We've got a woman over in payments who gets incredibly strung out, and the problem with this is that she can't absorb knowledge when she's stressed out. She gives off vibes that mean nobody offers her any information they don't have to offer. They tiptoe.

Then on the other side of the open plan area we have another woman who gets through the most incredible amount of stuff a day, and makes her share of mistakes. She laughs. I hunted for an amount of money she wrote down on paper for me for a while before I said I couldn't find it. oh she said, I'm a bit dyslexic, I might've transposed the numbers. lol.

We all lolled. Why not? Life sucks. Mistakes happen. More important is to be having fun at work.
On my side of the room if we balls up we laugh and see if we can blame someone else for it. If that fails we fix it. (actually we fix it, of course we fix it.)

Back over the other side of the room it's all a bit intense.

I used to have crippling anxiety and was terrified of making mistakes. i used to work very hard to never make mistakes. Now I do my best, but I still make them. Acts of brilliance. Journals round the wrong way. Numbers transposed. How could I have possibly done that? Must have been someone else. I used to go home beside msyelf, crippled with horror and anxiety. All night I woudl lie there, getting no sleep. up to 3 days.

But the sky didn't fall, and as others made mistakes around me and laughed it off, I realised I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to have a double standard. I was allowed to be human like everyone else and nobody hated or judged me for it.

So nowadays I laugh. It's okay to just laugh, say 'oops, temporary brain death' or something, fix it and just let it go. Sets the tone for others too. Nobody's perfect. They aren't paying God wages and they can't expect God results.

OCD can be tough. I dealt with it for years. One day, I decided I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. I started changing behaviors even though it was extremely painful. When my OCD wanted to take over, I forced myself not to give in. Did you know that you can change your brain patterns? That’s good news!

I so want to get back to where I can laugh at my mistakes or at least not let them bother me so much. It’s tough for a few reasons. Right now it feels like an avalanche of errors. Like there’s something at every turn. The standards at my job are unrealistic given all that we do. It’s as if the powers that be don’t realize we’re human. They’re not at all understanding when mistakes are made. The other issue is my brain is inflating everything right now. It’s making mountains out of molehills. I’m trying work on that but it’s hard. I telecommute. It’s great to be able to work from home but the downside is not having the comraderie of my co workers. I know they make mistakes too but since I’m in my own little bubble and I’m not hearing them talk about it I become convinced that I’m the only one screwing up. I’m working on all of this but it’s super hard right now. I saw a therapist yesterday and she wants me to work on mindfulness. I’m doing that but my brain is resisting. So I know I have to continue to practice and that it may take awhile. I also know I have to stop the “checking”. It feeds the anxiety. I know that but it’s hard to stop because of the temporary relief it provides.