Thank you for your reply. It’s hard when you have a somewhat controlling/overprotective mother. But unlike most of my friends, I didn’t leave home to go to college (crappy ACT scores). So I’ve lived with my parents for 24 years and I’m the only girl. When I was in college my mother was bearable since I didn’t have to see her all the time (she worked and I was busy with school and extracurricular activities). But when I graduated she retired, so now I see her ALL DAY EVERY DAY. And I want to make sure I spend time with her, but something’s got to give.

I’m in this teaching program, but I’m not really invested in it. I really want to teach abroad for two reasons 1) To get some teaching experience and 2) To be by myself away from familiar influences. But she doesn’t listen. When I say something, she always goes on a tangent about getting a job with benefits so I can have health insurance. Right now I just don’t want the “conventional life”. But now it’s like she’s making EVERY decision for me. And part of that is that I fear that I’ll end up making the wrong decision and failing miserably, which is why I’m reluctant to tell her that I want to teach abroad. She even waits for me in the parking lot if I’m working late. I know it’s because she cares, but geez!!!

It’s like she won’t let me make my own decisions. I feel like a little kid. She tries to decide how I do my hair and she even tries to decide where I can move to when I do leave. And my fears don’t make the situation better. I fear making the wrong decision, what others think, fear of failing, etc. I could go on and on. I don’t really know how to talk to her or anything. When I say I want to do something she’ll say “well it would be better if you do this” and after all that I don’t even bother with trying to do anything I want to do and I end up quietly seething.

But it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one dealing with this.