Feeling overwhelmed at work

[user98700981]

For the past year i have been struggling with feeling overwhelmed in the workplace in noisy situations. If there are a lot of people having a conversation I can't focus and my head feels as if it's going to explode with everything going on. I start to feel panicky.
I work in retail and try and do most of the jobs out the back away from customers/colleagues but its getting busy now that i have no choice but to be around them.
I shielded for 14 months and have only felt like this since then, I can't believe that one year later I am still struggling. I use to be sociable.
I have a new manager who joined 6 weeks ago and I'm worried she thinks I am rude/unfriendly for been like this 😢

I think this is common actually. I would just talk to your manager.

@Terradacto

Would it not come across that I am not capable of doing my job though?

If they treat you different / tried to push you out because you're having a hard time with stress / mental health because of a recent pandemic then I'm pretty sure you can nail them on that. I hope they don't either way!
I was very worried about speaking about anxiety issues to my line manager because of the same thing; think I'm weak / not able to do the job, but actually they were great about it.
I think three things might work in your favour:

• A lot of people have personal experience with something along this line of things and should hopefully be sympathetic.


• Companies seem to be a lot more up on mental health and proving how current they are and they might leap on the chance to show how well they supported a staff member


• Don't ask, don't get. They might be able to do something to help out, potentially, and if not, there isn't too much negative they can actually do about it unless they're outright awful people!

I hope the best for you and that you're head just starts to calm down and accept noise and people back into it's life!