I don’t know how to help my 16-year-old niece and I’m tired of pretending I do
I’m sitting at my kitchen table right now, there’s a half-empty mug of cold coffee next to me, the same lopsided mug Lila made me in 8th grade art class, where she dropped it before it went into the kiln. I just got off the phone with my sister, Lila’s mom, and her voice was shaking so bad she had to hang up mid-sentence to go compose herself in the grocery store break room, where she’s been picking up extra closing shifts to cover the gas bill.
I went over to their place last Saturday, brought the blue Sour Patch Kids Lila has loved since she was 8, when she’d sneak into my car after school and dump half the bag on my passenger seat. I knocked on her bedroom door, and it just creaked open a crack, not all the way, and her hand reached out to take the bag, and that was it. No hi, no can you come in, nothing. I stood there in the hallway for a minute, smelling the laundry that’s been piling up by the washer for three days, and I didn’t know what to do. I’ve always been the cool aunt, the one she comes to when she fights with her mom, when she has a crush, when she needs someone to drive her to the art supply store at 8pm because she just had to have a specific shade of cobalt blue. Now I’m just the lady who leaves candy by the door.
I’ve spent the last three weeks calling every therapist within 20 miles, right? Lila stopped going to school a month ago. She just gets up, doesn’t leave her room, won’t answer texts from her friends, won’t touch the half-finished mural she started on her closet door last summer. The school called my sister, said if she doesn’t come back next week they’re going to file truancy paperwork. Insurance won’t cover out-of-network therapy, and the sliding scale community clinic has a six-month wait list. I make enough money to pay out of pocket for a good therapist, I offered. My sister got so quiet, and then she said she doesn’t want my charity. She hasn’t let that go since I bought Lila a new laptop for freshman year two years ago without asking, held a grudge for 18 months, said I was making her look like she can’t take care of her own kid. I get it, she’s proud, she’s been on her own since Lila was born. But pride isn’t helping Lila right now, and I don’t know how to get past it without pushing her away entirely.
Everyone has so much unasked advice for me, you know? My coworker who hikes every weekend told me I just need to get her outside, get her blood flowing, that fresh air fixes everything. I invited her to come walk the trail by the lake with me last Sunday, she just shook her head and went back to scrolling TikTok. My mom told me she just needs a good kick in the pants, that kids these days have it too easy and they just sit in their rooms on their phones all day. I bit my tongue, because what’s the point of arguing with my mom at this point? She’s never changed her mind about anything. My best friend said I just need to be consistent, keep showing up, that eventually she’ll open up. So I’ve been showing up. I brought her favorite garlic noodles from the takeout place by my house Tuesday, left them on the kitchen counter, texted I was there, she never came out. I ate the leftover noodles in my car in the driveway, they got cold by the time I got home, and I cried a little because I felt so stupid. Just some lady crying over cold fries and noodles in a beat-up minivan outside her sister’s house.
Last time I got her to leave the house was two weeks ago. I begged her to come get boba, like we used to do every other Friday after art class. She finally said yes, but she didn’t say a single word the whole drive there. She just stared out the window, picking at a loose thread on her oversized hoodie. I got her the usual: taro, 50% sugar, extra pearls. She picked at it the whole time we sat in the parking lot, never took more than two sips. When we drove back, she got out of the car, and she turned to me and said “thanks for not making me talk.” That’s the longest sentence she’s said to me in a month. I sat there after she left, and I didn’t know what to feel. On one hand, I was glad I didn’t push her too far. On the other, what am I supposed to do with that? If she doesn’t want me to talk, if she doesn’t want me to fix it, am I just supposed to wait around until something bad happens? Am I just supposed to let this whole year slip away while she’s stuck in that room?
I tried the whole validation thing everyone talks about, you know? I said “High school sucks right now, I get it.” And she just looked at me and said “No you don’t.” And she’s right. When I was 16, my biggest problem was a bad perm and fighting with my mom about getting a pierced nose. I didn’t have to worry about my mom working three jobs to pay rent, I didn’t feel this heavy nothing that makes you not want to get out of bed. I can’t pretend I know what she’s going through, and that makes me feel even more useless.
I don’t have a neat little wrap-up here. I don’t have some lesson I learned, some inspirational note to end on. I’m just stuck. I still have that neon pink cat painting she made me when she was 12, the one that looks more like a lumpy potato than a cat, taped to my fridge. I look at it every morning when I make coffee, and I just wonder when she stopped liking making things that messy and happy.
I’m writing this because I don’t know who else to ask. My family just yells at each other about what to do, my friends mean well but none of them have been here. If you’ve been the 16 year old that didn’t want to talk to anyone, that didn’t want to leave your room, what would you have wanted your aunt to do? If you’ve been the family member that couldn’t fix it, that couldn’t get past the pride and the wait lists and the closed doors, what did you do that helped? I’m tired of pretending I have this under control. I just want to know I’m not making this worse. That’s all.
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