I HAVE BEATEN SA.......................

uk_27

uk_27

Well-known member
I started a new job about 10 weeks ago and the SA is screwing it all right up for me. I am like a door post in my office. I hardly ever join in with conversations because Im so anxious when they start that my mind is just blank. When I do speak, I sound all unconvincing and timid anyway so people are like..............."whatever dude" and tend not to persue conversations with me. My boss thinks I'm rude and misserable and so is rude back to me. When I make the effort to talk to him, he gives me one word or really short answers or even just ignores me. Basically he makes it quite clear that he has no interest in communicating with me.

Every day this happens and everyday I stress out about it.

Every evening after work, I think..........."why didn't I relax, I could of said so much there" and every evening I say "it will be alright tomorrow"

Every tomorrow, I go to work thinking "yes, this will be alright" and every tomorrow I walk into the office with a friendly "morning"

Every friendly "morning" returns a couple of friendly "mornings" and half hearted "morning" from my boss

I then sit in my chair and my mind is blank again and again no one is talking to me. Bollox!!!!!

But tomorrow won't be an "every tomorrow", my friendly morning won't return a half hearted "morning" with no conversation. Therefore it won't be my normal "every day" and my evening will not focus on me constantly reflecting up the days events. Because tomorrow I will be fine!!!!! :wink:
 
LittleMissMuffet

LittleMissMuffet

Well-known member
Hi Uk27,

I wish that I understood well and had overcome anxiety so that I could give you and anyone else proper advice.

All I can say now is that I relate to what you are going through. The last job that I had, it seemed that my anxiety had become worse. I believe that this was due to having been isolated and unemployed for a few years, both this absence of experience and the expectations I had to get reestablished effecting me.

I would go in everyday to work, and every single day was a struggle. Not only was I trying to start at really really low pay to learn an entirely new skill in a different work place after not having worked for a long time -but I had social anxiety weighing me down. And it is the latter that preoccupied my mind. ...I'd be exhausted after every day and nearly every day was painful. And after 6 months of this on-going battle, I got sacked. ...well, I must have done something right to have lasted so long, yet apparently not enough either.

The only other thing that I can say is that I notice that my anxiety results from a hyper-sensitivity that I have -I'm finely tuned emotionally. And for this reason I believe that that is why it is a delicate balance achieving freedom from anxiety problems.

How I think this applies to me and possibly to you also, is that, whilst being positive is obviously recommended -but perhaps with us, we also put high expectations on ourselves. ...And I think that these 'high expectations' are really subtle and probably hard for us (me) to notice.

...Like how social anxiety is a fear of fear: do you ever catch yourself going into a situation that you've had anxiety in before worrying and putting pressure on yourself to get rid of anxiety -or, like you said: "Tomorrow will be different"-? ...this is an expectation. And expectations are said to be the cause of all human misery and disappointment. But to live without expectation is said to achieve God-like status, where in fact the final result is gauranteed - because in the absence of expectation the result is not in doubt.

-What if you're going in with expectations puts a spotlight and emphasis on your performance in such a situation-? ...because with me I notice that I have a tendency to build things up; to make a casual, everyday encounter into some big test of my self or something bigger and scarier than it really is. ...and I think that, given the delicate balance of my emotions, that expectations are my biggest -and perhaps my only- enemy.

Maybe this advice is not perfect. But recently I noticed my self building up a situation before I went into it and I noticed telling myself: "OK, now don't get scared. Watch that you don't get anxious." ...there isn't necessarily anything wrong with these thoughts: to a person lacking high sensitivity, and especially if they lacked anxiety, these thoughts would be how they dealt with any anxiety. Yet with me they seem to have the effect of making me tense-up and see the situation as some major mountain to climb. Instead I dropped seeing it like this and imagined instead that the situation wasn't as big, that it was an everyday affair. ...being more 'casual' in my approach seems a good alternative to my approaching situtations with an expectation to perform well because of a fear about performing badly.

...another thing perhaps is that reminding myself to smile to replace an (what I believe are) unconcious reflexive panic that otherwise I feel; so that I can replace my fearful approach to a situation/person, with a non-fearful one . I see it as: smiling takes all my worries away and makes everything simpler.
 
uk_27

uk_27

Well-known member
Thanks for your reply little miss! Appreciate it. Strangely enough, work was actually alot better today then normal. I was really quite confident and chatty in the office. It was even enjoyable at times!!! My boss was still nasty to me though.
 
sunwindandfire

sunwindandfire

Active member
I used to have a boss like that. I worked at a golf course and he always avoided me. Everyone else at my job was cool but he seemed to think I was weird because I would get so nervous talking to him.

I told him that I had an anxiety disorder and he just looked at me like I was crazy. The reason I told him was because I didnt want him giving me a job where I felt "trapped." He would talk crap when I wasn't around and always wished bad things on people.

So basically over the last year I started working on the internet and quit my job. I now make more in 1 month than he makes in 2 years at work. I can tell he's really jealous because when I quit and told him I was going to become a member he looked like he was going to throw up. You're my boss now bitch!
 
Jack-B

Jack-B

Well-known member
UK_27

When you are on a journey and you are trying to get to a certain destination and you go down a dead end, you remember that it is the wrong way and you try a different route.

This is where you are going wrong.

In your mind, your thoughts every morning lead you to this dead end where anxiety awaits you. You need to say to yourself, "it's not appropriate for me to think like this anymore because i know where it leads".

Only when you realise this will you be able to move forward and stop wasting your time on thoughts that lead you to experience pain. It's not easy but its a process of routine and familiarity. If you can understand that certain ways of thinking are harmful, all you then need to do is apply effort in not thinking that way and choosing a more appropriate realistic approach to such situations.

You go blank in situations because anxiety is a familiar routine path within your mind, this makes the mind tense and rigid. The mind focuses inappropriately, mistakenly and so memory doesn't function as well. This is why when we get nervous/anxious we forget things easily.

Try breaking your day into several parts, and once one part is over evaluate how things have been, and then decide to change your way of handling things; this will make your day seem more manageable rather than just focusing too much on what went bad, who ignored me etc in the entire day.

Take care

Jack
 
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