I was back at the doctors on Friday and have been signed off for another two weeks and I've been put on medication, I had hoped to avoid that but I have to be realistic and if that's what I need to help me get better than that's what I'll do, I have been unable to get to a pharmacy until today so I have only just taken my first tablet, i'm very apprehensive about how it will make me feel but I need to try. I thought the anxiety was only effecting me at work but today highlighted how wrong I was.
I should have been at work today and it would have been the first time my shift and supervisor would have found out about my illness, I have been too emotional, too embarrassed and too ashamed to speak to them to tell them, I have tried to pick up the phone but have had a complete wobble every time I do so I had to resort to emailing them. I know it's the cowards way out but it was the only way I could do it. Anyway that meant that my absence was no longer a secret, this did not make me feel better in anyway. I had thought that it might be a weight off my shoulders getting this secret out there but it didn't. I spent the first couple of hours this morning with my phone switched off and jumping out of my skin everytime I heard a car, I began to imagine someone from work turning up to see me, it made me anxious and on edge so needing to go and collect my prescription I got myself up and dressed and went to the chemist.
I pulled up at the chemist and was just waiting for a parking spot when I saw someone from work, not a colleague, not someone who would know I was off sick, just someone I regonised from work, this make me panic so I reversed out of the car park and went round the block, only now I knew there was someone I knew nearby but I didn't know exactly where, were they in the shop? the chemist? or the doctors? I didn't want to risk running in to them so I drove out of the village and decided to use another chemist. I began to drive the few miles to the next chemist and began to calm down, as I approached a roundabout I saw a police car emerged from a side road and turned out the road I was travelling on, in the same direction as me so I slowed down, it was driven by one of my own shift, I couldn't see who but it was one of our cars. I can drive around for days and not see a police car, I'm on a road I shouldn't be on trying to avoid someone and find myself behind my shift, I feel guilty enough for not being there and I felt that I was being punished. I slowed to make sure I wasn't directly behind them and just as I am about to join the roundabout I can't believe my eyes when I see a plain car from another department pull onto the roundabout in front of me, I have a complete meltdown and drive in the opposite direction to the police cars and try and calm down. Why am I getting worked up? What are they going to do to me? I know it is not rational but nothing about the way I am feeling is rational. I take a few deep breaths and try and decide what to do, where to go? I can't believe my eyes when my phone rings and it is one of my shift. My heart is racing, my breathing is shallow and I want to hide, I feel like everyone is somehow following me, taunting me. I find myself heading for a village a couple of miles away where my friend lives. I end up having a cup of tea with her and calming myself down. How has my life suddenly turned to this, panicky, nervous, feeling like I am in the wrong all the time, I hate it, I want to take some control back but I don't know how to.
I calm myself down at my friends and decide to go to Sainsbury's, I can get some shopping and collect my medication at the same time, it takes me 10 minutes to drive and I am on high alert all over the drive, i'm looking for police cars, what I'm going to do if i see one I don't know, hide? I know how ridiculous this sounds writing it now but it was how I felt earlier. I spent all of the time in the supermarket with my head and eyes down, not wanting to see anyone, I just never relaxed all day, this is not just work related stress this is effecting my whole like.
I am determined to fight this and get stronger but the emotions I felt today were 100% real and I have not felt so vulnerable, so fragile for a long time, if ever. I am a practical, rational person which is why I feel I am struggling with this so much. I have never been one to share my emotions but this feels like it is helping so I will keep doing it, hopefully I will be able to look back sometime in the future and laugh about today, laugh about the irrationality of it, the absurdity of it, maybe one day....
