Hi, Sampaguita:

What exactly is causing your anxiety? I was going to post a note myself today. This old woman at my work place constantly verbal abuse other coworkers. Today I had the bad luck of becoming her victim. I wanted to know if I can file a complaint to the labor department or sue her for the mental stress she caused me.

My aunt was given an order by her doctor to take 3 months off due to stress after my aunt filed a complaint about her manager. My work related anxieties are not wanting to go to work because I'm afraid I'm going to do something wrong and be fired or even just get anxious about dealing with people in general. Once at work, if I get anxiety over something I generally freeze and find myself staring at my computer screen. I take a few mintes to remind myself to take one think at a time and to live in the moment before returning to work. Its not always possible to get rid of the anxiety, but at least I can return to work. If my social anxiety gets really bad, I try to not have to deal with anyone and I put on my headphones. None of what I wrote probably helps, but at least you know there's others in the same boat as you. Good luck.

I try to go to work with a great attitude. My boss is irritable with most of my co-workers also. Yesterday I had to tell someone that I could not work their shift this thursday because the boss was getting on my last nerve. She reprimanded me for helping a fellow co worker by giving them my box cutter. I told her that I found that quite unacceptable that I should not be able to give tools to fellow workers. I went home feeling totally stressed and I am not supposed to get stressed because it has caused me to have a seizure. I am hoping that by being off for 2 days I will be able to regroup and come back to work with a smile on my face. I am trying hard to help my family during these hard times. I feel as though I am on the edge on insanity much of the time even though I put on a great face. Help...........

I kind of learned this the hard way. I was working at a petsmart in southern CA. When I went to the doctor for meds, my doctor was very nice and asked me if he wanted me to have him call my employer and explain my limitations and my situation. On top of that, I also talked to my supervisor myself and explained it. He was SUPER understanding.

Now, that being said, Yes an employer cannot fire you because of a mental illness, but they can find another way to fire you if they want to!

Anyway that is how I handled it! When I started having anxiety, if I needed to leave my register, I called my manager and he took over to give me a break and take a xanax or splash water on my face. Kind of a short time out, then I would compose myself and start over!

BUT....When I went to quit because of a move, my supervisor was very nice, told me he would give me a wonderful reference and I could work at any petsmart in the US in the future, he also told me that since my anxiety was getting so horrible, they were trying to figure out a way to let me go without me being able to sue them for firing me over mental illness!

So it doesn't always pay to be honest, but for at least a couple months my manager was super understanding.

Good luck!

I dont handle it very well.

i was working at a adult daycare it became very stessful none of the caregivers where happy with the care there i tryed my best to make them happy my anxiety got the best of me i took 2 months off. when i can back i called my bosses boss to let her know they asked me to quit becase i was unhappy. after i agred to quit they told me if i didnt take that they would have got rid of me

I have been very honest with my co-workers about my anxiety. It doesn't interfere with my work too much, but when I start having a panic attack my manager and my co-workers are there to help talk me through it. I feel very fortunate for that, as I know a lot of people have employers which would never understand.

I am fairly certain that you company should have an EAP (employee assistance program) if it's a large company. This allows you to file a complaint. Call you local labor department to see if there is something you can do.

I gave in ... i told my supervisor, my boss, and my closest work mates. To my surprise my boss was extremely supportive, allowing me ;when i was having an attack to go outside for some air. I think i ended up educating him about my mental issues..
It gave me a huge relief too, and so my anxiety became less of a concern for me.

A battle between the "fight" and "flight" response: Yes, been there. The passive-aggressive work environment frequently sucks.

I try to stay "in the zone" and just focus on the task at hand, however menial or tedious it seems to be. Focuses my mind to the grindstone and off the rest of the B.S. (politics, personal disagreements, etc.) floating around the office.

what if you can't handle the anxiety, what should you do?

I'm sure it depends on what kind of job you have, what kind of anxiety issues you have, and if/what kind of anxiety sources exist at your work.

I work in a relatively low-stress job. There's a set amount of work to do every day, which has to be done by about 5 hours into the shift (before the scheduled system reset at that time), but is shared with other employees and doesn't usually take the full amount of time. After I'm done with that, unless a manager tells me to do something specific, I could do whatever (as long as it's some kind of work for the company). It's not one of those jobs where someone could get hurt or die if I mess up (in fact, if I mess up, it's rare that anyone picks up on it right away, and if they do, they don't necessarily know that it's me who messed up, since the system is generally riddled with mistakes anyway)..

Anyway, it's hard to tell exactly what's wrong with me. I have some kind of anxiety disorder (many, but not all of the symptoms of ocd and panic disorder) but have never been formally diagnosed with anything. I'm prone to having panic attacks, and have gotten them quite a bit at work. Most of the time I could just wait them out, and I'd be fine in a few minutes, but sometimes I'd get one, and end up continuing to cry afterward for hours, which gets in the way of doing anything productive. I've been sent home a couple of times in the past 2 years when I've been in no reasonable condition to work for an extended period of time (such as over 2 hours, towards the beginning of a shift) because of my anxiety, but the vast majority of the time, I'm either fine in a reasonable amount of time later, or it's far enough towards the end of the shift that I'd just stay the extra hour or less anyway.

I feel bad about it though. I bet other people do talk about my issues behind my back (how could they not?), and I'm sure a lot of it is misinterpreted. I don't want to feel like I'm a burden upon the other workers for it, or look like i'm fishing for special privileges to people who don't fully understand what I'm going through.