Uh oh!
Something has gone wrong, and I can feel the panic starting to rise in my stomach. What have I done wrong? How could I let this happen? I’ve let people down? And when this happens, there is not one iota of possiblity that can focus on anything else.
How do I react? I start getting cranky. If my work is stressing me, giving me more work doesn’t help my stress. I just go into a spiral where I just make myself feel worse and worse. So I take it out on the people around me. Which is unfair, because it isn’t their fault I am panicking. And then, I feel worse because I took it out on an innocent bystander.
Yep, quite a mental hole to get yourself out of, if I say so myself.
But I do sometimes get myself out of these blocks, which does make me feel better. A lot of the time, I don’t actually do anything. It is just the ‘state of utmost panic’ passes. No reason why it comes and goes, it sometimes works like that. Very unhelpful. Most of the time though, I have to actively seek to get myself going again.
I do that with a lot of effort and patience. I may take a ‘time out’ and go for a walk somewhere, away from where I am working. Being away from my work area, does automatically relax me. Sometimes I just close my eyes and try to breathe. I know it’s a cliche, but it is repeated so much because it’s true.
But the best thing to calm me down, is to try and talk to those around me. It’s probably just the distraction, but when I am in work, and I can’t just run off, it does help a lot. I work with some funny and great people, and I can always find someone who will make me laugh. It helps so much. Just a few minutes of light-hearted conversation can completely change my mood, and I can return to work with a completely fresh mind.
It’s nice sometimes, to find a way around the blocks your brain puts in the way. And the more solutions you find, the easier it gets to get on top of those mental health issues that so many of us deal with.
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