Mini success today: lots of worry turned into calm

[lior]

Today a few things happened in quick succession that made me feel rather anxious. Right now (only a couple of hours later) I feel ok. I feel ok because I feel more certain that I can change the situation I’m in - I’m not going to accept it and accept feeling trapped and overwhelmed, I’m going to change it.

Things that made me increasingly stressed:

1. I was in an intense day-long workshop that I was running. We didn’t finish everything we wanted to do, so we have to carry on working tomorrow. I felt that this was disappointing but it’s important to do it right, however long it takes. My colleagues had to leave to get the train.
2. I had a 4.30pm meeting straight after about a secondary, less important project where they lumped work on me that I wasn’t bargaining for. We could have carried on working on it and got it all done now - but instead people just left the room - it was everyone’s last meeting of the day and it would have been another 30 mins. So we had to schedule a further meeting. I expressed how this would be blocking other work getting done, and I think that helped make sure that other people were taking on more workload than me for this project.
3. I sat with my laptop open and worked out when I was doing what in the coming couple of weeks. I realised that we’d taken too much on. I already knew it, but looking at the calendar, it was clear that we can’t possibly do the amount of work we wanted to, especially since we run over time today.
4. I expressed this to my project manager who said something like ‘extra curriculars can’t happen at the end of projects. That’s just the way it works.’ I said that I’d already booked my evenings to work, but even then we’ve got too much on. He didn’t have a response. Over the next few minutes, his reaction made me very anxious as it sank in - he’s going to allow us to be overburdened rather than managing a realistic workload. We are not going to manage to do all the work we thought we should do. We don’t have a proper plan. It’s not do-able in the time frame. I can’t work in the weekend because I will break. Nothing is worth my sanity.
5. I stayed later than the others because I was stressed - and because I’d intended to stay anyway, and make a head start on the unreasonable amount of work we’ve got to do. (Nobody else has been doing evenings apart from me. I don’t want to be a martyr. I don’t want to stay in this situation. But if they won’t do the work, then it falls to me and the project manager, and he isn’t staying late…) I got a slice of work done, and cleared my inbox.
6. I tried to remind myself that it’s the believe that stress is harmful which is actually harmful, not the stress itself. I thought about how anxiety is actually preparing me for hard work. I held in my pee for an hour.
7. On the way to the tube, I thought to myself, why am I doing this? Is it worth it? Is the work interesting enough? Is it changing the world? Oh god, am I doing it for the money? I think I’m doing it for the money. For the promise of a home, a flat, my place to live which will be mine in a protected way, not like renting - real safety. But I should never do something for the money. That would make me a person I don’t want to be. Who is this person? I’m not ready for a house anyway, I need credit history and a more steady flow of work. Why am I here? I felt depressed about who I was and the situation.
8. I felt like self harming. I couldn’t breathe deeply - it was all in the top of my chest. I’d missed yoga to stay late at work. The workload is unreasonable. I felt trapped. What would happen if I got ill and couldn’t be involved? Lots of this work is reliant on me and my knowledge.
9. To distract myself from the horror of tube travel, I played games on my phone. The crowded carriage made me stand in an awkward way and I felt stressed and uncomfortable.
10. Depressed, I walked into Sainsbury’s and got some food that doesn’t require much preparation. Lazy yummy food - but not the healthiest. Healthy enough, I guess. I felt guilty to not be treating my body the best way it should be treated, but I needed something I'd enjoy.
11. Walking home, I hit on the idea that I could just not do a part of the work that I had previously thought essential. Sure, it’s a really great thing, and it would make a huge difference, but the other things are what the client has asked for, and the thing I was planning to do would have well exceeded their expectations. We can just do a simpler version that takes much less time. Even without doing this piece of work, the other work that needs to get done will take as long as we have. I wanted to tell my project manager straight away what I thought should happen, but I had to wait til I got home.

Things that made me calmer

1. Writing to the project manager my idea for cutting out some of the work.
2. Letting out some anger by making angry faces and sounds.
3. Sitting in bed, watching TV, with my hot soup. The warmth of the food did something relaxing to me.
4. I laughed at the comedy I was watching. I’m sure that made me relax more, too.
5. Eating yummy hazelnuts. I enjoy them - a rare treat.
6. The last thing that made me feel calmer was that instead of carrying on worrying about it, I felt that I should take action and sort it out. Tomorrow I will sort it out with my project manager. I felt in control. It’s possible to change things and sort it.
7. Earlier on, when I started to feel like self harming, I remembered what I was learning about myself in therapy. When I feel like self harming, I feel trapped, and I feel that the boundaries are blurred between myself and other people’s needs. I end up neglecting my own needs for the perceived benefit of others. Rather than accepting being trapped, I thought that I should change the situation rather than staying trapped in it. There’s more than one way to change the situation. I didn’t come to a point about what the change should be right then, but I came to it after half an hour of worrying on the cramped crowded tube.
8. Now I know that it’s possible to change the workload. I don’t accept that the workload should stay that big. It’s unreasonable, even if I work every evening. I will talk to my project manager and not let him put more work on me than is reasonable. I’m not giving up my weekend - I need it for my sanity. Literally. I’m not going to just accept what this assertive person (who I trust) says - I am going to protect myself and do what’s best for me.

[Oosh]

Go lior !!!

I hope it all went like you planned.

[Medran0]

it's always very good when you read success stories. at least that's applies to me. it makes me hope i also hope you'll have such kind of days starting from now on ALWAYS

[lior]

Oosh it pretty much did go to plan. My colleague did his own freaking out when he realised quite how much work we've got on. So we changed how we were doing it, so it's going to be ok. I'll get confirmation that it's definitely ok tomorrow.

Thanks Medran, you're so sweet. I hope that I'll always be able to calm myself down, too.

[Sunflower2]

Lior, you've come so far! It's really nice to see that you're coping with challenges and finding healthy ways to cope with feeling overwhelmed! I'm trying to do the same, I get plenty challenges and it is certainly hard work to teach your brain to think and behave in a different way from what we are used to!

[lior]

Thanks Kimberly. Psychotherapy is really helping me. It's helping me recognise patterns that I have - I feel sad when I feel trapped: it's a complex thing, based on my past experiences, and knowing the sorts of details that affect me means I can fight against those things happening. This can affect any situation I'm in, this trapped feeling: so knowing how to talk myself out of feeling that way and knowing how to change the circumstances I'm in really helps.

Yes it's all hard work to try and think and behave differently. But we don't have a choice but to put that effort in, do we? It's that, or accepting being self destructive. And that's not acceptable.