Worrying about returning to work tomorrow

[IrishLondon]

Hi everyone

I've been experiencing a big increase in my anxiety over the past few months. I decided to take the past week off work on leave so I could allow myself to rest and make sense of this surge in anxious feelings.

Unfortunately the week off led me to ruminating over negative thoughts and actually I left the house very few times. I ended up not sleeping very well at night and instead found myself either taking anti-histamines to get to sleep or sleeping during the day. And ended up spending a lot of time under the duvet and not eating very much.

Tomorrow, Monday, i'm due to go back to work. And i'm really worried about it. I have a burning mouth symptom which is really upsetting me and have convinced myself that I won't be able to cope with it. And i'm worried about not being able to cope on little sleep when i return to work.

I'm currently on day 12 of setraline and i'm not sure it is making a difference yet. I'm not really sure what advice i'm looking for but just feels therapeutic to get this down in writing.

Thanks for listening

Conor

[Dissolved girl]

Hi there

I have pretty much been through exactly what you have.

Anxiety flared up over last few months. Was on prozac but docs switched me to Setraline because they thought it had lost its effect (so to speak)

Been off work for nearly 2 weeks now and am on my 10 or 12th day taking them. Just had a panic attack. Ffs. I am going back to work tomorrow (Tuesday) and apprehensive about it.

Did you go into work today? It looks like you posted on the 3rd but you say you were going into work on Monday?

How was it? As bad as you thought?

[milkcarton]

I've been pushing through some really bad anxiety to get to work recently, have my ups and downs when sat at my desk too. Dr has prescribed Setraline, what is your advice on it?

I am confident that you went to work and it was better than you expected :)

I find on a monday my anxiety is back to square one and I am overly anxious in the mornings to get to work. By Friday, my anxiety lessens but hate the feeling that, by having a 2 day break at the weekend, I'll be back down to where I started again. Just think, we're all on the same journey :) hope work went well though, it's always worst first time back but gets better.

Milk x

[IrishLondon]

Hey there,

Yes I wrote that post very very early on Monday morning - I did not get one wink of sleep on Sunday night, so that was making the apprehension about returning to work even greater.

Anyway, I'm so glad I did go in - even with no sleep. The first few hours were tough, but actually I got back into the swing of things and found myself joking with work colleagues and it helped take my mind off the anxiety.

So i'm back home now and although the anxiety is still there, I do feel better tonight than I did during my week off when I spent most off my days just constantly going over negative thoughts.

In terms of the setraline, i'm only on day 13 of it. I'm not sure if it is making a difference yet - but i suppose i am getting more moments of happiness and hopefully they will become more frequent. So maybe that is it working.

Good luck to you both!!

Conor