I’m a people pleaser. I have anxiety and depression thanks to some trauma. I’ve been in therapy for a little over a year.

Objectively, I’m doing ok at work. I have always met expectations. However, it takes a lot out of me. I always try to meet people’s expectations because disappointing people feels unbearable. Because of the ability to break things, I often shirk responsibility and make myself unreliable in subtle ways

My experience in work has a big impact on my wellbeing outside. Due to forcing my way through the anxiety, I feel very tired and often have to rest (lying down in the dark, not interacting with anyone) for several hours on evenings and weekends.

At the moment, I am lying in bed most of the day and having 2-3 panic attacks per day (by panic attack, I mean that my heart starts beating really strongly and quickly, and my breathing feels like it’s running away from me).

I think my difficulties are almost certainly related to the trauma. I have a lot of trepidation around, and fawn a lot with the colleagues that set me tasks, even though I can see objectively that I am not in any danger.

I have been trying to set more boundaries, be more upfront and stop this fawning. I am making some (slow) progress, but I still have a real lack of energy outside of work, and spend a lot of time anxious about the next working day. It’s impacting my life a great deal.

Does anyone have any similar experiences, or ideas of how to stop these situations from having such a big effect on the rest of my life?

  • Delazzzer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    4 days ago

    Hello OP,

    I hear ya eh, having an emotionally exhausting workday and working through trauma at the same time is really tough. I’ve had similar experiences. I really relate to feeling confident with your ability to do work which make the tasks themselves not feeling challenging, but everything all together feels like a massive hurdle. For me especially as it relates to my coworkers and customers.

    I definitely can’t relate 1 to 1, and what’s helped, so far, might not be right for you. But here’s some of the things that helped me.

    Movement

     Any exercise you can muster or able to do. If you're not sure plan small and start even smaller. I'm lucky I have a bit of exercise equipment and it can get boring so I always line up some music or a show or even a game I could play while doing it. If no one is around I'll get some music and dance like an idiot.

    Small goals where you can be like “oh ya I did that, sweet”

    I got plants! So far they're alive, but they need a lil taking care of. I've got a decent number of em and a diversity where I know I basically should be doing one thing a day. When done, yay! Lil thing I did. You might also try getting into a low stakes hobby (to try and ditch if you don't like).

    Respecting my own labour

    I remind myself that I work for myself and not (really) the massive corporation. I'm totally contributing to their massive wealth but I'm building a resume, savings, or maybe earning to care for a dependent. Whatever you would work for that's why you work. It can help take a little pride in the effort, even if the end result of the effort might not be what you're hoping for. Take all the vacay and sick days they give too, at minimum. A lot of places do not offer anywhere near enough.

    Routines of human body maintenance

    One of the things that I try to be better at as much as possible is taking care of the large bipedal mammal that I am. I've gotten into the habit of making sure I'm hydrated first thing in the morning, eat some fruit everyday. Some regular grooming, the exercise, daily shower. But as important as the physical stuff, some of the brain stuff too. I'll carve out some time to read a book or play a video game that I've been itching to do (I went to the library today). Try to socialize if that's your jazz (this post is me trying that right now). Engage with things you like for no one else's sake but your own.

    It’s worked best for me to have some of these routines be daily, but some of them are biweekly. I’ve kinda developed a little tracking system with an agenda. I’ll give myself 1-3 (max 3) goals for the day. But I will also write down the things I’ve done that I’d find worth noting either while procrastinating the goals or in between them.

    You mentioned panic attacks, I have those too, at first I thought I was like ill. But after therapy and learning grounding techniques, breathing exercises, closing my eyes if I can. Something like noticing and resting control of a panic attack before it gets way bad would be something I’d note as part of my daily list of “stuff done.”

    Anyways, sorry for the wall of text. Hope any of it helps,

    Cheers!