To not understand anxiety!

[Beebeezed]

First time poster here.

I am currently on mat leave but I’m a manager of a company in charge of around 40 staff. In recent years, I have seen a huge increase in staff declaring that they suffer with anxiety. As a company, we do what we can to support these staff and I feel I’m as supportive as I can be. Since going on maternity leave I’ve had time to reflect on my role as a manager and how I can improve and feel that one thing I struggle with is actually empathising genuinely with these staff as I have literally no idea what anxiety feels like. I worry this could prohibit the staff from feeling fully supported. I’ve done a lot of research (mainly at 3am during cluster feeds ) but I’m still at a slight a loss as to what anxiety truly feels like and how it may affect you in the work place. I have felt anxious before but understand this is very different from anxiety

I’d really appreciate you sharing your experiences! And if you do have any suggestions on how your work place could/does support you would be amazing.

Just to clarify, I’m due to return to work soon and this is purely to help me with staff morale and support

I also do Buddhist chanting and go to meetings weekly which generally help. However I am taking a break from group settings for a couple of weeks as feeling burnt out.

Mentally, I worry about everything. I catastrophise, so something that another person would shrug off leaves me ruminating for days, wondering if I am (eg) going to get the sack. I hate change and being out of my routine, so things like holidays which should be great are a nightmare.

I came on to post about my experiences of anxiety and this sums quite a lot of it up. I also often fixate about random things that may/may not/are actually very unlikely to happen and catastrophise about them. For instance, I am currently fairly obsessively thinking about what will happen if our next door neighbours die and their house gets turned into a holiday let and there is loads of noise. A very odd thing to be fixated on, but there you go....

Also, to echo what the PP said about change of routine, we are going on holiday on Wednesday, flying with 2 small dc. I feel like you do before a really hard exam, very panicky, can't concentrate at work, verging on tearful. I know this feeling will build up and up until we go, I've already cancelled my plans for tonight, and probably won't subside until the holiday if half over and I've settled down a bit.

Also, I meant to say, I find anxiety paralysing, as in the worry stops me doing things. I shut down a bit and become introverted and quiet. I find it very hard to accomplish basic tasks, such as taking me half the day to get out of the house to go to Tesco.

Conversely, when something bad (eg bereavement, miscarriage, accident etc) actually happens, I tend to cope quite well. In the moment, I'm ok - its when I have time to think, then the thinking takes over.

Yes to the above. I actually cope better when the worst happens because I can no longer dread it if that makes sense.

I get pissed off every time I have to ring our works mental health helpline it’s called “the stronger minds team” I mean ffs can’t they see it infers that mental health issues equate to weak minds! Please don’t do something similar at your work.

Have only skimmed the thread, but agree with what some of the PPs have said. It's the ruminating/catastophising that affects me. Usually regarding something I may have done/ said and whether I might get I to trouble over it or how others will interpret it. Usually completely unnecessarily. Logically I know that & after some CBT I am now able to realise that it's my anxiety causing me to feel that way, but it doesn't make it completely go away.

OP, I'm sorry you've had some negative responses from some posters. I think your original post comes across like you genuinely care and want to do the right thing. Compare and contrast to a moronic line manager I had at my last job who (knowing I had some stress issues) told me I should "just switch off" and stop worrying about emails coming through out of hours (despite the fact she was one of the people sending them and causing me stress by her style of communication) - complete idiot!

I'm fortunate compared to many in that I've never had a full-blown panic attack.

I sometimes get palpitations, my breathing gets shallow... but the main manifestation for me is a sort of internal agitation, closely followed by brain freeze. I don't know what to do next, want to run away etc. It can be quite paralysing. This is quickly followed by some pretty harsh self-recrimination and name-calling.

Sorry, also meant to say - I have good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours, and often there seems to be no rhyme or reason to them.

So, some days I will sail through my work feeling upbeat and confident. The next day exactly the same demands can leave me feeling overwhelmed, like I'm wading through treacle. It follows, then, that the support, strategies or whatever need to be responsive and not fixed.

I second guess my actions and what I have said to people. I may go over and over a conversation in my mind and it can keep me up at night. I’m very hard on myself and think that I need to do a better job. Social get togethers with many people makes me anxious.

Reassure staff that they are doing a good job
If organizing social events for staff, allow employees to opt out- it’s not that they don’t like their colleagues or are not committed to work

“the stronger minds team”
That is offensive, has anyone told them it needs renaming?

My anxiety presents as catastrophising, intrusive thoughts, and physical effects which include difficulty breathing, headaches, aches and shaking. I also cry at anything and everything, and become extremely irritable.

@ravenmum - I keep trying to sum up the courage to tell them exactly what I think of the name. Half of me thinks is it done on purpose - the Company are very good at paying lip service to mental health but generally all you get is stuff about resillance (which they seem to interpret at being able to just get on with things and stop being so sensitive).

On an anxious day for me, I wake up feeling as if something terrible is about to happen to me. I feel very sick and am quite often sick on these days. When I have had anxiety attacks at work, I sit at my desk and feel like I am going to die, it's very hard to explain but I get a wave of heat over my whole body and I can feel my heart pumping and my whole body feels sick, and I feel incredibly panicky - my mind genuinely thinks I am going to die. Quite often going outside and breathing in cool air and calming myself without the worry of my colleagues coming and talking to me is the best thing for me.

For me it’s not necessarily worrying about any one thing. It’s an overwhelming feeling of dread or horror. Extreme nausea, complete inability to keep any food down. Feeling absolutely wired and trembling but also exhausted because I don’t sleep. It is deeply, deeply physical. When it’s been really bad i’ve wished I was dead.

I keep trying to sum up the courage to tell them exactly what I think of the name
Tricky to do (quite apart from the fact that anything takes courage if you suffer from anxiety!) as you need to get across the fact that it's really a very crappy name, while at the same time not potentially making them all defensive.

We need to revisit our stress management strategies if we find the current ones aren't working.

I go to a local spiritual group but in an emergency do not find anybody local can relate to what I am feeling consequently I am going to leave the group once and for all and go join a church which will have way more people in it who can relate to what I am saying. You would hope the local group would help but they do not. There is no cross section of ages and I need people on my wavelength more.

Previously I had left and then returned however I did not find an alternative but now I am working on the alternative. If that makes sense.

Just an idea. A spiritual group may help you with stress? If you can click with the people that is. They are way older than me and most of them are neither working nor got children to bring up.

I hope I find people with jobs and children to bring up at the church. Not just retired people who cannot relate to me. It is today Wednesday lunchtime that they lay on a free meal. I hope it is minimum those who have jobs!

If I do not find I can click with enough local people then in an anxiety flare up it takes longer to see to my stress levels and then I have too much on my plate. The old ways simply aren't working any longer. Something needs to change.