Working With Anxiety

Working anywhere can be difficult. There are so many different problems that you can come across. Think about it. You're thrown together with people you don't know and told to work together, sometimes having to rely on and trust them when you haven't known them very long. These are all things that I'm learning how to cope with at the moment. In all of my jobs before I've usually been working alone, you don't exactly have colleagues when you're a babysitter! 

I've already talked a bit about my life here in the office but I thought it was important to discuss the mental difficulties. A full-time job has certainly helped my mood. When you choose when you work it is easier to cave in and say "No, not this week" But when you have to be there 9am sharp and you fear letting people down then, for me at least, it helps get me out of bed in the morning. I would put a disclaimer out and say this doesn't help everyone. Certainly I do sometimes need some time to myself where I recharge and figure out what is going on in my head but the routine helps me to regulate myself plus my insomnia is slowly disappearing. But now I have to tackle issues head on instead of hiding from them. I get to practice my coping mechanisms and I can congratulate myself on all the little victories throughout the day. For example, today I asked for the Wifi password without having a panic attack. It may seem like this is a really tiny thing to get anxious about but this is the kind of thing that causes me day to day problems. I think it is hard for people to get their heads around why I have such problems with really small stuff like this and honestly I don't completely understand myself. If I join in with a conversation in French at lunch that is a major thing for me because it is so intimidating and trying to follow everything as well as thinking of something interesting to say! Some days it feels like it is all getting too much to handle but I get the opportunity to witness my progress a lot more frequently now I have bigger problems to overcome. Each small issue builds my confidence until hopefully soon I can function more normally. 

My medication is helping a lot. It prevents me from getting over-whelmed by the big things so I can focus on dealing with the smaller things. If this clears up some misconceptions of what anxiety is in everyday life then I will be immensely pleased but it just helps to express what all these thoughts that are in my head. As my job requires lots of writing and being creative linguistically I'm finding in therapeutic to throw myself into that, just ask Mike I've become a massive watch nerd! 

Before I ramble anymore I'm going to leave it here. Living and working in Paris is wonderful, but not without its difficulties.