It doesn’t surprise me that all of a sudden it’s May, what with my new job, fitting in some kind of life, the boring adulting stuff and the amount of sleep I have desperately needed to have. I actually started a blog post a couple of weeks ago with the intention of discussing a day in the life of my anxiety but time and energy were not on my side. Today though, I will be talking about how I feel, right in the middle of it all.
Today is the first day in a long while that I have felt myself slip back into a low state. It’s not severe but enough to fill me with some doubt, to feel a tad paranoid, to over think, and to feel overly emotional. I like to think that this is a knock on effect from being overly enthusiastic and also anxious in my new job, as well as a weekend that I had previously been concerned about, and I will hopefully even out but I still need to get through it without letting it consume me.
The past month has obviously tested just how well I really am doing. I have been constantly trying to ignore the voice in my head that keeps saying that I’m not really as OK as I think I am, that I will crumble under the pressure, that I am a fake – which has been easy to do so far thanks to the fantastic support of my colleagues and some great feedback! But that is just one month: I’m new, so how long will all of this last before I start lagging behind, before people get fed up of my constant questions, before I am told I am just not cut out for it? I’m constantly being reassured that where I am and what I am doing is where I should be, but I think my struggles to settle into my previous role are weighing on my mind, so I constantly push myself to nail things as soon as possible. I have already been told off for pushing myself too hard, beating myself up for my mistakes and for saying sorry too much! Today I was told multiple times that it’s OK that I made a mistake – told so many times in fact, that I burst out laughing! I’m glad that everyone has a sense of humour regarding my determination to not suck at my job!
My anxiety has predictably been a pain in the arse. It’s a strange situation though because I am GLAD that I am suffering with anxiety which seems more general?! When compared to the anxiety I have been suffering with over the last few years which led me to almost completely ruin my degree, my job, my social life and my home life, no one should be surprised that I feel glad at this change. That doesn’t mean I don’t also feel frustrated, because I really do. It’s still very unpredictable and messes up my cognitive functioning, sometimes being with me from the moment I wake up until I go to bed again, sometimes easing off, sometimes appearing out of the blue well after I have set off for work, and it’s harder because I don’t know what I can do about it. There is no one thing that helps: I am now more organised in the mornings because I prepare everything the night before; I go to bed more often than not at a reasonable time and I get up with enough time to do everything and get to my bus stop without having to rush; I am aware of when I can and can’t even drink tea or coffee because of how it can exacerbate my anxiety. And all of this helps, but doesn’t get rid of my anxiety entirely.
I ended up a little upset about this the other week. As much as I am so proud of myself for overcoming the worst of it all, I still feel defective because of the way my anxiety makes me think and feel. I even see the look on my partner’s face, something I am sure he isn’t completely aware of, the look that says he doesn’t understand why I would think or feel the way I do. I am sure a lot of people don’t realise that my overthinking and the pain I feel are not things I do on purpose, but are things I cannot always control. Believe me when I say that I DO NOT chose to be this way and I there are days that I cry because I hate that I don’t function like everyone else. People around me get through life not constantly questioning everything, crippled both physically and mentally – I know everyone gets anxious, it’s a natural response to the unknown, but it’s not natural to feel that way almost 90% of the time; anxiety can be overwhelming and sometimes I feel that it’s worse than depression.
I know much of my anxiety at work is because of work. It’s new and I am learning a heck of a lot, the branch I work in is a very busy one, and there are some elements of the job that I can’t just learn by following a work book which are challenging me in ways that I didn’t expect. I think I have been so caught up in work that it detracted from my worries about the weekend – I certainly had a great time, even if it did highlight some of the hurdles I have yet to overcome.
So here I am, sad that I am feeling low at the moment. I think part of the issue is not knowing how to process some of things that came up with me over the weekend, and the knowledge that there are some bigger things I need to address now that I am settling into my new job. After a bit of a discussion at my last counselling session, we agreed that it was perhaps not quite the right time to finish yet so hopefully I will come to a resolution soon. All in all I’m doing OK, trying to be kind to myself and also reminding myself that I have had a great month seeing friends, spending time with family, leaving drinks with my old colleagues, meeting new people and just good times in general.
xxx
The Anxious Extrovert 