Shaking in anxiety / panic attack

[Chocolateface]

Today I had a major panic / anxiety attack leaving me literally shaking. I made quite a high value monetary error at work and can't let it go. My manager has told me not to worry with it as it is being sorted, it may cost the business but it is being sorted out. I also spoke to a director of the company and told him and he said not to worry.

My main question is how to control the shaking and stopping it from happening and I am not in tomorrow so the whole situation is out of my control so how do I not worry about it?

Thanks

Clare

[Chocolateface]

Relly can't let this go, have woken up drenched in sweat (apologies for being gross), and aware that I am thinking about it. I am not in work now until Wednesday so don't know what will happen.

Just feel so helpless and alone, this is the first time I have done anything like this and it doesn't feel good,

Thanks for reading

[Tangelina]

I hope you feel better soon.

[Ditapage]

The shaking is just your sensitised nerves. Us anxious folks have nerves that respond to the slightest shock and this thing that happened at work is something your nerves have registered as a big deal and the shaking is the adrenaline it is setting off. Shaking is controlled with belly breathing to calm the nervous system. You've woken up still shaky because even waking up is a shock to the nerves for us anxious people and memory of what set off the shakiness is still in your mind. There's nothing wrong with us, all that is happening is the slightest thing fires off our fight or flight system.

The error at work to most people is stressful but because we have anxiety our reaction is much more intense.

[Chocolateface]

Thanks Ditapage what you have said makes so much sense it is still playing on my mind I am on my own most of today so know I will feel bad and shaky again, don't know how to control it or stop it

[MyNameIsTerry]

Clare,

From their point of view you have been open & honest about it when some would have tried to cover it up. So, they will look favourably on you for that anyway and your previous performance was judged to be good when you were worrying about that.

People make mistakes, it's part of management to prevent mistakes that cause big problems, if not that sits firmly on management for not having the correct level of controls in place. Sometimes really big mistakes come from simply clerical errors and systems should be designed to prevent or report them or there should be quality procedures in place to find them.

I remember my best mate years ago (we worked together) got paid £36k one month because the person inputting the salary in payroll put the decimal place in the wrong place on his overtime claim! He didn't know until he went to draw some cash out on payday as his payslip was still in the post. He had to chase them to pay it back?! (several times!!!)

Your adrenaline levels are obviously raised as Dita explained. Deep breathing and exercise encourage the body to metabolise excess adrenaline.

Try to accept it for what it is, a mistake. Try to also accept that most people would be worries about it, it's only your level of worry that shows an anxiety sufferer. Tomorrow will come soon enough, distract yourself a bit today and let time just pass.

[Chocolateface]

Thanks again Terry, I did own up straight away and in the end it may not be as bad, as usual I think I overreacted and still am overreacting. It is not like I sent money to the wrong place I just sent it by 3 day payment not sameday, it only affects two account so there may be additional interest to pay. I am more mad at myself for doing it ad I am normally so careful with things like this.

Clare

[MyNameIsTerry]

They will find a way to write it off through tax, I'm sure. :winks:

That doesn't sound bad. It originally sounded like you may have underquoted for something big and another company had snapped up a deal they shouldn't.

One of the guys on a team at my place once dropped his notepad (or something like that) without realising on his keyboard. Sadly, he was using a system outside of the stricter parameters of the main systems which meant no checks other than normal field validations. He keyed out over 3 trillion instead of 3 thousand. We luckily had a call from one of the senior managers at the company he sent it to. It wasn't a payment, but it would have impacted on some very high profile reports seen in the industry as it impacted on future payments so it would have been picked up in the next months high values industry reports so luckily the other company saw the sense it correcting it before it was compi,ed as it would have impacted on them too as it depicted customer usage. We weren't best pleased but we saw the funny side. We had to put all sorts of controls in place over that with senior managers prodding us over it for 6 months!

We still laughed about it years later. Sometimes things just happen, it was an honest mistake. None of us held any bad feeling towards the person that did it, he was a good person anyway.

[Chocolateface]

Oops that was a major thing, and did make me giggle, but if I had done it I would have stressed and worried for weeks with it. I am feeling a bit brighter now but still want to know what is happening

---------- Post added at 11:16 ---------- Previous post was at 09:54 ----------

Trying to stay strong on this one, I did speak with my manager on the incident and she saw me shaking, unprofessional I know but I couldn't stop it. She kept saying it was a mistake we can't unhappen it she also said I would not lose my job for it but being on my own means intrusive thoughts have crept in and I am convinced I will be in a disciplinary hearing once I am back in tomorrow.

I keep going over the whole day trying to analyse if anything will happen I know I shouldn't but my need for continued reassurance to try to avoid trouble and confrontation is winning out

[MyNameIsTerry]

Don't worry about your conduct. Ranting & raving is unprofessional. Shaking shows you were upset and your manager would only be concerned about you.

You approached it the right way by raising it. I really doubt anything would be coming further, at most it may get discussed between you & your manager at a later personal review or perhaps your manager may be expected to prevent it in the future so will talk to you about how to achieve that. That's just normal stuff, it's not something you should worry about.

I think perhaps keeping yourself occupied with things will help to give your mind a break. If you are doing nothing, it will keep thinking like this. Sometimes inserting a break can reduce the intensity and it floats away or we can keep it at a more reasonable level when it returns as we are over that moment when it was overwhelming to us.

You've got your school meal coming up. Try to enjoy being with your kid and immerse yourself in doing things with him. Hopefully the meal will be better than we all went to school! :winks:

[Chocolateface]

Thanks Terry you truly are remarkable, I am off to school now for lunch hopefully it will be better than when I was at school

---------- Post added at 14:26 ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 ----------

Well lunch was ok foodwise I did see a friend and we chatted for a while after so that was good.