I have been having a rough couple weeks emotionally and with
controlling my anxiety, and I am not exactly sure why, I thought I was
improving, now I feel like I am backsliding, slipping slowly back into
despair for unknown reasons. I offer this information because this
week's reading relates about 95% to my current condition.
My primary coping strategy is strategic planning. This result is within
the highest scale. I agree and disagree with this result. I agree with
the result because as of late I have definitely been taking a more
active measure to laying down plans appropriately. I disagree with the
result because I will be the first to admit that I am not doing all that I
can right now to incorporate those techniques, and I am still allowing
my personal depression and stress to overly effect my ability to get
my work done, and I recognize that, especially in the last few days.
Now I must figure out how to overcome this "slump" and increase my
positivity and productivity before it begins to hurt my grades and
aspirations.
Now that I have hit a roadblock of some kind mentally, I am finding
increased difficulty in "waking-up"; and my panic is returning in full
force. For me personally, this results in some seriously physical and
debilitating daily symptoms such as tremors, chest pains,
lightheadedness, trouble catching my breath, and severely increased
blood pressure, usually suddenly and all at once. Even now as I write
this for you, I am experiencing heart flutters and the fright response
of going to the emergency room in a panic. I know from recent
experience how this panicked decision will end; In a doctor pumping
me with anxiety relieving medication or sending me home with
already known lists of coping techniques. Instead of allowing my
physical symptoms to overtake me, I fight to tell my body what my
mind already knows; that I am physically OK. I must eliminate all noise
with ear plugs; I must breathe deep; I have to tell myself again and
again that the physical effects are being intensified by fear and not a
physical issue; I must repeat these processes until my blood pressure
calms and my shakes ease, and I snap a rubber band on my wrist to
incorporate small increments of controlled and self-inflicted
discomfort, this helps to eliminate chest pains; otherwise the
downward spiral of my symptoms will only increase in severity,
sometimes I must even fight my mind to retain consciousness when
my attack makes me want to faint. I am always exhausted,
emotionally and physically, after these attacks...
This is just one step in enhancing my coping ability. I must identify
what I am doing or not doing to allow myself to become so
overwhelmingly overcome with negative emotion in the first place.
Am I failing to self-care appropriately? If yes, what must I do to
neutralize the lack of care? Am I allowing my homelife to overrun my
time dedicated to work? If yes, how can I ensure I am getting my own
private time to focus as needed? Am I smoking too much? Am I
staying up too late? It is detrimentally important to coping and
personal health to recognize, accept, and address the REAL problems
you face, so that you can cope in a way that improves that particular
situation. I can work through my anxiety attacks every time they
happen, but without addressing the underlying causes and reacting
accordingly, my attacks will continue, and my health will continue to
weaken in the process, only adding negatively to my already
precarious condition.
This week I want to compare our lesson with a different
programmatic course theme then I typically would. Finding the right
ways to cope are going to be extremely important within your future
career. We have to know that no matter how happy we are with our
job and with our coworkers, discomfort, misunderstandings, and
disagreements are bound to occur in some form and if we have not
built the skills in which to handle these situations without
overreacting, we leave ourselves open to damaging our work
relationships beyond repair, thus making it a very unpleasant and
unfulfilling place to be from that point on. Or we can go one step
further and say you snap out on a colleague without thinking it
through, and you no longer have a job. That would be devastating,
no? Usually, to approach a delicate situation like a misunderstanding
at work, you should step away and take the time to think on it or go to
a trusted advisor and voice your concerns respectively for an outside
view, before an initial reaction, this is coping.
