Email to pdoc:

Dr. V,

Sorry for another email so soon, but I have a couple more questions/concerns. I want to know how long I should wait dealing with something before becoming concerned and contacting you office for an appointment. Here is the situation:

Tuesday last week, I got my annual review for my CVS job. While I received a "meets expectations," I was still told what I need to work on. One the things I was told was being more emotional and forming relationships with the customers. Not to use my mental health as an excuse, but I find it had to form relationships and show emotion to people out of fear that I might be taken advantage of or it might be used against me. I tried on Wednesday to do better at it and found it extremely difficult. Thus, Wednesday night I began to worry that I might lose my CVS job over not being able to form connections with customers. That got my stomach into enough knots. Then on Thursday I had three job interviews for teaching positions in the morning and two of the three seemed to go bad. Thus, I then began to worry that I will not find a teaching job and have to return to my assistant job once school starts back up and deal with the kids who threatened me last year and have the school do nothing about it again besides maybe send me to their therapist when I already have my own. I do not want a repeat of last year, that made me stressed enough. After my first three interviews on Thursday, I had my appointment with you (that ended up being with Mary Ann for a valid reason). After the appointment, I had one more interview for a teaching position. It also did not go well, so now I really began to worry that I will not secure a teaching position. I am afraid that if I return to the school I was at last year as an assistant, I will be stuck doing the same stuff they had me doing at the end of last year when they moved me out of half the classes I was assisting in to sit in a room for "study hall" students, which were never sent in, so I would end up sitting in the room alone and staring at the wall. They said they felt that it was a better placement for me concerning that I felt threatened by some students. In reality, it was worse as I was locked away with no social interaction. I do not want to be stuck doing that again and fear that I will me after reporting threats made by students last year. They wouldn't believe me that students were making threats against me. The students said I was lying and they believed them. I don't want to deal with that again, but it looks like I will have to. This is causing me even more stress. I am stressed enough where I am not sleeping as much as usual, though I am still sleeping some. I also have only felt like eating about one meal a day lately from having my stomach in knots.

I do not know if all of this is temporary and situational or part of a bigger problem. I have never really been worried about the fate of things before and I do not like the feeling. I don't know if it is enough to say I have anxiety as it is all related and piled on in a short period of time. If it is anxiety, I would rather not be put on another medication for it as I have enough problems taking the pills I am on. I am doing better about remembering, but I am still missing doses here and there.

My question is...how long should I allow these worries to carry on before becoming concerned that it might be more than I can solve on my own? I know you have a busy schedule and I know you get hundreds of emails a day. I just wanted some input on this as to when I should say enough is enough and call your office to make an appointment, which may not be possible depending on how booked your schedule is. I come back at the end of August for my injection, should I just wait until then (if the worries are still there) before becoming concerned?

Despite these worries, I am safe. I do not have any thoughts of doing anything to myself. I hate pain, so anything like that is out of the question for me. I do feel in control enough to control my actions, I am just more worried than anything.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Squirrel