Harsh Treatment Causes Anxiety

I had a session with my psychologist yesterday, and together we agreed that I was not ready to go back to work when scheduled. He pushed the date from the seventh to the fifteenth. After I left his office, I was enthusiastic about the prospect of going back to work. But after about twenty-four hours of reflection, I’m still feeling like I can’t confidently make it through the day on my own. I’m concerned about something triggering a panic attack, and I don’t feel like I can take care of myself, let alone a group of twenty-five students. Then there is the everyday stress that comes with being an educator.

I sent my boss an email about how my return date had changed, and I outlined my plan for coming back to work. That was stressful enough, but then I needed to check some of the twenty to thirty emails in my inbox too. Unfortunately, I have not been as diligent returning messages as in the past. I was thinking my sub would be fielding questions, and then sending me the most important news. Apparently, I had made the wrong assumption.

In going through the messages, one of my team members wrote, “If you don’t respond to my email, I’m going to assume you are not interested in attending the field trip with the rest of the team.” Ouch. I didn’t even know what she was talking about, and I wondered why the decision was so difficult to make without my go ahead. It made me feel extreme anxiety, and now I’m questioning whether I am ready to go back to work. I didn’t take the anxiety medication, because there was a chance I would need to drive a car, and it’s clearly marked on the bottle not to drive after taking one.

I wrote back my team member, but I’ve not been able to think about much else. It makes me wonder how I will be able to deal with the simple day in and day out stressors of the job. I won’t be able to work very well, if I cave at the slightest bit of conflict or intimidation.

Up until now, all I’ve been worried about was if I would see a scary dog directly prior to picking up the students in the class line. If that should happen, I don’t think I could cope. Since the dog attack, I’ve only done about two or three errands alone. I’ve also driven a car, alone, only a handful of times. I’m great behind a computer. I’ve been emailing and blogging, but I’m really not all alone for that. There are usually one to three people in the midst, or the television is on, or I’m dog-sitting Chico.

I guess when I am truly honest about my ability to work, I know it’s not time. I feel a lot better, to be sure, but not one hundred percent of the time, and not all alone. I did comment to my psychologist yesterday that I was so grateful for their work towards pulling me out of that dark, scary place in my consciousness where I seemed to live over half of my days, and almost all of my nights