Hey everyone! I don’t post here much, but I read all of your posts every day. 
A little about me (that’s relative to this post): I work almost every day. M-F I’m an inside sales representative for a moving company, and I’m a part-time EMT on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve had this schedule for a little over 2 years now, and I’ve been handling it relatively well, given both jobs are semi-relaxing (we have too many reps at my M-F job so once my workload is done I’m usually just chilling around the office, and when I’m not on EMT calls on the weekend, I’m hanging out with buddies around the station). The two primary reasons why I began working so much are #1) I wanted to make money quicker to “catch up” to my peers and #2) When I have nothing to do during the day, anxiety has a “field day” with me. Working dodged this issue, but it absolutely didn’t (and doesn’t) solve it.
Well, I think I’m finally starting to break.
The catalyst to this latest episode was getting turned down (again) after making it the final round of interviews for a new M-F job (being a Partnership Development Representative at a mental health tech company). Since then (last week), it has been a continual spiral downwards in mental health. At first, it was battling negative thoughts. After wrangling those thoughts and combatting them with truth, depression started to calm down a little, but anxiety has continued to absolutely skyrocket. The problem: All of the tools I have in my backpack to combat anxiety aren’t significantly working. Now I’m experiencing nocturnal panic attacks (waking up in the middle of a panic/anxiety attack), so it’s getting a little out-of-hand.
I view anxiety has my brain screaming “something needs to change” - Alas, I agree. A few things I’ve been thinking of changing:
#1) Building a “quiet corner” in my room, consisting of a coffee table holding candles, a zen water fountain, and an essential oil diffuser with lavender. Next to the coffee table, two colored, shelved floor lamps with plants, and a bean bag to sit on, in front of the coffee table. The quiet corner will be dedicated to relax, nap, read, meditate, pray, and breathe. It’ll be a little expensive to build, but studies show that you value something the more you work on achieving it (via dedicating time, money, etc., to achieve your goal), so I’m hoping this’ll trigger something to take seriously.
#2) I’m thinking it might be time to start small by taking Sundays off of work, and to combat my “weekend anxiety” head-on. It’ll be really hard at first, and I’ll need to figure out what to do, but I think it’ll pay off in the long run. Working every day did feel nice by getting extra pocket change and dodging anxiety, but I’ve had to sacrifice church, friendships, and relationships in the meantime. There’s something special about community outside of the workforce, and I’ve been missing that for a while.
#3) It’s probably time to check back into counseling. Having a trained professional next to me to guide me throughout this process will be helpful. I thought I could do this on my own, but my symptoms disagree.
Anyway, that’s all I have so far. If you have thoughts or anything to add, I would greatly appreciate it!
And as always, you’re not alone in the fight. We’re all in this together and we’ll get through it!