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

For me, anxiety means my thoughts all jumble, I feel panicky, heart races, I perspire alot, I pass alot of wind and have very loose bowels and need to use the toilet alot and noisily. It's a real curse.

@NCforthisone the evidence for T-CBT and EMDR is equivalent so what you have said is inaccurate. EMDR has just been taken out of the Nice guidelines in favour of CBT but they specify EMDR should be offered if requested. I do think that's a shame because I prefer emdr to CBT for trauma.

CBT is offered for many complex psychological difficulties as I have already stated and it is very effective. DBT for example is a 3rd wave CBT for EUPD/BPD.

Just because you had 9 lots of CBT doesn't mean it's I effective. Did you have low intensity CBT? IAPT services are often not commissioned to provide anything else although some offer EMDR and/IPT.

I'm going to try and put into a context that might help it make sense for you. I do apologise if you find the wording difficult, but I am only trying to help.

You have a baby (congratulations).

From the moment you got the BFP, your thoughts were 'I'm going to miscarry/the baby will have a defect incompatible with life and I'll have to give birth to a baby that will die and it'll be all my fault' and 'my DH will hate me and leave me for somebody who isn't fat, ugly and it'll be all my fault'. Instead of looking forward to seeing your baby on an ultrasound screen, you will be thinking 'they'll find something wrong/the heart will have stopped beating and my baby will die and my DH will leave me'.

'I'm feeling sick and tired. They'll see I can't do my job properly and sack me and DH will leave me and I won't be able to pay the bills and I'll be homeless and he'll take the baby and meet somebody else and bring it up with them as their mother and it'll be all my fault'.

'They say these are Braxton Hicks. I'm going into premature labour and the baby will die and it'll be my fault'

'There aren't enough movements/I haven't noticed a movement for a while (because I've been busy, but I'm not thinking of that). My baby's died'

'There's going to be an undiagnosed birth defect or a stillbirth. I'm going to die in labour'

Get the baby home -

'I can't breastfeed. It's not enough for the baby, even with cluster feeds. I'm incompetent and the baby will starve and it'll be all my fault'

'If I go to sleep, I'll wake up to find the baby has died. If I go and have a bath, the baby will die, a cat will climb in the window and smother them, a fox will eat them, the house will burn down and it'll all be my fault, my DH will leave me'

'If I put the baby in a pushchair and go out, we'll get hit by a car. If I put the baby in a car seat, we'll be crushed by a lorry. Somebody will touch the baby and they'll have an illness which will kill the baby because it's too early for vaccinations'

'If the baby has vaccinations, they'll have a reaction to them and die and it'll be my fault'

'The baby is a little snuffly, not feeding as much/more, is crying/not crying - something's wrong, I'm doing it wrong, they're ill and I don't know it and it's all my fault and everybody will know'

'If I tell anybody I'm having these thoughts, they'll say I'm mad and take the baby away. DH will leave me and take the baby and find somebody else to be its mother'

'DH will leave me, he's just here because of the baby and he'll meet somebody else and they'll be the mum'

'I love my baby so much. Somebody will hurt them and I'll lose them and what was that noise outside? It's somebody coming to hurt us'

'The world's going to end in war or environmental disaster or disease or it'll be horrible and my baby will be all alone'

'DH is ten minutes later coming in through the door. He's met somebody else and isn't coming back, he's had an accident and is dead, he hates me and wishes he'd never met met and, and, and.......'

That's if you can articulate your anxiety and pin your thoughts on it being related to the baby/DH. It can come with all the feelings, the elevated heartrate, gasping breathing/hyperventilation, legs turning to jelly, the fear without a specific thing or situation to attach it to.

I'm getting it quite a lot at the moment. I've been fucked about with redundancy since January, it's a stressful job and I am genuinely terrified that I'll come out of it with nothing/I lose the house. Which is understandable when they've dragged it out for so long, and I still don't know what my finish date or final payment date will be, despite asking. If there's that, a huge time critical workload and my boss is stressed and snapping at me, I can feel the physical sensations well up - and sometimes, I can't move because if I do, I will have my legs go out from underneath me.

However, probably as a result of all the mental unpacking of stuff from my childhood and young adult years following my brother dying in an accident, I'm also getting random bouts of unreasonable anxiety daily. I find my heart pounding as though I've just run for a bus, I jump each time I hear a siren, I'm finding it ridiculously difficult to leave the house and if traffic is heavy or there are lots of people, I desperately want to go home before I get dizzy, fall over and get killed by a car like my brother.

DP is away. In my head, I think he's leaving/not coming back/has met somebody else/is going to stay away because I'm not going to have a job/I'm too demanding at the moment/can't handle me wanting him to come with me if I have to leave the house. Or he's had a breakdown over my being too needy, has had an accident like my brother, there's been an incident and it just hasn't been reported yet....

It's irrational. I'll manage. We'll manage. He loves me and will come back. An accident is unlikely. The one that killed my brother was simply a combination of seemingly unimportant factors that coalesced into a catastrophic event. No great rhyme or reason to it, bad things happen sometimes and it's sad, I'll miss him enormously, but it doesn't make DP or myself any more or less likely to experience the same things.

But it's there at random times of the day and night for no apparent trigger as well as when thinking about the job, bills, DP or my brother. It hit me yesterday when doing something that I love, so I had to sit down and was just shaking, trying to calm down my breathing and keep going. That activity has been the only one I have been able to manage since the accident as it felt safe and others have been able to be there and make it possible for me to get there. I wasn't sure I was going until Friday night, after I'd been encouraged to go by some really lovely people there. I managed it by myself yesterday, as it was relatively quiet out when I left. But I couldn't get home fast enough afterwards, which was annoying as it meant I missed out on the social side. I was embarrassed by feeling like that there - there was no need for it.

And it fucking pisses me off as I resent my freedom being curtailed by wobbly legs, traffic and other people simply minding their own business and getting on with their lives as they have a right to do.

I'm sure that, for me, it will lessen after the funeral and the job stuff is finalised. But for some people, there is no end in sight. And that's a horrible thought.

OP, in the long term you might also like to listen to the "All in the Mind" podcast (if you don't already). Among other things, they have biannual awards for people doing a really good job helping others with their mental health, and one category is "professional" or "workplace". The stories are amazing: the lovely things that some employers will do, to make their workplace bearable for people with depression, anxiety etc. I think the main linking factor is simply that they show that they are not judgemental, and that they do something to help - that they are a mensch.

Good for you! Anxiety is awful and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even you. Please work on that empathy because plenty of people won't have had your life and advantages. Personally, I'm a very lucky person but I was bullied and grew up with very overbearing family so I have had trouble standing up for myself as an adult and feeling 'worth it' as a person

Anxiety description from my POV. imagi the terror of being woken with a gun to your head in the dark. Imagine that terror for no reason from the moment you wake up . No one else sees it or understands. You can't eat or think. The terror is so overwhelming you detach from your body. And all the while have to pretend you feel normal. And for no reason your mind turns to suicidal ideation, a mind you have previously been in total control of. All day every day.

Ive suffered from it quite badly at various points. It's like a volcano, lays dormant for a while then suddenly out of nowhere erupts and causes devastation. For me it includes:

• constant high adrenaline
• heart races
• exhaustion
• nausea
• shaking
• pacing and restless
• uncontrollable crying
• inability to focus or concentrate
• head spinning
• dizziness
• inability to sleep

There are different scales of course so for some the symptoms might be milder, for others more intense. For me it can be really debilitating and I've been signed off work with it in the past.

As an employer you could support by:

• allowing time off without guilt
• being flexible around working hours
• allowing staff to work from home
• asking them what triggers it and if work related remove/minimise the trigger.

And anxiety is often a twin of depression. With depression you might feel that nothing is worth it or 'what's the point,' while anxiety is like wheels spinning in the mud, you do care but everything feels overwhelming, the future is scary, you're worried about that big report or that presentation etc. It's not logical, it's not something you can just pull your socks and get over

Oh I missed 'Social Anxiety Disorder' from the list!

Do you remember the feeling of dread and fear you had as a child when doing exams? Like they are looming over you and you are under prepared? It's like that all the time but you have nothing to fear..there is nothing big or happening in your life. You are just anxious about now and tomorrow. You cry like the world is going to end and you want it to end but at the same time your terrified of it happening. You want to sleep but can't but your so extremely tired.. you don't want to be alive but you don't want to die either..you just want to never have existed. It's horrible and you can't just 'snap out of it' or explain why you feel like that so you can't change it.

My anxiety starts off with hot flushes, mainly around the back of my neck and then my cheeks and face. It makes me sweet. I’m then struck with a bad stomach and find it hard to get off the toilet. I get a dry mouth, no matter how much i drink, so i have to suck sweets to het saliva in my mouth. If i try to eat anything while this is happening i heave. Worrying about going into work, worrying about something i’ve said or how someone said something to me and obsessing over it. Then after all of this sometimes i cry.
That’s what its like for me

Also, with regards to the growth in it, part of this I think too is down to conditions that can give rise to the physiological anxious feelings being heightened being missed because of our over stretched medical system.

There's a long list of medical conditions, vit and mineral insufficiencies and also side effects of supplements, over the counter meds that can cause panic type feelings.

If the mind doesn't know why panic-type feelings are being experienced it will put its own interpretation on it.

@AsleepAllDay

Let’s not assume what my life has been like. I am purely trying to understand a mental illness, that I am fortunate enough to have never experienced, so as to support my team that do have it to the best of my capability. Just because I haven’t experienced anxiety doesn’t mean I have had a life full of advantages, is that you saying people with ‘advantaged’ lives don’t suffer from mental illness?!?

And to clarify I do have empathy I just can’t genuinely empathise as I have no idea how hard it is. Just like I have never broken my leg, so can’t genuinely empathise with someone that has. I can feel for them and want to support them, and be educated on how to do so.

Thank you everyone for being so honest with your personal experiences and offering me advice. I have booked myself on to a mental health first aid and watching the Nadia Hussain show as we speak. I’ve never realised (yes, naively) what a physical impact it can have on someone. I will be changing a lot of things when I get to work and making sure I’m understanding everyone individually as it seems it is different for everyone. Thanks again!

I have my own theory that during cavemen times, we were probably in a state of constant anxiety. This was probably very helpful in keeping us alive. Nowadays, we live in relative safety yet evolution hasn't caught up.

I suffer from anxiety. It's not so bad just now, even though I'm under a lot of stress, because I take steps to keep it under control. But I know some people do not understand the steps I have to take.

I went through a phase of having panic attacks whenever I saw my line manager. She's lovely, but the thought that she might tell me I need to work on something else, x isn't quite up to her (incredibly high) standards terrified me. Likewise I couldn't read emails from her.

She doesn't understand anxiety, but luckily for me her boss does, so mediates for me. A year and a half on I still can't check emails without a huge stress, so I generally don't. I hate phonecalls with my parents too as they're generally full of guilt trips and misery, so I've cut them down too, much to their dismay.

I'm ok so long as I stick to what keeps me safe. Anything else sends me into a panic and I can't do anything for a day or so. It's horrible.

It's not like worrying, it's a feeling of fear. Usually that I'm going to die. Hyperventilating, hands tingling, blurred vision.
And it comes on with no warning seemingly for no reason.
People will have different ways to manage it but for me I need to stand up, have a walk around, fresh air if possible. Then I can carry on with my day.

@formerbabe this is what my therapist said in those times we had to watch out constantly for attacks from other animals and now things have changed the body does look out for signals of attack again.

You know that but in a really scary horror film, where the young protagonist creeps slowly up the stairs into the attic, knowing there's something dead and evil up there? It's like that, constantly, but much less fun.

This is one of the best explanations of how I feel that I have ever read!

Best way I can describe anxiety is this constant feeling of dread that you are on the brink of some unforeseen, life-ruining disaster. It's wildly unpleasant. Citalopram tablets are helping in my case.

Reading all this back now I honestly hope everyone is ok deep down though because anxiety and anxiety disorders , well any type of mental illness is just shit but I honestly believe with the right treatment you can be okay, there's a saying that with anxiety or disorders just because you have thought anxiously or had negative thoughts for say 20 years doesn't mean you need to have another 20 years of them, you can change them and you can be symptom free it's just finding what helps you. Good luck to everyone battling it atm.

OP, If you want to do more research then organisations like MIND, other mental health charities and self help groups have workplace education packs as well as discussion groups and advice on setting up Mental Health Ally programmes.

If you have an HR department they should also be able to help with info.

Or even the health (and employment/legal) type topics would seem more logical than joining MN AIBU if you want data and facts rather than anecdata. If you are looking to formulate better policies/work environment at least.

I've just held a party which I was very anxious about - especially afterwards...my brain goes over and over every single conversation I held and just won't let me sleep. During the party my heart was pounding double speed for several hours and there was sweat dripping down my back. I was so over-anxious/over stimulated through the night that I developed a migraine, and this led to vomiting.
I used to get this at work too, luckily on mat leave at mo...

Another one here on Citalopram btw, and have been for 11 years.

Sometimes my anxiety can get so bad that my body shuts down my senses, once I was walking to Greggs and when I went in lost my hearing, my sight was blurring and I was having trouble understanding what the lady was saying to me whilst I was trying to order two cakes, if I was any staff member in there watching this I would have judged that I was high as a kite on drugs!

At work I would loose my hearing too, randomly....probably because I was trying to hide my anxiety so much that in the end I had to tell people I was deaf in one of my ears....was the only excuse I could muster that would explain without telling people I had anxiety. The reason I did this because other than a few mishaps like above, I was an expert of hiding it.....an absolute pro......but that ability for some reason just stopped as I hit my late twenties and now I just don’t go out and have to work from home.