________ ________ ________
2017-11-21 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
I heard a pretty good analogy not long / _/ / /
back, for how living life with anxiety \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
feels; they likened it to exercise, / \/ \/ / \
imagining anxiety as a weight. Everyone gets / _/ /_ _/
stressed out now and then, anxious or /- / _/ /
worried or even just "has a bad day", but \________/\________/\___/____/
for people without an anxiety disorder the
weight is picked up and put down and then they carry on. For people with an
anxiety disorder, although the weight is the same the action is more akin to
isometric exercise, the weight is lifted and held.
And held.
And held.
It really resonated with the way I feel. I think overall I deal with stress
pretty good but I never STOP dealing with it, even if the problem is gone.
It's always there, sometimes just a mild unease and sometimes working me up to
laser-focussed nausea about things I can't possibly change because they
happened a million years ago or, in some cases never happened at all.
One of my biggest triggers is social situations, every conversation feels
like a job interview, every gathering feels like a trial. It makes employment
hard but luckily I've had a run of really good managers who I could talk to
about my limitations and knew that what I asked for in exemption from the
social aspects of my role would be paid back three-fold in the amount and
quality of work I do.
Twice a year the broader team gathers for a half-day or more for an event,
to celebrate our success, reconnect as a team and make sure we're all aligned
for what comes next. I've been at the company almost seven years and I think
I've managed to make it to one of these but left half way because I was
getting too worked up, I hadn't tried again since, but when the next one came
up and my manager asked if I'd be an apology I said no and that I'd do my
best.
I was around two weeks into microdosing at the time and had faith it was
going to be my magic bullet, the event was on a dose day and would be a pretty
good stress test to see how much I could stand under the LSD.
The event was a half day yesterday and let me tell ya, friends; I wasn't
ready hahaha!
Leading up to it I was kind of stressed but it was under control. Even
Monday morning I was doing ok, I wouldn't say I was looking forward to it but
I felt like it was just an inconvenience rather than a terror, and then I
walked into the venue and saw the chairs arranged into little group circles
and it was like walking into a brick wall, anxiety went from 3 to 11 in a
nanosecond. I found somewhere to sit and started rehearsing excuses to leave.
To my relief some people I get along pretty well with arrived and they're
chatty too so I could just smile and nod for a while.
The event got started with some videos and talks and then we had our first
activity, which was to use a comic book style template thing to tell a story
about a win we had during the previous year. I was still stressed out but the
group worked well and I was content to just hover until the boss came and sat
next to me to see how we were going. Not my boss, mind, THE boss. Head of.
Ok.
Then she asked me to tell my story.
Not ok.
So I did my best and she said that they're going to ask each team to
present one of their stories and she liked mine the best so we should use
that.
Very not ok.
The fuck was I going to say? "No, sorry boss of my boss's boss. I don't
feel like talking in front of everyone please."
Holy shit.
So that happened and I was shaking so bad but I guess I did ok, managed to
blurt out my bit without too much muddling and I didn't throw up, that's
always a good thing. I was shaking so bad though, but when I spoke to my boss
and co-worker a little later and they said didn't notice it at all. We had
another, similar activity after that but mercifully I could just nod along
with that one, then another speaker and a much-needed break and I was able to
get some air.
My boss did ask me at that point whether I was going to go back to the
office or stick it out and might have been a little surprised when I said I'd
see it through. To be honest, I was actually feeling slightly confident at
this point, that I attended at all and didn't bail at the last minute already
felt good but that the incident in the first activity only left me rattled,
not broken felt like a real success.
After we resume there were more activities, some more stressful than others
but none that really made me feel on the spot, one was actually pretty fun and
the other did have me one-on-one with people I didn't know but it was noisy
and chaotic so I could slink back and catch my breath. It did end with me
sitting one-on-one with someone I really don't get along with though so that
was kind of uncomfortable.
Then the head-of spoke and then we wrapped it up. They put on lunch but I
left out the back so I could be alone a little bit and let my guard drop and
it was then that I really felt the stress of it, that isometric exercise, new
weight piled on to what I already carry at arms-length every day of my life.
I think I did well and I think the microdosing helped, if nothing else it
was enough to get me to try and not just dismiss the idea completely.
EOF