1. A job you find very boring or dull.
2. Staff members who are irritating or not very nice.
3. A commute that you may have to take to get you to this place of boredom and horrible people.
4. In a time of cuts, having to cope with your job being under threat all the time.
5. In a time of cuts, having to do four people's job and being too busy.
6. Getting paid peanuts.
7. Being passionate about a job, meaning you get easily angry and irritated with yourself if things don't go right.
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| Insert stereotypical, patronising image here |
I guarantee everyone reading this will have to deal with at least one of these when you next go into work. For the record, mine are 3 and 7, but also 5 - not because of cuts fortunately, but because my boss decided to throw herself down her stairs at home and will be off work for 6 weeks consequently. But you get the idea.
I've been in full-time work for over six years now and in that time I've come across many people who I either know quite well or vaguely well who have had to take a few weeks off with stress. Now, I haven't got a dictionary in front of me, but I deem stress to be a condition that is temporary. Yes it can be very nasty when it happens and cause you to feel weak, pathetic and can have a significant impact on your quality of life, but usually only temporarily. This is the key word. Anxiety and stress are words that are brandished around as meaning the same thing, where, as I'm sure everyone reading this will appreciate, anxiety is a totally different ball game. It is something that usually lasts for a lot longer, or keeps returning on a relatively frequent basis, and affects most aspects of your life. Taking time off work, for example, wouldn't necessarily heal an anxiety condition, as it can start to affect the rest of your life even if it started at work. I mean, taking time off work probably wouldn't help as the rest of the time you're equally as worried about your next social occasion or that mole on your arm that you swear wasn't there yesterday.
So what this blog aims to describe is how I've managed work given that I already had an anxiety condition in the first place. The 'Anxiety @' series has already detailed my experiences at school and University and shows that when I first started my employment in 2008, I was already well versed at being twatted on by the symptoms of anxiety.
I will emphasise that, from the outset, I have been lucky when it comes to work, for two main reasons. Firstly, I have a job in a field that I am passionate about. In these days of cuts, that's not a common occurrence and I have friends who are one-hundred times more intelligent than me who have struggled for the last few years to even get a job, let alone one that they enjoy. Secondly, I've only ever had one what I would call 'proper' interview for a job in my life, and that was just over a year ago. Had I had this a year before (or earlier), I probably wouldn't have been able to cope, especially given I had to catch the train to have the interview in the first place. My first job was a graduate placement that I knew was only temporary and was almost like an extension of University, as I was basically researching and writing a report. So my 'interview' was just an informal meeting with a couple of staff members at the organisation. 2008 was one of my better years for anxiety, too, between 1997 and today so that also made it easier.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect. I was obviously nervous early on, and by nervous I don't mean 'normal person nervous,' I mean 'I have an anxiety condition' nervous. Anxious people don't get butterflies, they get flying ostriches. Anyway, eating was a problem, as always and it soon dawned on me that the person I sat next to in the office didn't say two words to me, or anyone else for that matter. So it made it an uncomfortable start, as someone with social anxiety who finds it difficult to converse with over and under-confident people (and, in fact, people in between). I remember on my first day I was absolutely desperate for the loo. I mean, they nearly had to phone up the water board due to unspecified leaks. And yet I was so nervous about even asking whether I could leave this inception meeting I was in to go that I had to hold on.
Lesson 1: Don't be frightened to ask your manager or colleagues something, anything - particularly if it's toilet related.
Anyway it subsided and the rest of the placement was okay and didn't produce too many anxiety-producing moments. A few months later, I started work experience at my next place of work, where I ended up staying until about a year ago (Jan 2014). I would say that the worst time over this period was whenever I went out on a social occasion with these people. Eating out being the main reason (see previous blog), but also the people made nights out into the worst possible trigger for social anxiety it was untrue. But work itself was manageable, except for in 2011.
Anyone who regularly visits this blog will know that 2011 was the worst year for me, after that Cornwall incident in March of that year. The whole year subsequently was a living hell, and that included work. For a start, I could barely leave the house, so just travelling the (then) short distance to work raised my anxiety levels. I had to cancel meetings that I didn't need, as my panic disorder was so severe at that point that any contact I had with others would automatically make me assume that I would have a panic attack in such a situation (which I genuinely would have, so at least the fear was rational). I vividly remember catching the bus to a meeting (yep... because I don't drive) which was quite far away and panicking all the way there and barely being able to conduct the meeting when I arrived. This happened a few times over this period.
I also remember a presentation I had to give in front of around 50 people. Now, presentations for work, oddly, I'm generally okay with (for reasons I won't go into now because it'd extend the blog length too much), but this one was bad timing and in front of a particularly large audience. It was horrific. I was focusing purely on my heart rate, listening for anything I deemed odd, and of course it was beating fast. I did the talk, but with literally weeks of heightened anxiety before it in anticipation. I garbled through most of the presentation but at least I did it. But in this case, the pain I went through outweighed the success of doing it, instead of the other way round.
Lesson 2: Don't be scared to opt out of certain things if you don't feel comfortable.
Then there was one lunchtime that I broke down and driven home by a colleague. I blurted out to my boss about anxiety and the fact that this was a long-term problem. The next day I was called into a meeting by my boss and team manager to be told all about 'stress.' Going back to my earlier point, it was difficult not getting quite angry about this, although in fairness to them they were just trying their best. I also feared that I would be 'signed off' for a while, but fortunately this did not happen.
Gradually, via my therapy, my work actually became my haven a little. I was more comfortable there than in social situations. I can talk to people at work about work, a subject I know a fair bit about and am comfortable with. Social situations involved pretending to be someone I'm not, otherwise feeling insignificant. I was getting better at my job and more independent, which made me confident, and this happened hand in hand with my therapy which was gradually helping me. Don't get me wrong, there were still moments of discomfort, as there is with anything when you have a chronic anxiety condition. Towards the end of this job, 2013-14, I was improving generally and the work situation had improved, as I temporarily had a different, better boss, a colleague who became a good friend and some other decent people around me. The job was my own and although I was busy I was enjoying it. All this positivity from the people perspective was only temporary (maternity cover), but then my current job was advertised...
Lesson 3: When choosing a job, try and get to know your team and the people you'd be working with beforehand, even if it's just briefly. This is as important as any aspect of any job, as working in a team of people you don't like can make even a job that you enjoy difficult.
Late 2013 it was: this was the first job I'd applied for where I thought I'd have a slim chance of getting it. There was no point applying much before this as, as I mentioned before, there's no way I could have gone through with such a big change, or indeed the interview in the first place. But the reality is, I still have an anxiety condition - so how exactly did I cope with the interview?
1) Take the train before the train before the train before I needed to, to minimise stress.
2) Take items, such as my tablet, book, phone, music, paper, food, water etc that I might need for 'comfort.'
3) Plan the route from the station to the interview venue.
4) Concentrate on breathing at all times, even when I didn't feel like it.
Notice that these tips have nothing to do with the interview itself - they are simple mechanisms that I now try and employ before anything slightly out of the ordinary - conferences, social events, travelling anywhere - it just makes it that bit easier. I think the other thing is not to make it a big deal - I knew if I didn't get this job it wouldn't be the end of the world, which relaxed me somewhat.
I appreciate that not everyone is in this boat - some people go for interviews and they need to be successful for the sake of being able to live properly. That takes me back to one of my first points - I am lucky, not just to have got the jobs I got prior to my current one, but also to have a comfortable background to fall back on if things do go tits up. I do fully appreciate not everyone has this background stability which, although may have caused some of my underlying anxiety, has also helped to manage it and stopped these sort of situations from being critical. However, that isn't to say the above tips should be ignored, as they will help a bit - at least.
Lesson 4: Practice interviews. It's never the same as the real thing, but can help if prepare you a little. If you have to travel for an interview, take the journey in advance, just to practice it - as daft as it sounds.
I have been in this current job for a year. The worst bit about it is the commute which I get very irritated by, in terms of incompetence of our railway system. The second worst bit is the amount of work, which at present is even more significant given one of our four staff members is on long term sick (not due to stress, I hasten to add). Because I am a perfectionist and I'm passionate about my job and have a fear of letting people down, I want to make sure I please everyone and do everything, so I end up working far more hours than I'm paid for. This, of course, can make you stressed - and when you have a chronic anxiety condition, stress doesn't really exist. It quickly turns into something more sinister... and we go full circle.
But work for me has, at times, been a blessing rather than a cause of anxiety. It keeps me sane, because boredom gives my mind too much time to wander into dangerous territory, and is where I'm at my most confident. So although it has been difficult at times, overall I would say the benefits of my jobs have outweighed the negatives.
Apologies for the ramble; these 'Anxiety @' blogs are lengthy as I'm trying to go through several years' worth of experience in one go. Some more coming up, which should be shorter affairs, are as follows (in no particular order):
Anxiety @ The Railway Station
Anxiety @ A Shared House
Anxiety @ The Pub
Anxiety @ The Doctors
Sounds like a series of children's books.
Best wishes
Al
