Working with anxiety

[BrookeAshley]

I work Monday through Friday, and I have a really hard time with it. Every morning, before I even leave the house, I want to come back home. My anxiety is always really high while at work. My mind feels like it races and it feels like I can't get reassurance here. I know reassurance is bad, but I usually deal with my bad feelings best at home, or at my moms. I feel like a little girl that just wants to be safe at home. Working is just really difficult. But I have to be here. I have to work. I have to pay bills and rent. I need health insurance. Theres no way around it.

So for those in the same boat, how do you handle work? Techniques? I try to keep my mind busy. I visit sites like this in my down time to keep myself going. Some days its not enough. Yesterday I nearly had a panic attack, started crying and shaking. I don't want to keep going like this. I'm barely getting by. I feel like each day I'm hanging on by a thread. I have to wait for my new health insurance before I can see a therapist. This is no way to live. I want to feel happiness, I don't want to be afraid, I don't want to wake up feeling the most awful empty, depressed feeling. I can't live like this anymore. I just cant.

[Cuchculan]

Do they know in work you suffer from what you suffer with? Even if you didn't want to be direct about it, you had time off work because of the baby. You could easily say, it wouldn't be a lie either, that it is the after effects of that. Explain your insurance doesn't kick in for another month. So you can't afford to pay for the help you know you need. These days they can't sack you. For been honest. Mental health issues are something people are starting to talk about a lot more. My whole point been if it was no secret, you might not feel as anxious. If people don't know about it, you do everything you can to hide it. That would be very hard. Not sure if you work in a private room? Considering yesterday you mentioned you were crying all day in work. I would wonder if no other workers noticed anything at all?

Not sure if you are allowed an MP3 player in work. I would use one of those. Be it music or just relaxation stuff on it. Talking you down. Helping you relax. My other favourite is small objects. Have this thing for spinning tops. Collected a few small ones over the years. They would fit in a pocket. Just something that only you know you have in your pocket. That you can fidget about with. Again it would depend on the job on free time you had. Small adult colouring books. Pocket size ones.

Mind you I don't work. So maybe a worker would have some better ideas.

[InvisibleGuy]

I experienced the same feelings for years. ((hugs)) to you, I hope you learn to cope in a way that makes you feel less anxious and more in control. I worked in an office for years. I did payroll, by myself for more than 1,500 employees. I also helped keep the books. It was a really, very stressful environment. My day, every day was about meeting deadlines.

Now I have kind of an unusual job. My boss doesn't even live in the same city I live in...I work alone, and I'm completely unsupervised. Hours are really flexible. But I have to perform, I'm evaluated on my sales numbers every month. So....there are days when I can seem to handle the stress alright, and there are days when it just drives me insane. I have conference calls, sometimes video-conferences, with VPs of different companies and I have to answer as to how I performed for the month. I have to answer tough questions sometimes. It hasn't happened in a while, but I also have to be on notice, to hop on a plane, and go to California, other parts of Texas, Louisiana...with no notice at all. Pack a bag and leave in two hours. I've done that before. I get compensated for it, they put me up in nice hotels and give me a ridiculous amount of per diem....but there's always that stress there that I'll have to leave and go to a town I don't know and meet up with people, work with people I don't know.

But it's far, far more tolerable than my last office job. I wouldn't go back to that for any amount of money.

My advice would be to find something tolerable for you. I never, ever imagined that I would ever be in outside sales but it actually causes me less anxiety than any other job I've ever had. I'm basically on my own, all day, I hardly ever work with anyone and when I deal with store managers it's all scripted. I know exactly what I need to say, to accomplish, I know exactly when the conversation is over and it's just time to move on lol. There is no guessing, at all, no anxiety about anything much. If you aren't happy with your job, don't just quit, but make arrangements to get a new job.

[Chantellabella]

My job is very public, therefore on the days when the panic starts to bubble up, I've learned to do a weird coping mechanism.

First I take a couple of really deep breaths and I comfort myself by saying the words, "you're ok."

Then as I enter the building, I say out loud over and over, I can do this. I can do this.

The quiet chanting pushes the negative worry out of my brain.

But then again, I might just have a small brain that can't hold a lot.

But that method has worked for me. I also seek out children and interact with them (it's part of my job) and kids are great at bringing you back into the moment.