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.