OMG golden_eve, thank you for posting this thread!

What I have been going through the past couple of weeks, starting another new job after being on several weeks disability, and how I feel is identical to what you described, yet, as much as I wanted to write it down and post or otherwise, would have come out terribly...

I am a senior level in relative association, and I went back to work for a place that I had worked for several years before "exploring" other paths. I have burned about a week and a half on a project that would have taken me 3 days tops a few years ago, and yet still I am only half done with it. the other half a week, of the past 2 weeks was getting through the formalities of things.

I find comfort working for this company. It has always held a special place in my heart. This was a method of my madness, in hopes that being in a comfortable and familiar environment where I was most recently most stable, would foster my recovery and help me learn to manage the hell I have created for myself, it seems.

It seems now, though, that my fear and anxiety is REALLY driving my head right now, and I feel guilty about it, like I don't deserve all the warm welcomes I experienced, and Lord forbid they found out that my stress killed my memory and has slowed my execution to snail pace. I can just imagine it now..... Not a good feeling. It is terrifying me and somehow part of me just doesn't care and it conflicts with the part of me that absolutely cares. I keep hearing things from people, and I see the overwhelming stress on faces of people I know closely and I want to jump in and help, but I am struggling also to keep my nose above water. I feel for them. I am more concerned for me and I feel guilty about that too.

It's like wanting to blast it out to the whole place so they will just lay off and get me off the throne they placed me upon, but yet, hearing the flattering compliments and warm welcomes back actually have helped me against me. They speak to me and give me things to feed my anxiety, like I can walk back into this place and fix it all for them, at my own mental expense of course. I don't know if that made sense.

I have fidget wheel, a peacock glitter globe that lights up in rainbow to stare at like a lava lamp, and I keep my earbuds in and listen to worship music. It gets old, like I trip out several times during the course of the day and I look at these things and sometimes I pick them up, most times I don't. Frustrating. Being on new dx, med, and job has been weird and overwhelming.