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.