<<I am not looking for medical advice, just general ideas for how I can cope with what I’m feeling, in the middle of a work day>>
About forty minutes before I was due to leave for work this morning, I started feeling a bit down. I didn’t want to leave the house, I just wanted to curl up and watch TV. That is pretty normal, I’m lazy and don’t want to work at the best of times. Normally the feeling gets gone by the time I get to work, after twenty-thirty minutes riding on my bike. But today, it hasn’t.
I feel like I want to turn tail and run home. My hands feel slightly tingly and a couple of times I’ve felt my eyes prickling like I was on the verge of tears. I just have this overwhelming feeling of not wanting to be here. I want to go home, get into bed and never come out again. I feel nervous in my tummy, and there’s no appreciable reason why.
I’m at work, I work in a call centre so there’s no out of the way filing room I can hide myself in until I feel more in control again. I have to be on the phones and talking to people for the next eight hours. I feel terrified.
I just don’t know what to do. Is there any way that you, the Dopers, have found to calm yourselves down when you’re feeling like this? Any techniques for getting through the day when panic ensues?
You feel like you can’t deal with people, with their expectations and how they need more from you than you can give?
Just checking. If so, I know exactly where you’re coming from, and also how it can come out of a clear sky and then keep you chained to the house for months.
On the other hand, I have no brilliant solutions. I’m sorry. 
But you have my sympathy, and empathy.
I don’t know if it’s likely to be helpful, but I wrote out what it’s like for me a while back, on my well-I-started-but-never-followed-through blog.
From first-hand accounts I’ve heard, most people get very good response from medication*, so I really think seeing a doctor - or better yet, a psychiatrist, so you can hopefully learn if there’s a trigger for the depressive anxiety and how to work around it - would be a very good move. This feeling might go away on its own, sure, but it also might move in with a vengeance and you really, really don’t want that.
Good luck to you, Sierra Indigo. Hope it comes good for you!
*In my case, medication has proved useless because I react poorly to most of it - anything from sending my blood pressure & heart rate skyrocketing (Prozac gave me a *sleeping * heartrate of 114 bpm) to making me a zombie. The ones that didn’t make me sick also didn’t help me, but I understand that puts me very much in the minority of cases.
Sierra, this probably isn’t that helpful, but I somehow wandered into the state I think you’re describing a while back. I was quitting smoking, and took Zyban/Wellbutrin for several weeks, and I ended up a) smokeless, and b) having panic attacks.
I do know how (I think) you’re feeling – a dark cloud over your every decision, a fear to move or to do…anything. For me, it was horrible: the slightest apprehension (“hmmm, I might spill that milk”) magnified to sheer terror. Really irrational magnification of managable risks.
In my case, I got some anti-anxiety meds from the doc, and got the hell off of WellButrin ASAP. I can’t even imagine living in that state.
Best of luck.
Well, I for one can really identify with this phenomenon. So, worry not - you’re not alone.
It could be a panic or anxiety attack. If that’s the case, then yes, a visit to your doctor is truly in order. They can do some wonderful things these days for anxiety disorders.
It could be as simple as a five minute bathroom break to go in, breathe deeply, center yourself, and feel more capable.
Then again, I had a job once where I was SO unhappy, it began to manifest in actual illnesses. I knew I was unhappy with the job, but I had no idea that my unhappiness would result in something that really distressed the rest of me in such a vehement way. Once I left the place (and I really just quit, which was not responsible, but I had to do it, and I was in a different “place” at that time), it was amazing how much better I felt. Might be worth taking a personal inventory and seeing how you really feel about your day. These twenty minutes before work might just be a warning signal. Know what I mean?
In any case, a trip to the doc might not be such a bad thing. Even if they say there’s nothing wrong, it’s better to know that it’s the place making you feel that way than something actually physically being wrong - and sometimes that can be easier to correct.
For what it’s worth, I sympathize and empathize, and hope things end well for you.
Respectfully,
Inky
Thanks for the sympathy and suggestions everyone. I know I really should be getting to a doctor, but unfortunately at 40 minutes before work on a Tuesday afternoon, my options for seeking medical assistance are kind of limited 
Things are feeling a little less scary at the moment, it’s a bit of a slower day at work today, but it’s still not all roses. I guess it helps a little to have gotten some of it off my chest, and know it’s not all that strange a thing to be feeling. It’s just really, really unpleasant.
To be honest, I don’t know if it is my job or not. I like the job itself, I enjoy technical support and helping people. But there’s the expectations of having to fix everything (from customers, not the company), and the KPIs and other stats I have to meet for the job, which can’t be helping matters any. But I’m stuck here, until Hubby finds work, so I’ve got to make the best of a not-terribly-good situation.
Thanks again everyone. It does help.