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 didn't say it was a competition - there are many genuine sufferers and as I've already pointed out, clearly some on this thread.

However, it can't really be denied that people are using the words "anxiety disorder" when they have nothing of the sort.

The person who described it as that feeling in the horror film when the bad stuff is about to happen and you know it will but ours not quite sure what or when. And it builds and builds and builds and builds ...... but in real life there isn't often the release of the "bad thing" happening, because mostly (for me) the anxiety isn't about anything that will actually happen. So you have all the build up and no release.

For me, anxiety is stress induced. When I have too many (for me) "things to do" and I feel like I lose control of them. Once the anxiety reaches that horror-film-build-up level I become completely inept and tackling anything on the list of things to do, and spend hours flirting from one to the next to the next never achieving anything, leading to more anxiety. Eventually it becomes too much and I "blow" by falling apart and shutting down to doing only the absolute minimum to keep alive.

It's a miserable cycle.

I don’t but my sister does.
Something that helps her at work, is that she has one very understanding manager, and she knows that when she can’t do something, all she has to do is seek him out and say “I can’t go on the tills” and he will send her to the stock room, or changing room, or shop floor duties. She doesn’t have to explain why, and she doesn’t have to worry that he thinks she’s a dick or work shy! Knowing that she can just change task really helps her to stay calm. It’s limited her job prospects - not every role or store size could accommodate this. But they have an experienced and good bloody hard worker who is great with customers, so she’s an asset to them still.
She doesn’t have to constantly explain how she’s feeling, why she can’t do something - when it’s not rational to explain it anyway!

Sorry but I do believe it has impact on the brain as it's been proven it can break neuro pathways that create anxiety in the first place in a person, it doesn't work for everyone I think my therapist said 80% of people can be sort of cured from it but you can never be fully cured as we need some level of anxiety to survive, if we didn't have anxiety in us people would have no sense of danger and would be walking into traffic and stuff and that gives me so much comfort to know, BUT it doesn't need to be at such a severe level you can't cope.

Yes I do understand that. It’s like the Kardashians when they calmly state ‘I’m going to have an anxiety attack’. Ffs. (Not that I regularly watch that show or anything..)

Most people I know are genuine though and just suffer to varying degrees!

I get a bit pissed off when people say they have anxiety but they're just a bit nervous, or have normal butterflies in response to something. They have no idea.

Isn't this the problem, when people dismiss the suffering of others, in the mistaken believe their anxiety is so much greater? Maybe you have no idea either....

OP you need to be realistic regarding where your responsibilities start and end. Albeit well-meaning, asking people on here what anxiety is, gives you general experiences, but with no context to your workplace and the potential hazards employees may be confronted with that lead to their anxiety.

You can't resolve the problems of their world, you aren't a trained psychologist or MD, and shouldn't expect to know what they feel like, you have a business to run. You shouldn't try to boil the oceans.

You can and should take your obligations seriously as a responsible manager, to mitigate stress and cultivate a management style that gets the best out of your direct reports:

• set clear objectives so people know what is expected of them
• hold regular meetings both as 1x1 and team meetings (not those daft "team building" ones,) I mean good quality team events with agenda topics relevant to team contributions for the months or half year ahead (for ex.)
• provide clarity if staff have difficulty with priorities
• treat each person with respect, don't belittle or minimise
• zero-tolerance to bullying across the board - if you turn a blind eye to people who behave badly, then you are responsible for enabling that culture.
• don't micromanage people, it's demeaning and disempowering. Give people wings, and they will fly, if you don't they will lose confidence.
• conflict resolution needs to be done swiftly and fairly. Don't have "favourites".

If you feel all the above is a big-ask, yup you're right. That's what a good manager should do. Lack of engagement and support is the disease of modern management. It's all Targets, KPIs, Objectives, at the expense of people's health.

And finally... be in tune with your staff, so you pick up early warning signs of when stress could be escalating, nip it in the bud. Don't ignore or sweep it under the carpet-tiles because it's easier.

If I remember correctly, my therapist said there is a sensory in out brain where it fires a sore of defense signal when you are in danger, people with anxiety, their brains sends out too many of these signals and at the wrong times, it's a physical trigger that causes anxiety, its not just a feeling.

Now even just knowing that much, made me think much more rationally during my panic attacks and bad bouts of anxiety, I was able to remind myself that I'm not dying, nothing bad is happening, my brain is just being overly cautious and sending me signals to fight or flight for no reason.

That in itself helps me to calm down, along with breathing exercises the panic attacks go away quite quickly and I'm able to get on with my life afterwards.

I have agoraphobia too, so whenever I go anywhere I alway make sure I know exactly where my nearest exit is. If we sit at a table I alway sit on the end nearest to an exit. I alway have to sit on an end of a toq in the cinema and I always have to have a window or a door open wherever I am. If not I feel trapped and that's when panic attacks happen.

For me, it manifests as absolute loss of perspective / lack of resilience. I catastrophise everything, so that small setbacks become insurmountable dreads that I go round and round in circles thinking about, never moving forward or resolving anything. I misinterpret totally normal things as being signs people are angry or disappointed. I can’t imagine how a stressful situation will end up being ok.

I’m in a good place now and have my anxiety under control, but when it’s bad it really dominates my whole life.

My anxiety can come on in two ways. A sudden attack that comes from nowhere and is severe in that moment but thankfully passes in an hour or two but leaves me knackered afterwards.

And then there is like I am experiencing at the moment a more situational response which can last for days with a constant state of anxiety peaking and troughing throughout the day making it impossible to do even simple things at times. I currently haven’t had more than 3 hours sleep for the last three nights because I simply can’t settle

It's the same as people who say 'oh I've got a bit of OCD'! Twats. You don't just get it at odd times, you have it ALL the time and it impacts your life in multiple ways whether others can see it or not. It is quite different from some pillock saying "Oh you're giving me anxiety". Quite different.

NCforthisone
Not everyone who has anxiety is a jibbering wreck sat in the corner or needing the help of an acute mental health facility. In fact, without realising it you've hit the nail completely on the head although you've failed to understand that you've come close (but not quite made it to the following understanding):

People can have mild, moderate or severe anxiety and still be able to go to work and to parent plus a trillion other things - AND HAVE REAL GENUINE DIAGNOSABLE ANXIETY - why is that SO difficult to accept, and to understand?! We do all those things and carry out those activities in spite if the anxiety, not because we don't actually have anxiety and are just making it up.

I think for me its because I was brought up to never cause anyone any trouble and always make life easier for people. Therefore growing up if I ever had a problem I wouldn't ever tell anyone or ask for help because I didn't want to inconvenience my parents.
Therefore everything became internalized and magnified.
Now, with my own dc, I'm always telling them that if they have any problems they can talk to me.

somuchinfo - same here .. our neighbour opposite when I was in my late teens/early twenties used to stand looking out of the window and never go out - her husband did everything for her and I used to sometimes poke fun about her to people and think she was pathetic ..... I've now had what the therapists call agoraphobia with panic disorder for at least 12 years and I've thought so many times it serves me right and I'm disgusted that I was so young and stupid to have felt that way. In my defence though (and it's not a great one I know) there was hardly anything ever spoken then (30 years ago) about mental illness and even though I shouldn't have ever dismissed her as being 'not right in the head', I honestly didn't understand it ... still not right that I could have ever thought in that way, youth or not and I am ashamed of myself ...what goes around, comes around??

Interestingly there's a post on the Employment Issues board, about someone experiencing anxiety. From that one post, you can easily pick up what is going wrong:

The person is new in role and already overwhelmed with volume of work

There seems to be an element of blame culture and finger pointing, so they feel targeted

Self esteem and confidence has dipped because they aren't coping and they have nobody to confide in. They feel isolated

These are the hallmarks of a dysfunctional situation that will probably mean the person leaves that company to stop the anxiety they're feeling. Lose-lose for employee and employer.

Eliminate the root causes of anxiety and everyone's a winner.

At work I sometimes feel overwhelmed, like I can’t cope. Then this leads to me worrying that everybody knows I can’t cope and thinks I’m useless and shouldn’t be doing the job. To me my mistakes are amplified. Everybody makes mistakes but I think mine are worse, I dwell on them. I go home at night and dread going back to work in case I did something wrong.

I’m a worrier, I’ve been in the same job a long time but need to constantly check things so I can reassure myself it’s right. I know this is annoying to other people but I can’t help it. It is a way of soothing myself to ask ‘is this right?’ or to check something in the SOP.

The above is just me and what is normal to me. I would see this as me being ‘anxious’ and a ‘worrier’, I have been this way as long as I can remember. I probably come across to colleagues as unconfident, unwilling to take on other duties (because I don’t think I’m capable), and unwilling to take on any supervisory or training duties (again, I just can’t see myself able to do that).

For me my anxiety comes out when I have a lot to think about at once. When my head is already full of guilt and worry over my child for example. I am fine to some extent on a normal day but if work is particularly stressful or busy or we are short staffed I feel breathless, get chest pains and my hands and feet tingle. I feel like I’m not really there and at a remove.

Hopefully the current campaign "Heads Together" may normalise the idea that people should, in the right context, be able to speak up about their internalised anxiety, so it becomes something they can rationalise, understand and accept, and not beat themselves up about or be stigmatised for.

NCforthisone19 you don't seem to be very knowledgeable about CBT. It has a very good evidence for anxiety and depression and is in the Nice guidelines for Psychosis. It is the treatment of choice for many severe and enduring mental health difficulties and there is evidence that psychological therapies do facilitate the development of new neural pathways.

I think the problem with anxiety is that people do not distinguish between experiencing the emotion anxiety and an anxiety disorder. The same way people say they are depressed when there mood is a bit low or they are sad. Also there is evidence that modern life is not good for us so we are experiencing increasing levelsof emotional distress. There is a compassion fatigue and people who display emotional distress can get labelled snowflakes.

This is what it’s like to have anxiety

I suffer from anxiety and for me it means that I wake up feeling worried and I'm worried all day.

Same here. I can wake up absolutely terrified - of everything and of nothing. It's horrible. I feel physically sick, can barely breathe, chest is so tight, am on the point of tears the whole time, shake like a leaf and an barely pick up a cup. I am afraid to answer the phone, never mind the door - it's really, really dreadfull

I don't know where it comes from, can't predict it, can't do anything about it - just have to wait it out. If there was a trigger I could avoid it or prepare for it - but there isn't, or at least not one that am aware of.

CBT is also in the Nice guidelines for Bipolar Disorder as there is a good evidence base for it's effectiveness.

I recently had someone who I indirectly manage (ie I'm the more senior in the dept providing the service) who apologised profusely about something they hadn't done correctly and I could see they really were anxious about it (just by the amount they apologised).

We talked through the problem, they knew what they needed to do next time and we were able to put it into perspective through discussion.

It took about 10 minutes of quality time, to put the matter to rest, and the person having learned from it.

Had I locked down, told them they should have known better and "go and speak to so-and-so because they always get it right", that person would have been destroyed, because they were already on a low ebb. But unbelievably it's often deemed to be a management approach that's acceptable - not in my organisation, but some firms have managers like that. It's vile. Anxiety cannot be eliminated as if by magic, but sometimes the straw that breaks the camels back can be just around the corner, we never know when that moment is.

Eliminate the root causes of anxiety and everyone's a winner.

Too simplistic. Often anxiety can be caused by "normal" life events - you can't eliminate the telephone ringing, or someone knocking at your door, or a random stranger wanted to start a conversation with you. Or someone sitting next to you on the train/bus. It's not always about pressure of work - sometimes it's about the whole "work" experience, including commuting, normal interactions with staff & clients, etc. Anxiety has the ability to ruin a person's life, their personal relationships, their education, their career, etc - it's impossible to eliminate all root causes. What's needed is more understanding from the "normals" - it would be a start if they'd just accept you have problems rather than think you can be "cured" by a few simple changes.

There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. I have suffered from anxiety in the past. There were very concrete life circumstances that led to my anxiety, and then my brain just went down a rabbit hole. I had a useless employer at the time. They refused to help me in any way which led to me resigning.

What would have been helpful for me would have been a more flexible work schedule, which could have helped me with childcare issues and allowed me to go to regular yoga classes. May sound like middle-class wank, but yoga did save me in the end. Anyway, I now work freelance and my previous employer regularly hires me for projects at exorbitant rates. And I have time for yoga every day.

I am a strong woman who, when going through a particularly anxious period wakes everyday with a 'knowing' that something dreadful is going to happen to me.I spend the day trying to hold it together and feeling that any second I'm going to implode. I go to bed relieved I've managed to get through the day and wake again to the 'knowing' something bad is going to happen.
It's like groundhog day. It is horrendous.
I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my body and the physical effects are a living hell. It feels like you are on constant alert and are being hunted.
This anxious period occurs out-of-the- blue in my case anyway which makes it much more scary as if you could find the source you could rationalise it.

I've had nine courses of CBT and I'm worse than ever. Unfortunately, in my area it is the only NHS therapy available for PTSD and anxiety disorder as there are no specialists in anything like EMDR or alternative medications.

It works for some, it doesn't work for those with more complex causes, which is why things like EMDR exist.

If you can't afford to access the therapy that is most beneficial, you're left to suffer, unfortunately. Can't work due to mental illness, can't improve due to no income. It's fabulous.

I used to have extremely bad GAD. Not any more but anxiety still comes back and manifests itself as various phobias. When anxiety presents itself, I have vague feelings of doom and feel uneasy, it's horrible. People without anxiety can have difficulty understanding that even if it's mild it can run your life. They don't understand that asking you a certain favour (because a part of the favour may trigger your anxiety) may cause you to ruminate and worry until you do it. You don't want to back out of the favour for fear of looking selfish and you resent thrm for asking it of you. It's horrible. I wonder what it's like to be a calm, laid-back person. I often am prone to bouts of anger which are really unwarranted.