Good Old Anxiety

It’d been quite a long time since anxiety decided to rear its ugly head and give me a good mental lashing, but yesterday was my (un)lucky day. My work partner was off yesterday, so it was just me. We’d already been hit hard on Friday with two or three days worth of work easy, so I already knew I was going into work with a huge disadvantage. That knowledge was like a dark cloud hanging over my head. But as the day moved on thru the morning more and more work began piling up, and I was constantly answering the door, unloading trucks, and not getting much done in the way of progress.

By the time 2pm rolled around I couldn’t get out of that place faster. My head was throbbing and I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach that you get when you sense something sinister just around the corner, yet you don’t “see” it. You just “feel” it. I got home, changed, and went out for a 4 1/2 mile walk which helped tremendously. But as I sat after the walk I could feel that sense of dread start to slip back in. Like that movie It Follows, and the nameless, voiceless creature that was coming to kill me was walking up the sidewalk to the front door. I finally got a handle on it, got dinner going, then took a shower.

I’ve learned to stop letting work get the better of me. Who cares how much work there is, we know that we’re on a timeline to unemployment. Our jobs have expiration dates, so why let it bother us anymore when we’re dumped on work-wise. We’ll get it done when we get it done. I’m in a very “whatever dude” state of mind in regards to my job anymore, yet yesterday I let it get the best of me. That bothers me. I don’t want to waste a single minute worrying about that place. They’ve let me know that I’m expendable, that my contribution to the big corporate machine doesn’t matter. Yet, the timeline to close has been expanded, erased, re-examined, and postponed quite a few times. Mainly because the facilities that they’re going to send our work to aren’t even remotely ready or capable of taking that work over. So, we continue to receive, inspect, finish, polish, package, sterilize, and then ship it for them.

I suppose it’s bothering me more than I let on.

I guess it doesn’t help that my sinuses have been bothering me the last few days as well, giving me this dull, annoying headache that doesn’t ever seem to go away. I’ve also not gotten my daily walks in like I’d like. Due to heat, air quality, and general lack of ambition I’ve not hit the pavement like I normally do. Not having that four to five mile walk daily, work stress, life stress, and good old self-induced mental flogging just builds up in my body until it manifests as a good old anxiety attack.

I’m very thankful that for the most part I’ve got that tiger by the tail. I know when I’m starting to slip downstream into a mental fireball, so I take precautions. I feel it coming on and I take a breather; just chill out, take a walk, listen to some jazz, draw, or play some guitar. Those things usually bring me out of that spiral. But yesterday I was at work, by myself, and had no means of just walking away to decompress. It kept building and did nothing to alleviate it.

I’m mad at myself for letting it get to that point, especially knowing that I let it start gnawing at me Sunday. The anticipation of being overwhelmed at work the day before turned into a reality, which I then rode like a surfer riding the perfect panic wave. It was glorious and horrifying and the wave nearly pulled me under. I know better than to let work bother me. I’m here for just a limited time at this point. I might as well just do the work at my own pace and get paid while doing it. They’re not going to fire me at this point. They need me here too badly to let me go.

I guess we all have those days. That’s the great thing about anxiety, it doesn’t necessarily run on the same rule book that we do. It makes up its own rules, and sometimes right on the spot as you’re having a mental sparring match with it. You throw logic at anxiety and panic and it throws confetti and fireballs back. You present logic, anxiety presents a Demogorgon. You present reason, anxiety presents Godzilla destroying Tokyo.

Thankfully, I only have one more day of work after today. I’ll be off from Thursday to Monday, heading back to work next Tuesday. Friday and Saturday is the big hiking trip down to Brown County with my oldest pal. We both need this getaway, and I’m ready to take in some country miles and enjoy the southern Indiana landscape. Then of course enjoy an ice cold brew in the evening on the porch. Decompression time is a must.

Okay, off to do it all over again. I won’t be working alone today, so that’s a plus. “Que sera sera, whatever will be will be“, as the song goes.