Work anxiety
Hi everyone!
For the past years I have been struggling with work anxiety.
I am a computer programmer, used to love my job and be very good at it. Unfortunately, before I knew it, I overworked myself and I had a burnout episode. I had reached a state where I couldn't even do basic tasks, I remember even writing a shopping list was challenging. This was about 6 years ago.
After getting some rest I got better, I changed job to one without much pressure and good work environment. But in the past years, I have been getting worse and worse and I have now reached a point where I have a mini-panic attack every day before work. I pace, I cry, I have this feeling of doom, I have a very hard time falling asleep the night before work. And this repeats after breaks as well, to a lesser degree. I have a very hard time getting anything done. Basically, I have a work phobia.
The work environment and my colleagues are all great, but I am expected to get at least some things done, of course. I am in a place where I feel I am basically unable to work and I am just trying to get by. I am miserable and I am afraid that I will loose my livelihood and all that I have worked for.
I am not well off to be able to afford being jobless. I also have a child to raise, so I need financial stability.
If anyone has experiences this in the past and has any advice, I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you and have an awesome day!
@Zoraida I am sorry to hear that you are struggling. I have dealt with depression and anxiety for many, many years, both of which have prevented me from working for various times, or to only work from home. I have considered going on social security disability (United States) because of it, in the past. Right now, I make sure that I work only from home. There are many remote jobs, and that seems to work for me, I hope that you find a solution so that you do not have so much anxiety. I hope that you feel better.
Hey Zoraida,
You aren't alone - as programmer myself I suffer from the burnout. But the only solution to this is introspection of the root cause. It helped me tremendously to place my finger on what had been going on with me and try to work things out gradually.
I had joined a reputed company as a consultant and I was trying to get a permanent role. I put in lots of efforts, but I figured out the culture was such that if you're dont with your job you will get other peoples job too. I still put my head down and tried to stay focused on my goal of being permanent. It was literally like hamster in wheel. But eventually, I saw that they had been hiring experienced individuals that worked lesser than me, had to be spoon fed and still took home a better salary than me. It was so annoying to be competing against people who knew how to talk the talk but get nothing done. But on the other hand, you do your work but never get highlighted and are considered as a nobody because I would end up with burnout struggling to complete basic stuff. I decided to take a break and travel, wherein I took some time out to introspect on what I had been doing and where was I going with it.
All I can say that its been 3 months and things have been going pretty great so far.
I feel thankful for having a job during such tough times.
I feel great about having good team mates to pitch in for me.
There is lot of learning in here, and I have the liberty to try whatever I want.