she nods gravely has had time to figure/I may have wanted better for her

I am a more neurotic person, I think, than I have ever given myself credit for.

I've been telling you guys that living and working in Korea has made me into a more anxious person than I have ever been before.

I don't think that's true.

It's true that I have a lot of anxiety about teaching. But my anxiety about teaching is a continuation of my ever-present desire to do my job (whatever it may be) well. This is not a new desire, and not a new anxiety. Why on earth did I care so much about my high school assignments if not because I wanted to do my job well? It definitely wasn't because of any high-flown respect for the education I was receiving. And why did I work so hard that summer I was at Target, or the next summer spent taking verbal abuse at HIO? It wasn't because I had much respect for the organization I was working for, and it wasn't because I enjoyed what I was doing or thought I was helping the world somehow by stuffing those envelopes a little bit faster. It was because I wanted to do my job well, and I wanted to please my superiors.

The difference is that in the past, I felt confident (most of the time) that I was doing my job well. Here, I have severe doubts about whether I have taught anyone anything in my time as an "English teacher," which has made my work-anxiety more apparent than it was before.

So, the anxieties I have here are not new. Neither is my psychotic avoidance/fear of the outside world that has me using all possible excuses to avoid leaving my apartment on days when it is not required of me. (Have I ever told you what I was like in London?) Neither are the deep-rooted insecurities that I've still let prevent me from seeking out the queer community in Seoul. Neither is the body/height anxiety that I still allow to frighten me away from tango with shorter men. (I don't mean that I think there's anything wrong with taller women w/shorter men; I think that's perfectly normal. And I have nothing against shorter men. It's anxiety about my own body and my own height that I'm talking about. Dancing with shorter men makes me extremely paranoid that they are frustrated at having to dance with me because of my height.)

I have a lot of neurotic body habits that I am too ashamed of to reveal even to those of you who have told me some/all of your neurotic body habits. That still stands; I'm not going to tell you about them. But it's a rare day when I don't bite my lips til they bleed at least twice.

I've spent a lot of time pretending to myself that I am not an anxious or neurotic person, but I don't think that has ever been true. I have overwhelming amounts of social anxiety, and I don't know why I'm only realizing this now, or why it's taken me this long to name it for what it is (though certainly some credit goes to @bird_esque and @andmyfeetare for making me feel less and less like neuroses were something shameful and not-to-be-talked-about).

I think I've been trying to create some image of myself as a strong person, because so much of my self-worth in centered on being able to do things and on being unafraid to do them. This is at least partly related to my constant need to separate my current self from my past selves, because I see more of my own faults than I used to, and I recognize my past selves as neurotic people.

I wonder if my "strong image" has fooled anyone. Realistically, I'm afraid of doing a lot of things. I once told one of my co-teachers that I was nervous about going to tango class because I had no friend to go with, and she laughed at me. "Coming to Korea by yourself is a lot scarier than going to tango class by yourself," she said. That should be true, right? Why was I able to make the decision to come to Seoul, but am consistently unable to make the decision to attend the everyday social events that should be filling my life by now?

And another thing: my mom's knee dislocation a year and a half ago made me realize way back then how fragile and how ableist my belief in my own strength is, when at any moment my body could change, could become unable to do many of the things (mountain climbing, dancing) that have come to be part of my identity.

How can I separate my identity from being able to do these things? How can I believe in my own worth without connecting my worth to the things I do well? How can I accept my neuroses and social anxieties without allowing them to prevent me from doing the things I want to be doing?