Anita, first of all this story is quite inspiring!! Your story does sound similar. I didn’t really have anxiety growing up. I didn’t even have anxiety when I was in college, which is weird since college was a very stressful time. But I think that was because I wasn’t seeing my mom all the time. She was still working when I was in school. But when I graduate in 2013, she retired and stopped working. But even when I was kind of stuck in limbo for a year after graduating I still didn’t have anxiety. But it may be that these feelings have been building up for a while and with the stress of finding health insurance and a good job while still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life just made it worse.
I think my therapist said what she said because she doesn’t want me to have another panic attack with teaching and not have any way to deal with it, especially if I’m far away from home. I see where she’d be coming from in that case, but on the other hand, if I lived in another city that was close by, I’d still have to find a way to deal with the anxiety. But I do honestly think that leaving and living on my own for a while would help. I wouldn’t have a million people to answer to and I wouldn’t have to worry about making anyone happy (except myself). The panic attacks also happened because every Sunday people at my church would ask me about how the teaching was going. I would just smile and say “okay” when I was miserable. It was bad enough that I couldn’t catch a break from my principal and coworkers. I’d also have to come home to an overprotective, nosy mom asking me about my miserable day (I know she was just worried about me), and having people at my church constantly asking me questions and giving me advice didn’t help the situation either.

Anita, I think that may be part of it. When I was in high-school, I was in the marching band. When I was getting ready to graduate and thinking about colleges, I had said that I wanted to move and go to school in California and quit band. But my mom said “you’ve spent too much time and money to not get a band scholarship, you’re going to be in band”, she didn’t exactly say it like the idea of me quitting band forever. Then, when I was in college, I thought that I wanted to go to law school ( I think this is where my quarter life crisis started). But as I went through college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I just stayed in my major because I thought that my mom would’ve been upset. She didn’t tell me that she wouldn’t be upset until my 3rd year of college, go figure. So I think it’s just that when I say I want to do something and tell her, she’ll suggest something else that might be better. So I just figure mother knows best. So that’s why I’m afraid to tell her. I also don’t really want anyone else to know that I want to travel and teach abroad. I just don’t want to deal with the anxiety of nosy people.

My therapist said that it might not be a good idea to suddenly move to another country, because of my anxiety and since I’ve never been away from home for a long period of time. She even suggested that I reach out to this girl on YouTube about her experiences abroad and ask for advice. The girl even said that maybe traveling would help my anxiety since I wouldn’t be under so much pressure. I don’t really know why I’m afraid. I know that my being home or away from home won’t have any affect on anything, but I think it goes with me being an only child. I worry about something happening to her, and her suddenly not being here and I’m far away, but I also worry about something happening to me (to be more specific; a plane crash). Although, my therapist and I went through an exercise a few months ago about this. She went through a series of questions about me being out with friends or by myself. She asked if anything bad had happened to me. I said no and that if something happened, I could probably figure it out.

It’s a little hard to physically see my therapist. My work schedule is a bit unpredictable and you have to make an appointment with her at least two weeks in advanced, so it’s kind of hard, but I do email her from time to time. I don’t know about free therapy in my area, but I could look into it. It’s not so much that she wants me to be like her. She’s never explicitly stated that she wants me to be like her. My doctor noted that my mom is very type A and I’m not. It’s just that I’m 26 and even though I’ve graduated from college, I just feel like there’s so many things that I want to do while I’m still young. But I feel like my mom wants me to settle down right now. I’ve never even lived away from my parents for more than two months.
At my age, my mom was working full time as a nurse and taking care of my grandmother. She keeps talking about getting a particular type of job or going back to school or something, but as I previously stated, I really want to travel and teach abroad. That’s something that I really want to do, and it’s not some spur of the moment decision, I’ve been looking into this for a few years. But I’m an only child and as much as I want to leave my comfort zone, I’m afraid. I’m not only afraid of what might happen to me, but I’m also afraid of something happening to my mom. I know my mom annoys me and gets on my nerves and stresses me out a bit (what mom doesn’t), but I love my mom and I want to be able to share all of my experiences with her while she is still in good health. And being an only child doesn’t help. I know that my living with my parents or me not living with my parents doesn’t have that much effect on something happening. I just don’t want to go off somewhere and then find out that something bad happened to my mom or her find out that something bad happened to me.
It’s not that she would disapprove of me not being like her, but I just want her to understand that I have to make my own decisions about my life and that I have my own goals and dreams and things that I want to do etc.