A?” She raised her eyebrows. “Did you take my advice?”

I hesitated, then lied. “Yeah.”

She smiled, triumphant.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “You know, Katie’s smart all on her own. Maybe just let her do her thing.”

Mom shot him a look. “Don’t interfere. She needs to be pushed.”

I wanted to scream. Instead, I excused myself and locked my bedroom door, pressing my face into the pillow so they wouldn’t hear me cry. In the dark, Mrs. Edwards’s words replayed over and over: unless you let them.

The next morning I decided to try something new. I arrived early to school and found Mrs. Edwards grading papers. “Can you help me find my own voice?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

She smiled. “Start by telling me what you’re afraid to say.”

So I wrote about the weight of expectations, about how I felt invisible when I got things right and worthless when I got them wrong. I wrote about my mother, about the night I overheard her crying in the laundry room about bills and broken dreams. I wrote about the fear that loving me was just another way for her to be disappointed.

Mrs. Edwards read it and hugged me. “That’s the voice you fight for, Katie.”

But fighting for it at home was another story. The more I tried to assert myself, the more Mom clung to her rules. She criticized my clothes, my friends, even the way I spoke. “Don’t get too proud. Don’t forget where you come from.”

One night, after another blow-up over college applications, I snapped. “Why do you only love me when I’m perfect?”

She recoiled. “I love you no matter what. That’s why I push you. You think I want you to end up like me?”

“I don’t want to be you!” I shouted, tears streaming down my face. “I want to be me. But I don’t even know who that is anymore.”

Silence hung between us, heavy and raw. For the first time, I saw fear in her eyes—fear that she was losing me, or maybe that she never really had me at all.

I didn’t sleep that night. I stared at the ceiling, counting every regret. The next morning, Mom left a note on my door: “I’m sorry. I love you. I just want you to be happy. – Mom.”

It wasn’t a magic fix, but it was a start. We talked more, fought less. She tried to listen; I tried to understand. Some days, we still slipped into old patterns. But I kept writing—in my own voice, for myself.

I got into the college I wanted, not the one Mom picked. Jacob went off to join the Marines. Mom eventually started dating again. Life didn’t get easier, but I got stronger.

Sometimes I still hear her voice in my head, doubting, pushing. But now I hear my own voice, too. The one that says I am enough, even when I’m not perfect.

Do you ever wonder if you’re living for yourself or just trying to make someone else proud? How do you finally decide which voice to listen to?