My posting here on PsychCentral has been rather sporatic lately. I have been trying to stay in the loop by reading everybody’s posts, but I have not had much time to write. Right now, my work situation is in a critical state. My depression makes it extremely difficult for me to do my job and the last few months have been the worse. My supervisor suggested I take a leave or go on disability…also suggested maybe I look for another job that would suit me better. I have never been this close to losing a job before. So, I really, really need to buckle down and focus on work.

One of my supervisors said that maybe I am not “cognitively capable” of doing my job. I am smart enough to do the job, but my anxiety, depression and intrusive thoughts make it almost impossible for me to get organized and stay on task long enough to get things done. When my anxiety gets out of control—just sending out a 3 sentence email is torture. I am almost paralyzed by fear—fear that I said something wrong or that I am going to look stupid. Sometimes, I will spend an hour or more writing a simple email that should take less than 5 minutes. I find myself reading them over and over, looking for any mistake. It seems like the more anxious I get, the more mistakes I make. Sometimes the anxiety gets so bad I have to go out and sit in my car and try to pull myself together. When it gets to the point I can’t breath and I think I am going to die, I go home early. I am running out of excuses to go home early.

My last thought before going to sleep at night is a thought of dread about the next day and going to work. I wake up in the morning dreading going to work. Sometimes the dread is so bad that I think of suicide as an option of getting out of it.

My mom also suggested that I go on disability. But, financially, I can’t afford to do that—I have student loans, a home equity loan, mortgage, car payment…ETC. At the moment I am working 2 jobs just to make ends meet. Of course, I am not doing very well in either one of them.

So…I guess I just need to buckle down and try harder.