God, I had a bad anxiety attack about two hours ago, just as I was getting ready to go to bed. I’m anxious about tomorrow because I have to get up early and go into my vol-work place to do a four hour shift. I know, to some, maybe most people this would seem a very odd thing to have a panic attack over. And it is. But I’ve learnt over many years of sweating palms and stomach churning that anxiety don’t know the meaning of logic. I’ve got myself into a right bloody tizz without realising it was coming over me. I ended up sat in bed crunched over and breathing into my closed palms, an alternative to the much-suggested breathe into a paper bag technique. Well, excuse me but I don’t happen to have a handy store of paper bags all around the house and every place I go ‘just in case’ I suddenly need to breath into one.
Shit, it’s a horrible feeling. I sort of know why I probably had such a big reaction: see, I’ve been struggling with my fatigue/anxiety/depression these last few weeks and have missed a few shifts. I am going back in tomorrow, having not been in for a week and I think, if I break it down my anxiety is centred around these points:
1) worry about what the staff think about me, like I’m an unreliable volunteer maybe.
2)worry about having a talk with the supervisor, which I feel I have to do tomorrow because I have felt a huge pressure for a few weeks with feeling less well and missing my mid-week shift fairly frequently has made me think I might need a break.
3)it’s very difficult to get the supervisor on her own, always other people around and I don’t know yet what I’m going to say or even what I want.
It’s just your garden variety anxiety rearing its head once again. I just fear going backwards so much. I want to keep getting better and moving forward.
I’ll have to see how it goes and write tomorrow what actually happens.
