Work anxiety/paranoia

[Herman]

Hi everybody,

I'm having a bit of a freak-out here at work, and I could do with your support. My thoughts are spiralling here, and I could do with some one to help.

I took a brief (ten minute) phone call at work this evening, and my bosses boss walked past twice to look in the meeting room I was taking it.

Here is my thought spiral:

She has seen me > she has noticed that I am on the phone > she is not happy that I am on the phone > she will take note of this > she will go to my boss > she will complain about it > she will have me sacked > I will lose my house

Which then leads to me sweating profusely, having racing thoughts, thinking about all of the people I've let down in the past, etc.

Can anybody out there relate, or maybe help talk me down from this? It's not nice.

Thanks

[snookiebookie]

I totally relate to this. I have this same internal conversation with myself dozens of times a day!

I can beat myself up about lots of small things, and convince myself that I'm going to be sacked.

In my case, they are irrational thoughts. This is a habit that has built up over years. Perhaps, originally it started out as some kind of protection or early warning system. Now it has got out of hand and is damaging to me.

In CBT I learned to recognise these thoughts and to do a thought challenge. There maybe some downloadable documents on the net. A thought challenge is a form that you fill in. It asks you to explain the situation, then set out how your feeling and rate that. Then you have to put down EVIDENCE (not thoughts or supposition) that supports your belief and EVIDENCE to the contrary. It then asks you to come with a more realistic assessment of the situation, using both sets of evidence. Finally it asks you to re-rate how you feel.

For one off bouts of anxiety/panic, it can be effective. It is also interesting to review them weeks later, when you know how everything had turned out. You can sometimes see how irrational your thoughts were, which can help the next time you feel irrational.

I hope all goes well and that this had helped.