Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Good morning. This is my very first time here and my very first post. I have always suffered with anxiety (social anxiety, performance anxiety, etc.) but it has never stopped me from doing things in my life - for the most part. Until this time. I became certified in educational administration last year. This year, I applied for a position within my school district and didn't get it. So I tried outside the school district for an assistant principal position. I landed the job. The moment I signed the contract I felt sick. Wished the district could find ways to hire the other individual instead. Thought of excuses I could give to get me out of the job. I happen to know the other person who wanted the job too. A part of me felt guilty that he didn't get it. I even tried to tell the central office staff that they needed to give him a position as well. I had an entire month to wait between leaving my old job and starting my new job. A day before the last day of school, I imploded. I called my union rep and we secured my old job back. I just wanted the pain and fear to go away that badly. Well, what do you think? Now I have terrible regret. My anxiety hasn't lessened. It's coupled with depression. I let down so many people (the HR manager, my husband, my mother, my colleagues.) It really was a great position to start in as an administrator. I would have worked through the summer which would have brough extra income to help with my boys'college tuitions. I have to sit at home for the next 7 weeks or so, watching my summer funds deplete (that's what the funds are for) and kicking myself for turning down a good job. Yes, it was more demanding, longer hours, new tenure track, but....
I'm going to see a therapist on Saturday. Have a meeting with my pastor tomorrow. And I've applied for more assistant principal positions because I can't go down in defeat like this. However, the smooth sailing that I had through these interviews...that's not going to happen again. At least not for a long time.
I've had bout of depression before, post partum, after I came back from teaching overseas and funnily enough, took this job. (That was 6 years ago.) This is so hard because I created the mess that I'm in.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
I think it’s really stressful to make job changes, especially if you have been working a long time. My husband just went through this thinking he wanted a new job, getting really far in the interview process and then this overwhelming feeling of, “what am I doing and why?” came over him.
Sometimes when I’m really beating myself over stuff I feel I mucked up or regret, I try to imagine if I would be so hard on a good friend who was in my shoes. Probably not. I’d tell my friend that she made a decision based on what was going on in her head at the time and she honored those feelings, that there is no true right or wrong decisions regarding jobs because it’s all sort of an unknown, and that it’s not the end of the world, that we just continue to be works in progress, learn and grow, etc. So, be that good friend to yourself.
Glad you are getting help. First step in being good to yourself!
You've taken the important first step in writing it out.
Here's something to ponder. Feelings are neither wrong nor right, they are real, valid, and provide a path to your well-being. Keep a daily journal and use calm breathing and gentle motion exercises to find your balance as needed.
You've experienced the 'high' of a job and the 'low' of the 'unknown'. It's valuable to know that you are able to do the entire process and be selected. What you do now, you do for your well-being.
You chose the right path to step back, and stay in the position where you can continue to work through reducing anxiety and do more for yourself off work time.
Money is finite. You feel the 'let-down' which is normal, however, it's just 'feeling', not 'doing thinking'.
Best wishes as you find your better balance.
A not-so-funny part of my own anxiety is that whatever decision I make, my anxiety will tell me I should have take the other road. Damned if I do and damned if I don't. With the pandemic political chaos feeding my anxiety like royalty for over a year, shopping for groceries is a major anxiety trigger these days. Major decisions have been an agony it is going to take me some time to unpack. I inherited 3 young orphans just before Corona crowned. I've got a freight train full of major life changes to process and? ? ? Taking ^it^ in small, Coronafied steps.
It helps to have safe places to unpack and sort the repressed chaos. This very forum is one of the places I feel safe doing so. Hope it serves you as well as it has served me.
Welcome aboard. Keep venting. Your answers are in there. Listening. . .
You are not alone.
Yup, these are my thoughts that I'll share with the therapist.
Thanks again though.