Without going into too much detail, I’m having a lot of problems with certain people that I need to cooperate with and they are absolutely refusing to talk to me. I’ve done pretty well to deal with this for several weeks but it’s getting to the point where I need this person to talk to me.
Then, I was working on an assignment and was basically told by more senior members in the company in another department that they don’t need to do their part which makes it impossible to finish my work.
And to top it off, they are redoing the roof in my apartment so it sounds like the ceiling is coming down and I’m getting sensory overload which usually results in an anxiety attack.
I forced myself to take a short break and calm down since it will take time for others to do what is needed for me to proceed with my work.
I called my landlord abt the noise and she apologized. I contacted my lead about the people telling me they won’t do their part and I think he’s taking care of it. I haven’t gotten the lack of communication sorted yet but I went to my manager with my concerns. I also texted my husband and he tried his best to calm me down.
I guess this is just a reminder that I will still have bad days in spite of all the progress I’ve made so far. All of this happened in the first 2 hours of my work day and it was just too much all at once. I’m most worried about the Sensory Overload I think, because it’s usually hard to get that to come down and I don’t want to have an anxiety attack in the middle of my work day. T-T
As i understand - it was a really bad day. Bad days happen even if you’re an ideal and shining person!
Have you tried (sorry, i got to ask even if i think you tried) to say that you cannot finish your work because of this person? Maybe you should write an official report to you senior about it so he understand the “weight” of your words?
It is arguable that the reason this bothered me so much in the first place is because I take my job seriously and sometimes it is hard for me to step back and understand that I can’t do everything and I can’t fix everything so I get frustrated. I am doing a lot better about allowing myself to shut off after work and not think about it until the next day (this took years for me to be able to do) but I forget sometimes that I need to let someone else take care if stuff now and then.
How did you learned to shut off? I think it will help a lot of people here, including myself.
Please, do not make yourself a perfectionist. No one can make everything perfect! Not a single person. Saying a man, who is a perfectionist and cannot beat this sickness. I think perfectionism as sickness, because not a singe thing or being on this planet is perfect.
My therapsit said: “Just do everything good, this is really good enough!”. Doesn’t worked for me, but maybe will hit you
I think it all came down to a couple of different things happening at the right time.
Up until March of this year I was working in a grocery store bakery and had just been out of tech school for a couple of months and had been looking for a career in tech. I had an interview in February for a company and was informed at the beginning of March that they decided to hire me and I would start March 23rdaking triple the yearly salary that I made at my grocery store job.
Anyway, I let my boss know that I got the job and that I would stay until I started (some 3 or 4 weeks notice). And I really meant it when I said it… But that job made me so depressed and I would often have panic attacks, or I would have to prep talk myself to make it through the day because upper management was crap, there was no communication, and nobody else in my department besides me and my manager actually did our jobs, so we basically carried the department.
2 weeks before I was due to start at my tech job, I was on a closing shift which is a solo shift. I was left with entirely too much work to do iny shift, which was becoming a regular occurrence, so I went to take a lunch break to decompress. I texted my husband and told him I wanted to quit and he told me to go ahead. So I texted my boss and told her I’m sorry, but I can’t take this job anymore and she needs someone to come in and finish closing duties because I quit.
I realized that I have a lot of stress from work, which shouldn’t be the case. I knew if I wanted to get better I needed to cut out the work stress. I work from home now and don’t have to deal with traffic or people (for the most part). I also had to keep work emails and stuff off of my phone so I wasn’t tempted to check in. One of my trainers had to beat into my head that some days are slow and I won’t always have something to work on, while other days will be packed or dealing with people who clash with me, but he basically said, if something doesn’t get done, it’s ok, because there is always tomorrow and after he had been there for so long, there’s stuff he just doesn’t worry about because it’s not worth it.
For a while I didn’t listen. I pushed and pushed and got upset because I felt I wasn’t doing enough or I wasn’t doing something fast enough until 6 months into my job when I took my first vacation and I decided enough was enough and I’m tired of being so upset about work. I started therapy again around this time and my therapist helped my identify and acknowledge that over working part of myself and it was almost like a switch was flipped. It became easier for me to say I’m done for today. I still have problems, for example how this morning went. But it has helped me a lot with my stress levels. Having just come from a job where I was mistreated for so long and then going into one where everyone has been so patient and understanding with me (my manager is amazing) along with therapy all helped.
I just received a call from my boss. I work from home. But that was a very good call and it made my day a lot better. She told me that I did the right thing by contacting her about the communication issue and also told me that another one of the department heads actually thinks I’m a really cool person even though honestly I don’t remember ever talking to him lol. But I’ve been hearing that here and there at work, apparently people are starting to recognize my name and most of them like me. Who knew?
Sometimes, you don’t notice good things as they happen, only bad ones. I think it’s very hard to start noticing good things. Yeah, it’s bad weather today, some guys are banginig on my roof, etc - this is very easy But how to teach yourself to be happy about sunshine, people smiling or something like that?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a very positive person. That day just hit me wrong with thing and thing compiling so quickly and I’ve always been prone to sensory overload with my anxiety.
And i envy you (in a good way) that when you have a problem you deal with it ASAP. How do you do that? I just collect bad days until they blow me from the inside…
I’ve heard about a way to minimise the bad emotion. I tried, but it’s too hard for me, maybe i need more practice. What you need is to catch the moment you are feeling sad or angry, then say to yourself: “I allow myself to be angry for 5 minutes only” and start the stopwatch. Then, you just stop feeling bad (as they say) and after couple of tries you won’t need the stopwatch.
To be honest I’ve been trying to communicate with this co-worker for several weeks and it got to the point where I literally couldn’t do my job, and so I really had no choice. I basically do everything I can in my power and then usually when I can’t do anything else or I am getting frustrated (it takes a lot to get me to the point when I made my original post) that’s when I will usually decide that I need to let someone else handle it (it also helps that my boss knows how stressful my team’s job is and she encourages us to ask for help and even to take days off for mental health if we have to).
When it really comes down to getting something taken care of, I basically just have like a YOLO decision lol. I take some time to focus my mind and basically decide I’m gonna do this thing and deal with the results when they arise. This removes the opportunity for me to anticipate bad outcomes, because that is something else that my anxiety makes me do. So I just eliminate the chance for it to happen.
Got to try this. The point is - how to ask for help? I mean, how to say to yourself that asking others for help is not weakness?
“If you cannot do something yourself, than you’re weak” or you get a slight hit in the head. That is what my childhood was and that’s why i’m asking.
I can totally level with this because I felt the same way growing up. I still do more often than not. I think it helps a lot that my manager is always telling us to reach out if we need anything, and recently one of my co-workers took the time to listen when I said it can be frustrating to ask for help and he pretty much told me he’s always willing to help with anything I need. As far as my breaking point, any time I get mad or frustrated at the situation. It is very important to me to keep my work stress at a minimum because I am trying to break a bad workaholic habit. It’s a matter of health at this point, and keeping a healthy barrier between my mental health and my job.
