Work-Related Anxiety--any advice? Panic attacks.

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posting here. I was recently diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and it's actually made a lot of things in my life up until now make sense. I have problems with self-esteem, and I used to just tell myself to get over my anxiety and that no one else was anxious so why should I be? I basically treated myself like my feelings were stupid and so they didn't deserve to be taken seriously. I'm learning to recognize that I have a legitimate disorder now though, and with therapy I'm starting to feel better about myself and certain situations.

Anyway, I recently took a retail holiday job to make a little extra money for application fees while I apply to schools (I'm in my mid-twenties). I've been trying very hard for three weeks now to be good and make it work, but I still feel sick inside every time I go there. And now today they put me on register and I had to deal with customers and pricing issues, and I felt like dying. I also feel like being hard on myself again because with how upset I get inside it seems like I should end up having some kind of panic attack to legitimize my feelings, but I never do. I just feel as awful as I possibly can over and over.

It's November 18 now and I don't know how I'm going to make it to January 1st. I'm thinking of doing my best to get through the black Friday schedule (I'm on an 8 hour night shift Thanksgiving night and an 8 hour night shift Friday night) and then telling them that I just can't handle the job for the rest of the season. But I almost feel more awful thinking about quitting than I do about doing the actual job. I don't know what to do anymore. Any advice?

Sometimes I don't know how I'm ever going to be okay.

Hi Jrose and welcome!

I am sorry to hear of your recent anxiety...

...but so PROUD of you for getting into therapy, and starting to feel validation regarding your challenges. Your change in thinking regarding your feelings about dealing with anxiety are a huge positive change!

As for your current challenge concerning your job...this is a tricky situation.

A.K. brings up a great point...and that is, sometime we do need to try and push past feelings of anxiety...not focus on them, therefore minimizing their effect on us. This helps us progress and lessen the power anxiety has over our lives.

However, at certain times along our journey, this may not be possible due to being in a fragile spot in our recovery.

Only you can know where the line is drawn for you.

If you have tried all you can, and still are really suffering...then perhaps cutting your losses and focusing fully on your anxiety management is what you need to do at this time.

If however, you think you can try some self help and make it through...then this could be a big leap in your treatment.

Using positive mantras is a little step that can have a huge impact. Repeat phrases such as:

"I am okay, this is only anxiety making me feel this way, and I can overcome it."

"I can handle anything that comes my way today."

"Feeling anxious at work is normal sometimes...I can use my coping skills and feel good again soon."

These reminders really do have an effect on how we feel. If negativity feeds anxiety, then naturally positivity starves it!

In addition, you can find great self help coping skills in our Resources at the top of the main forum page.

Practicing these exercises before, after...and even during breaks at work will help to keep your overall anxiety as low as possible.

I recommend starting with the 'Stress Relieving Exercises' that include breathing and progressive muscle relaxation...things you can do at home AND at work.

As well as the meditation video links that you can watch before going in, and after getting home.

If you need direct links for any of these, just let me know.:)

Come post here anytime you need to. We understand, care and support is key!

Talk soon,

Scaredy Cat

Thank you all so much for responding. It helps me a lot even just hearing that there are people who understand and who care enough to offer advice.

Alohaknown:

Aloha, I’ll try to keep your suggestion in mind of letting the anxiety float on by. I’ve tried to separate myself from it as much as possible for the three weeks I’ve been working so far. It just gets very difficult when they want me to do things that involve dealing with the customers. There are so many things I’m supposed to remember to talk to them about and so many potential issues, it scares me thinking about everything that could go wrong. I’ll try to take it one customer at a time though. I’m hoping mostly though that they’ll just keep me on early morning stocking and replenishing like I asked when I first started. Part of the problem is also I didn’t really get any training. They just had me show up and start doing things. With the register I got to watch someone do it for about twenty minutes before I had to start doing it on my own. I’m just really hope they only need me minimally for that job. And thank you for the book suggestions and for the offer to chat. I may need to take you up on that in the future.

Scaredy Cat:

Thank you for the warm welcome. And thank you for your support about me finally coming to terms with things. I really do feel so much better now that I’m not pretending I don’t have a problem. I think the biggest difficulty now though has just been finding a balance between acknowledging that my anxiety is a legitimate thing and taking steps to reduce it but also not letting it dominate my life and keep me from living and trying new things. It’s a process I’m hoping to get better at making work down the line.

For now I’m going to do my best to make it through this job because it’s a temporary thing. Originally I was going to try and stay on into January for however long they needed me, but I’ve decided to just get through Christmas and then tell them I’d like to be taken off the schedule for January. I think if I do my best I can get through that one month, and at the same time I won’t feel bad or guilty as long as I can make it through the holidays for them. My manager is very nice, and I already told him that I might want to leave after Christmas, and he said that would be all right and that we could talk about it more closer to that time.

Part of why the anxiety is so bad at the moment is because my usual job (also seasonal but ‘8 months long’ seasonal) is still going on, so I’ve been working about 15 hours a week at the holiday job and 40 at the usual job and I’ve been trying to fill out school applications, so even when I’ve had a day off it hasn’t really felt like one. But I’ll be done with the usual job and the applications by the end of the month, so I think December would be okay to get through with the weight of those two things taken off of me.

I appreciate the mantras so much. That’s kind of what I need, I think, to keep my head from reeling. My therapist suggested breathing and muscle relaxation exercises, so I’ll try some of them as well. If there are any meditation video links you could send me though, that would be wonderful :) Thank you so much.

Hi Jennings:
Thank you for the response. I’ve found that the jobs I work best in don’t involve a lot of customer/client interaction. I like working on computers and also just being given projects and a time do them in. Writing is something else that I seem to do well with. It’s really customers that overwhelm me the most. When I signed up for the holiday job, I asked for the early morning shift to help open new boxes of merchandise and stock the store so that I wouldn’t have to deal with people directly too much. They want me to start working the register though and that’s where the problem is. I’m just hoping they leave me on stocking as much as possible from now through Christmas.

Thank you so much, I appreciate all of your help :) I'm also going to talk to my therapist next week and see if she has any suggestions, especially since next week is the black friday schedule (I'm scheduled to go in Thanksgiving night from 7pm to 4 am and then Friday from 3pm to midnight... It's scaring me a lot).

I'll definitely keep posting. I'm probably going to need to pretty frequently from now through Christmas just to get by lol.

Thank you all again for all of your supportive words <3

JRose,

I have felt the same feelings. Not knowing if you can go to work. I just wanted you to know you are not alone.

JR,

Come and vent here anytime you need to...we do it all the time!

Being able to just let it out, is therapeutic...like jounaling, or talking with friends who understand...

...and that is just what we are! :)

Remember to use the mantras, and know that we all believe that you can do this...so have some faith in your abilities as well!

We will be here anytime you need support,

S.C.

Hi again everyone,

I'm not sure what to do now. It's still been making me nervous, but I've been going to the shifts the holiday job assigns me and I even took an extra one when they asked to help unload and stock an extra holiday shipment even though I'm still working full time at my other job through this week. But now I just got a voicemail last night from the holiday job saying that since they want me to be a cashier on Friday (which I'm dreading), they want me to either come in early for a twelve hour shift that day to give me more training or want me to stay an extra four hours on Wednesday to do more training.

Last week when the schedule was made I was assured I was just going to have a five hour shift on Wednesday, so I told my normal job I'd be there for the full eight hour day (and I really need to be--I work at a farm stand and it's pie pick up day for Thanksgiving). But I can't mentally handle working at the holiday job for twelve hours on Friday after working eight hours on Thursday. But my training so far on the register there was basically an hour watching someone do it and an hour of trying to do it myself for the handful of customers that came in that morning, so I really do need more training.

I have no idea what to do. I'm seeing my therapist today, I'm hoping she'll have a suggestion.

I keep having to get through these great waves of terror that come over me thinking about getting through this holiday. I'm not sure what to do anymore. I just wish it was over.

Thanks for listening, everyone, I appreciate it.

~JR

Thanks for the response, Scaredy Cat, and the encouragement. I appreciate it a lot. :3

My therapist was very helpful today. She just reassured me that it'd be normal for anyone to feel anxious with how much I'm doing right now, and that it makes sense that things feel particularly difficult for me and that I shouldn't beat myself up about it and make myself feel even worse by doing that. I'm going to start trying meditation. And I signed up for a consultation about medication. I'm not sure what the options are, but what I'd like is something that I could just take when things get really bad. I'm not always this strung out, it's just sometimes I get into these life situations that strike a really difficult chord in me. I should be able to see one of the medical people at the end of the month.

I've also been talking to a friend of mine who's been really supportive.

If I can just get through this week, I think I'll be okay. Then my usual job'll be over, black friday will be over, and I'll just have four weeks left at the holiday job.

Thanks again for the support, S.C. I'm just going to keep doing my best :)

~JR

Your positive thoughts mean a lot to me, thank you! ^_^ And thanks for the encouragement about the steps I took today. I'm hoping some good things will come of it.

Will do!

~JR

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give an update. I made it through the black friday shifts thankfully. They weren't as difficult as I thought they would be, but my anxiety was still pretty high while I was trying to get through them. But just thinking about all of your advice and my therapist's advice helped a lot. Thank you all so much for listening to me and helping me, it really made a difference <3

Now I'm going to try doing something very unusual for me and actually politely turn down an extra shift.I got a voicemail asking if I would take one, but between how stressful Thanksgiving was and how much work I've had to put into grad school applications all weekend, I don't feel like I can handle it. It's just a matter of me not guilting myself into taking it anyway, lol.

Again, thank you all for your help and kindness. I'm so happy I found this forum :)

~JR