Sparkle1984
26-05-15, 19:43
I think that one of the reasons for my latest anxiety episode is that I feel as if I'm being put under pressure by other people, and I find it difficult to say "no".
About 18 months ago, I started attending regular IT/business meet-ups and talks in my city (I work in IT so I'm interested in that sort of thing). There is also a local website which publishes tech news. Early last year, I decided to write a review of one of the IT meet-ups and submitted it to the tech news website, who published it online and I was very happy about that. I wrote a few more articles over the following months, which were all published.
The trouble is, the organiser of these IT meet-ups has now come to expect me to write a review every single month. Whenever I attend one of these meet-ups, he takes it for granted that I'll write an article, as I'm usually the only person who takes detailed notes.
I only ever intended to write articles occasionally, when a talk particularly interested me. Being expected to write one every month takes up a lot of my time, especially due to the technical nature of the writing.
The last of these talks happened 3 weeks ago - the organiser didn't ask me to write an article after the talk, so I decided not to, as I have a lot of other things that are taking up my time at the moment. Then a few days later my anxiety came back with a vengeance, so I re-started medication last week and I've been off work since then. I haven't had the motivation to do much in the last few days. But today, I received an email from the IT meet-ups organiser, saying that he was hoping I'd written a review for the talk which took place 3 weeks ago, and was I able to do so?
The pressure is putting me off going to these talks so often, but even when I don't attend, the organiser sometimes contacts me to ask me why I can't make it - for the times I don't attend, the organiser usually writes a review himself.
I don't need this sort of additional pressure at the moment, so how can I politely say to him that I haven't written a review for the talk which happened 3 weeks ago as I've had too much going on in my life, and also make it clear that I only want to write these reviews occasionally, and not every single month?
About 18 months ago, I started attending regular IT/business meet-ups and talks in my city (I work in IT so I'm interested in that sort of thing). There is also a local website which publishes tech news. Early last year, I decided to write a review of one of the IT meet-ups and submitted it to the tech news website, who published it online and I was very happy about that. I wrote a few more articles over the following months, which were all published.
The trouble is, the organiser of these IT meet-ups has now come to expect me to write a review every single month. Whenever I attend one of these meet-ups, he takes it for granted that I'll write an article, as I'm usually the only person who takes detailed notes.
I only ever intended to write articles occasionally, when a talk particularly interested me. Being expected to write one every month takes up a lot of my time, especially due to the technical nature of the writing.
The last of these talks happened 3 weeks ago - the organiser didn't ask me to write an article after the talk, so I decided not to, as I have a lot of other things that are taking up my time at the moment. Then a few days later my anxiety came back with a vengeance, so I re-started medication last week and I've been off work since then. I haven't had the motivation to do much in the last few days. But today, I received an email from the IT meet-ups organiser, saying that he was hoping I'd written a review for the talk which took place 3 weeks ago, and was I able to do so?
The pressure is putting me off going to these talks so often, but even when I don't attend, the organiser sometimes contacts me to ask me why I can't make it - for the times I don't attend, the organiser usually writes a review himself.
I don't need this sort of additional pressure at the moment, so how can I politely say to him that I haven't written a review for the talk which happened 3 weeks ago as I've had too much going on in my life, and also make it clear that I only want to write these reviews occasionally, and not every single month?