Today my boss was on a business trip. I knew what the new programming tasks would be and I was dreading it. I had a psychiatrist’s appointment (for schizoaffective disorder) and said I was worried about work. She said I should talk to the boss about it and maybe get an admin job because I was complaining about the work being difficult. She also suggested training but I know enough about the programming language. Every now and then I’d think about quitting. Though I often like my job and the time passes very quickly unlike other jobs I’ve had. I had a valium for the first time but still had some dread after half an hour when it is meant to start working.
I ended up phoning the boss’s assistant and asked if I could go home early and she said I could.
Another story about work:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=722893
I think that maybe I’d accept my job more if I got whipped or something for thinking about quitting. I am quite close to quitting. I don’t really need the money and I’d like all the extra free time I’d get. One of the people I live with never works though he hears voices very regularly.
Maybe I’m focusing on myself too much. I feel better when I’m working with someone - which I am a lot of the time.
Please consider a blog. There is no question, debate or advice sought in your OP.
Not sure that you’re even looking for input.
This is precisely the sort of thing that blogs were designed for, please get one!
“That’s why they call it work.”
I have a fairly cushy job, and I’ve pared my hours down to the point where I’m almost a tiny bit embarrassed. But it’s still work. It’s somewhere I have to be when I’d rather be on a lake.
My advice is to accept that work is an obligation, like it or not. As long as your pay checks are on time and appropriate in amount, that is.
It sounds like you need to think about the reason for dread (fear of failure or embarrassment?) and also think about time management (when given a complicated task, break it down into smaller tasks, and do one at a time).
I hear 2 maybe encouraging things in this… (1) that you often like your job, which makes you luckier than many of us, and (2) although the medication wasn’t completely effective, it was somewhat effective? Discuss the results with your physician, because there are other medications you could try.
Apart from the anxiety, you sound much more lucid and together than you have in the past. It sounds like you just need to figure out your best work management and anxiety management strategies. Good luck to you.
IANAD, so take all this with a grain of salt.
I suspect that you are catastrophizing perfectly normal feelings. It’s like that old phrase “Don’t go around comparing your insides to everyone else’s outsides.” Everyone feels anxiety when faced with a challenging task. You just have to start working on it anyway, and pretty soon you are so focused on doing it that you’ve forgotten how hard it is.
Once folks have a diagnosis it’s easy to view every discomfort as a symptom of illness, rather than a normal part of life. But some of it is, and we just have to walk through it.
Try to intellectualize the sensation, as of you were the narrator of a movie. “Iam experiencing normal feelings of challenge and uncertainty, and I can keep moving through them.”
Running away does not lead your life forward towards positive place. Practising facing down your feelings will allow you to improve your life a little bit each year, and move toward whatever you would like to build for yourself. Though I do agree with your doctor that training, even if it’s review, can increase confidence and help you walk through that reluctance to begin a task.
And as to your friend, I agree that boredom is not conducive to recovery. The mind will find a way to fill the time, and not always constructively. Your friend would probably see his symptoms lessen or abate if he could focus his attention on something productive.
I think you are on to something when you suggest getting whipped.
Did you cry this time?
I’m looking for input.
If I had a blog I would focus more on my own thoughts like many times in the past that hasn’t ended well. (Ended up in a mental hospital)
The thing is though is that I am on the disability support pension and would get more of it if I worked less or not at all. Though overall I get more money when I work.
I think I remember a self-help book or a mental health worker talking about choosing to do things rather than feeling trapped and forced into it…
Maybe it is because I feel like I am out of control… I prefer having a feeling of mastery or competence over what I’m doing.
Yeah ok.
That’s good.
It didn’t seem to help at all. The doctor also said I could breathe deeply and slowly.
Thanks.
No not this time.
Well I used to be more detached… but that sounds helpful.
I’ve had a long history of running away though. I avoided huge numbers of school outings and parties, etc. When I started not to fear situations I ended up becoming manic… lately things have been going really well and I think that trouble will always come up sooner or later - even if it comes from people taking risks.
Well he does watch Youtube and DVD’s a lot of the time.
Yesterday I worked from about 8:30-10:30 then 1:30 to 3:30pm. (in between I went to the doctor then went back to get a prescription for valium).
Today I got to work at about 11:30. I stayed in bed for a long time and didn’t want to get out of bed even though I did to go to the toilet and I had to wake my wife up early for her job. At work I was surprised that the person I was working with wanted a fairly trivial sounding thing as the priority. (making sure that trainers have the correct page numbers in the online assessment). I worked on it until about 4:30pm and will work on it more tomorrow. It seems like a waste of my income. Initially I was working with a lady to work on it together but I didn’t want to read out each of the hundreds of questions while she searched for the corresponding page numbers. I’m fairly sure that the employer (who’s on a business trip) asked her for me to do something less difficult. Time passed quite quickly - I’m just feeling worried that I’m wasting their money… BTW the questions/page numbers are inside PHP code which means it isn’t something the other people can do themselves.
The Road Less Traveled - M Scott Peck:
“In the first section of the work Peck talks about discipline, which he considers essential for emotional, spiritual and psychological health”
“…The elements of discipline that make for such health include the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility for oneself and one’s actions, a dedication to truth, and balancing.”
This morning I had really low amounts of discipline… but since I went to bed before 8pm I wasn’t tired enough to sleep all day.
There are good things about working, right? Do you enjoy your job more than 50% of the time?
John Clay, we’ve told you before not to blog – er, post – about your mental health preoccupations.
This is closed.
No warning issued, but I will the next time you do it.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator