Living and working with anxiety and depression Sunday 9th January 2022

 

The anxiety attacks I'm going through over the past few days may not be as debilitating and destructive as we can experience them but Jeeeeeez they are constant and tiring.
Yesterday continued to build on its previous few days. I'm taking full dosage of my anxiety pills and if they are doing anything then I'm not particularly aware of it.

The cause of my raised anxiety is, as I've described, my approaching return to the Day Job.
Back in October I started losing grip because I was very afraid that changes in the workplace were going have enough of an effect on me psychologically that I would fall back to where I had been "in my head" four years previously. That period of my life proved such a life changing and  frightening experience it has left it's indelible mark upon my psyche forever more.
But when things like that revisit you then you have noone in the workplace to actually talk to about it. So it gets suppressed and grows into something with more power than it is entitled to.

This is another of my main reasons for my crusade. For my mission to normalise Mental Health conversation.

Looking back to October I was actually telling people how I felt just like in 2017 because I was crying out for someone to understand me. To reassure me. To help me.

I'm advised that issues that to many colleagues would be of small but annoying consequence remain in place around the practicalities of our day to day working environment.

But to me they have had a huge effect on my confidence and therefore my ability to function. I really need everything to be "just so" for my return.

This all reads as being really precious of me but unfortunately it's where my head still is. I believed I'd moved on. But also I believed the various workplace issues had been dealt with. So it's been a bit of a shock to me.

I'm feeling helpless at the current moment. I really do not want to hit the floor again this close to returning to work.

So once more I'm fighting. Tiring from internal dialogues that go round and round my head. Angry at my own lack of improvement especially when I was doing so well and planning my return.

Don't get me wrong. The very thought of returning to the day job scares me. But that's easy to come to terms with on the surface. I've been off three months so it will be like first day at school again. Then ten minutes later I will have settled in.

But the very reason that someone who has become like me. Someone that seeks safety and security in every day routine. Every minute routine.
The very reason we need things to be on a firm foundation is that we struggle to cope with anything that's not guaranteed to stay the same for us.
At the earliest sign of not being in control we start to spiral towards panic. And the more challenging it becomes the bigger and more reactive our anxiety is.

So we already see a point in the future where we are failing to address the simplest of tasks and being judged for it.
A detailed movie plays out in our head like looking down on ourselves whilst falling apart.
At its mildest we experience some psychological discomfort at its progressive worst this passes through being debilitating and can lead to severe psychosis.

Awfulised thoughts take control at the earliest stages which if not checked will develop into much worse scenarios.

Please get in touch with me if these scenarios resonate with you.

That will do for this week. Thanks for your continued support.

Be kind

Pete x
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