She didn't have to return to Philly until Sunday, yet from the moment she sat down in the car, Madison was already projecting five days into the future and anticipating the sadness that returning to campus would bring.

The pressure to be great, not good, is unrelenting. Believing that this pressure will simply disappear once kids arrive on campus seems like wishful thinking.

Second semester will get better, had to get better, Madison thought. If nothing else, through sheer force of will, perhaps she could make it better. And if she told enough people that things were going to go well this time around, said it out loud repeatedly, maybe she could even convince herself.

What if what she wanted and what she thought she was supposed to want were opposed? And what if this gap between head and heart happened again?

For someone who struggles with the unknown, freshman year of college can feel like walking a path lined with land mines- heart racing, disaster around every corner.

Parents don't really know how to help. Some aren't prepared for this new version of their high-achieving kid: doubting, sad, tired, confused- emotions they may have rarely dealt with in high school. And isn't college supposed to be even better than high school? When your child is more mature, self-sufficient, and otherwise flourishing just as she always has been, except now at an even higher level?

I knew the problem was with the school, because the second I left campus, I was happy again.

In high school she even had time for herself, to draw and read, to write down quotes, to be inside her own head without an agenda.

I worry very much, who in God's name will ever want to sign up for this in a relationship? Will anyone want to hire me? Am I really this bad?