Work anxiety

[Justmehere]

I made a mistake at work - I spaced and skipped a crucial step in a proved ur e that I’ve never missed before. called my boss admitted my error and we got it fixed together. Then I couldn’t find forms that I had been completing on close every day.

There is another matter in my personal life that came up.

A day after my last shift at work and I am a mess. I am having severe panic attacks back to back. Doc gave me Xanax and sleep meds to try to stop the slide into this state. I am certainly sedated and I’m still panicking. If I put all my effort into keeping my breath slow, i can slow it down. I’m trying other ways to ground and do good self care and it’s not working. I can’t seem to eat much.

I need some ways to reassure myself or put work away or....

it’s a short term contract and I doubt I’ll get fired but I may have lost my ability to get rehires for this job again.

But I was already thinking of trying a different job in a different sector as I work my way off disability.

I still need some strategies to get through no working today and somehow pulling it together so I can go in tomorrow.

 

[Freida]

From a boss point of view -- I would keep an employee who screws up and owns it, then works with me to fix it, long before I would keep an employee who either blew it off or tried to hide it.

Everyone makes mistakes. EVERYONE. It's what you do next that shows your true character. I'd say the way you handled this showed you have a good one. :hug:

 

[whiteraven]

I just went through a horrid 3-4 days of this kind of anxiety - I work full-time at a job I've had for 16 years and am terrified of losing my job, but my reaction is almost always way over the top. For me, it's associated with being afraid I'll get in trouble, even when I know I did the right thing. Mine used to manifest as difficulty breathing, but now every muscle is taut when I am anxious.

There are some apps that help with breathing that I've used. One (I can look for it if you're interested) helps with deep, slow breathing. It really helps me if I'm having one of those panicky, can't catch my breath moments.

The only thing that got me through this past weekend was television. I found something I could get totally engrossed in and it took me out of myself for awhile. Are there things you do that might help distract you from the anxiety and the constant thinking about it? Lots of things I *can't* do when I'm like that, so it took awhile to find something that helps. And the same thing doesn't help every time.