Dear J:

Your last line: you thought you were “just a constant worrier” – nothing to do with your mom being a cause of anxiety. Well, the identity of a child is not separate from the parent. As a young child you are one unit with your main caretaker, so your mother is an integral part of your forming self. Let’s see what you wrote so far on your thread relating to your mother:

“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 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.
…When I was in high-school…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”… Then, when I was in college, I thought that I wanted to go to law school… 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… 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 don’t really know why I’m afraid…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)… 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.”

There is The Only Child theme, a Separation Anxiety, separation from your mother. You are basically afraid that if you are separate from your mother, living far away, either she will die or you will. This is classic separation anxiety. That stage of development as I learned it in a psychology class “separation- individuation”- not completed yet, in your case. Therefore the idea of separating from her means death to you, her death, your death, it doesn’t matter. Your identity is still enmeshed with her. It is like you and her are One Unit. You are attached to her and need separating.

I suppose maybe you were not anxious before because you didn’t need to or want to live away from your mother. But now you are an adult, you know other adults live away from their mothers/ parents, and you have a dream of teaching abroad that requires separation from your mother, and so your anxiety is intense.

I am thinking the fact that she was and is type A personality, dominant, is making it difficult for you to separate from her and … individuate, become your own person, your own individual. This was her mistake with you, dominating you, not encouraging you to make your own choices, doubting your choices, downplaying your preferences. And so the YOU part of the Unit (your identity) is weak and your mother part of the unit is strong.

What do you think?

anita