Nervous Wreck

I used to work in a very fast-paced environment that required super-long hours. I would work on new business pitches for the ad agency I still work for today, but that job entailed waiting around all day for someone to get you their presentation and then working non-stop throughout the night in order to have everything ready for a 8:30AM meeting. Things got pretty hectic sometimes and going on no sleep was not easy. But I was younger, and the overtime made it worthwhile to me. Now I make less money, but I am happy, working 9 to 5, doing something that I like.

So anyway, during my days of pitches, a new woman was hired as President, and she was a real tyrant. She made an already time-consuming process even more so. During her reign, one would have to have superhuman powers, and be able to make a printer print faster in order to get everything done on time. I didn't like her, and my first meeting of her resulted in a face-to-face confrontation in which she belittled me in front of a group of people. If you know me, you know face-to-face anything just rattles me. Long story short, it was a Friday, around 4:PM and I had worked the previous weekend and late nights (when I say late, I mean didn't go home late) all through the week when she decided to revise something that was due to the client by Monday. Revise in such a way that it had to be completely redesigned and worked on over the weekend. I just wanted to go home, she saw it in my face and called me out and embarrassed me and threatened to fire me. I had been at the company for 8 years and she was there for just a week (just for the record, she didn't stay longer than a year). Going to work after that was complete hell.

Also during this time, my sister (with whom I am extremely close) was very pregnant and about to give birth. I told her that as soon as I knew she was in labor, I would be on a plane or in a car on my way down to Virginia. So, of course when she is ready to have the baby, I am up to my eyeballs in presentations and couldn't just leave work. And to top it off, once I was able to go, I got incredibly sick. I had been working on no sleep and in incredibly high-stress conditions for too long and my body was rebelling. I don't normally get sick, and this time was a doozie. So I had to postpone my trip down to see her and my new nephew, but now I had the added stress of wanting to be better so I could get down there to see her. When I finally did recover (or was on antibiotics so that I wasn't contagious) and made it down to see them, I was so worried that I would get the baby sick, and then completely unrelated, he did get sick (turns out he has a rare condition in which he can't process milk or other products containing the sugar found in lactose - - he's fine now, but on a monitored diet) and I felt incredible guilt that somehow it was all my fault. Oh, and I was just recently engaged as well.

SOOOOO - the point of my story is this... during that time of my life, I developed anxiety. Looking back, it's not surprising to me at all. But having never experienced anything like that in my life, it was pretty awful. And incredibly scary. If you've never had anxiety (I'm not talking about the occasional panic attack), consider yourself lucky. It is frightening. Not wanting to acquire a drug habit (FYI, Xanax feels really, really good!) I got through the roughest time and even through my wedding day by just telling myself that it would all pass eventually... that nothing is permanent. So, feeling better for the most part, but then once in a while, the anxiety will rear its ugly head. That's the worst part of this whole ordeal... once you know what it feels like, and it's such a scary feeling, you kind of live in fear that it is coming back again. One restless night and the "what ifs" start... what if I'm going crazy, what if I lose my job, what if... then I realize I am okay and can go back on my way. But my way will never be quite as merry as it was before, and that's what truly stinks.