1st Post

I am new here. I just did a bunch of quizes showing that my sanity score is 148. Not a good score to have obviously.

Last Friday, I had an severe episode of anxiety, panic, and paranoia at work. I am embarassed beyond belief. I worked very hard to get this job, and now I feel like I am losing my composure and maybe this job. I am stressed at work. It is so busy, the work is so complex, and I feel stupid because I don't know everything. The people I work with have been there for decades and one of them gets snarly at me when I can't remember something that in the 7 months I've been there I only used the info maybe 2 or 3 times. She treats me like an incompetent. However, other than that this is a great job that I had always wanted. But now I am getting depressed, full of anxiety, and I feel hopeless.

This morning, as a result of the clonazepram that I took in high quantities last night, I accidentally slept in right past my alarm. I had to take it because my anxiety is through the roof. My brain is shutting down on me. So I slept in and woke up an hour after my shift started and I couldn't believe it. My co-worker is completely disgusted with me and I feel like I have let my team down which I did.

So later in the day, my boss called me into his office to talk to me. He basically told me that this job is all about stress and there are high workloads all over the company. My anxiety and stress have raised to where I am forgetting things I already know, I live in fear of my co-workers labelling me incompetent, and I live in fear of losing the job I worked so hard to get. I am a mess.

I have been living with so many problems that will not go away no matter what I do. I can't stay in the present moment, I live in paranoia that people think I'm stupid, I feel like i am stupid because this job is so hard and i have to juggle a million things plus work with the public at the front counter. I don't know what to do.

I went to see a counselor a couple of months back, but I felt it drudged up some stuff that triggered my depression so I didn't go back. I am getting worse depressed and have no joy in life. If I lose this job, I have no idea what I will do. This is it. I had no other aspirations for work. I just wish I could disappear. I don't see anything good in the world right now. I feel empty and powerless, and I cannot stop thinking about horrible experiences. I can't even focus on my job, so I make a lot of dumb mistakes. Where I once was confident, I no longer have any.

Now lately, I've started having stomach trouble so I've eaten way less. I turned to vitamins which caused my stomach to bleed so I had to stop. Endless worrying about the future is the theme of everyday. I fear being broke again.

I also have ADD/narcolepsy and have been feeling paranoid lately from the medication. When I don't take it, I am so tired all day I constantly start falling asleep at my desk. I don't know what to do. Maybe I am in the wrong job. But changing jobs is not an option for me. God my life is hopeless. I try to eat better then I get sick from something I eat and it makes me depressed. Or if I quit medication, I can hardly stay awake then I get paranoid.

I keep obsessing about bad things from my past that were traumatic experiences for me...they come back to me all the time and I can't make them stop.

My boss set me aside today to talk and said he is very concerned about me and that I am becoming more and more erratic. He is giving me chances and says my co-worker is getting frustrated. I should have been there this morning but I didn't even hear my alarm that's how out of it I was. He is going to move me to a different location within our company. This is a change that I am worried about. I feel like I am on my way out. Nothing is going right for me, and I am a mess. I keep forgetting everything, I'm like a scatterbrain right now. I go to my doctor but he doesn't seem to have anything for me to help. SSRI's have made me feel suicidal so I can't take them. I am so scared that I am going to lose my job. He even said he talked to Human Resources about me which is an absolutely terrible thing for my job prospects. He asked me if I feel like i am in over my head, and I said yeah I do, it is too busy for me without help since we are short staffed.

I really need help but I have no idea where to start, though I did make another appointment with a counselor. Though that tends to make me feel even worse than I already do. I have so many issues that no ones even had a clue how to deal with. I am just beside myself with depression, sadness, and fear. Not to mention being social phobic. My life sucks and everything is painful. I just want to sleep the rest of my life away...

Speaking for myself, I find that my therapist helps organize my chaos. She also validates and normalizes my feelings. All of this helps manage my anxiety. I find I make better decisions.

I hope you can find a therapist that helps you.

Hi there,

I think going to see your M.D. is the right move. You should tell him/her everything, maybe even send this post to your doc ahead of time, just so you don't forget anything. clonazepram (which is an SSRI by the way) may be causing you problems including sleep problems. I'm really pretty sure that you shouldn't be taking large quantities of that or any drug based on how you are feeling on a particular day. You've got to be super-steady and have a plan with this kind of stuff. It sounds like you are also taking something for ADD and/or for narcolepsy and, if so, I'm sure it's possible that such meds may be causing you problems, especially if you take them erratically.

I really get the impression that you are in a stress spiral. Stress causes your brain to shut down which causes problems at work which causes more stress, and so on... While you wait for your Doc appointment, try to find some way, any way, to calm down.

You say you can't stay in the present moment, but this is really essential. Here are some ways to try.

Try a guided meditation



Listen to some Eckhart Tolle stuff on the web:



Just count your breaths until you get to 100.

Go for a walk.

Try "SNAP CLUB" as described here:

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...n-escaped.html

Give yourself a time to do this when you don't have anything to do and when you can drop your worries about your job.

- vital

Hello & Welcome, Narcoleptic4444. We share several issues.

To clarify (and feel free not to answer): Specifically, what is your sleep-related diagnosis - narcolepsy, primary insomnia, obstructive or central sleep apnea, hypersomnia/"excessive daytime sleepiness," or something else? Are you taking any medications in connection with that diagnosis?
In view of this, now is not the time to burden yourself with trying to deal with your mother.
Does HR know about your diagnoses? Now may be the time to tell them and document it.

My collection of problems did eventually destroy my career. In hindsight, it is possible (not certain) I may have remained vocationally viable longer if I had obtained even more aggressive treatment earlier and transitioned to lower stress activities.

Hello narcoleptic4444, it seems to me that the company want to keep you. They are offering to give you another position that is less stressful, that sounds good to me. It will give you a chance to seek therapy and medication adjustments and time... to possibly move back to the former position if you wanted. This could be a really good move for you.

Change your self talk! Re-read your entire post and notice how HARD you're being on yourself. You're stressed, it's okay! But getting upset about being stressed is not going to calm you down.
You can just tell your boss you are going through some troubles at home - they don't need to know any details about it. Say you are working through it, things are looking up, and you do not feel over your head anymore, you were just going through some personal issues at home. Then leave it at that. Your boss does not need to know details because he is not your therapist.

Just because he talked to HR doesn't mean it has ruined your job prospects at all.
Maybe moving to another section of the company will be a good thing, because then you'll get away from that mean coworker.
Show up to work a little earlier in the coming few days or week. Then, once you get to work, relax.

My friend was a chef at a restaurant and he hated his job, he said he was so stressed out because it was very fast paced and he had people yelling at him from every direction while he was cooking - he said he finally started moving slower. He started being more present, and literally moving slower. Instead of dashing around the kitchen in a fit of anxiety at a fast speed, he moved slower with every single movement he made.
He took a couple seconds between each movement and deliberately slowed down, which made his mind slow down as well, it allowed him to actually concentrate, and the people who were shouting at him, stopped.

So this is what you should do while working. Slow down. Block out all the external nonsense, and focus on you. Just you.
Whenever you get stumped and can't figure something out - take a few seconds, breathe, think about it, consider your options, and give yourself a little confidence boost while you're at it. Even saying something simple like, "I'm very intelligent." or "Nothing is permanent. Even this situation." can calm you down and help you to feel unstuck.

I really want to be steady but I'm so unsteady and inconsistent all of the time. I feel good sometimes, then I feel bad. Today, I had no stress from work issues at all, but yet I was getting paranoid thoughts thinking that everyone knows about me and are they talking about me etc. They have all been very nice. But I am my own worst enemy at not wanting, or knowing how to act or talk to people at all in person. Unless I am joking around. I wish people had more sense of humor. Hell I wish I did.

I read The Power of Now and it changed my life back when I read it. Now I can't remember anything of it, and I don't even know how to get it back...where I was in the present moment. My head thinks so many thoughts. I am unable to stay in the present moment which causes me problems in social situations where I am thinking so many things and watching them interact and trying to figure things out about how they are interacting that I miss what they are actually saying. Those people are all in the moment, and I am observing and watching and I feel mute. I feel like I can't talk. It is hard to talk unless I know someone has something in common with me. I always feel that I communicate with music, but others cannot relate to that, so I feel lost among other people. I feel so alone in this universe during those times.

I stopped taking the medication all together but I feel like I need to go back on celexa. I feel really up and down. Some days I feel great, some weeks I feel great...then I go back down again. I cannot figure it out. I've been trying to figure it out for all my life. I don't know. I can't know. So I guess I need to try to find my way back to the now. Maybe I need to start working out or something. I have to do something to get back on track. The hardest part is that I always feel like I need a stimulus mentally. I need to do something to keep my brain occupied.

But anyway, you had good suggestions. I've fogotten how to take it easy and live simply. I try to take on too much. I'm going to try something different. One thing that has been helping me in the past week, has been coming to this forum and getting some answers and seeing things more clearly. I don't feel so alone or so unique in my troubles.

Well I have sleep apnea; so most likely that is the main problem for me. Then I am sleepy all day. It hasn't happened to me yet this week since coming off medication, but if I eat sugar, then look out! I am drowsy and tired. But I suspect that it could be hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia too. I can't figure it out! My Dad is a diabetic but my blood tests never show anything except that once I had low potassium or like my latest I had high cholesterol.

Sometimes I think my immune system is fighting me, then I get depressed about it because I never feel the same all the time. By same I mean that I get sicker than most people do. I sometimes think I'm a hypochondriac. I can absorb things people say and start thinking about that thing and then I start getting it.

I often feel guilty for having conversations with people where I said more than I wished I had said and gave up too much information. But I'm not going to hold back here, I need to get stuff out, and get some answers so that I can figure out the problem.

I used to work out until even working out made me feel sick. I would work out, then for days afterwards, I was completely depleted of energy.

A couple of weeks ago, I felt like I had ibs. I kept having to go and I felt so sick.

This is the thing about me: I literally get a million different things going wrong on me on a monthly basis. In September/October I had bronchitis.

Then I was depressed about that. Everytime I think things are going good, I get knocked back down by my health. This causes my employers/coworkers to think I just don't want to work. Of course I want to work. I just don't want to be sick. Who in their right mind would not want to work and earn a living? People can be so narrow minded. Just because an opinion exists, doesn't mean it exists for a good reason. They just heard the phrase somewhere and they do no thinking of their own.

Thank you for sharing. It sounds as if a number of different things could be going on.

How are they treating or having you manage the sleep apnea? In my experience, sleep is critically important.