How do I care less about mean people?

EllaUmbrella

I suffer from anxiety in general but have found it’s been triggered a lot this year.

Over the past year I’ve had some hard-hitting awkward moments that I keep replaying in my head every night.

This has caused me to have on and off insomnia for over 6 months and made me dread going to bed.

The first incident was a manager falsely accusing me of a GDPR breach on my final day of work (I’d handed my notice in 6 weeks prior) then sending me home on the spot with no formal meetings or warnings - this was 3 days before I left the country to move overseas so it really left a bad taste in my mouth about returning to my home country. I had worked so hard on that job but only ever received toxicity and small passive aggressive blows from upper management. I followed up on the incident afterwards and it was cleared that it wasn’t actually a GDPR breach but I was never given an apology and no formal follow up was done by HR. In fact HR just palmed off the incident back to the same managers that I had the problem with.

After this when I moved away I caught up with a new friend and we had a disagreement over my partner - she didn’t agree with me having a partner who drinks every weekend and yelled at me over the phone telling me to never contact her again. A total change of personality from the person I thought she was. I have no desire to rekindle the friendship as the way she spoke to me was really rude and my partners lifestyle has nothing to do with her but I keep replaying her shouting at me in my head.

A more recent incident happened tonight where I told the agency I work for I can’t do a shift I’ve signed up to next week (gave her 8 days notice) and she’s basically bullied me into doing the shift knowing that it means I’ll have to pay $50 for a taxi home because it’s in the middle of nowhere.

I feel like my confidence just keeps getting ripped apart and I’d like to know how to disconnect from these type of incidents as I know on the grand scheme of things they are meaningless and inevitable.

Any advice would be great!

white knight

Hi, welcome

When we get multiple incidents we lose our confidence easily as we evaluate "it must be me". In fact it might not be you to blame and more so how you receive other people's aggression..

Some people say- "life is great" but in fact it can be a hard slog for those that are sensitive or unaware of people's negative intentions or thoughts.

A few tops-

When someone offers you a shift that includes costs that are unreasonable, reverse the situation eg "you know it will cost me $50 in cab fares would you be prepared to pay that if offered a shift"?
Try to have another job or work provider so if unfairly sacked you have income back up
When a fallout occurs by all means stand your ground and support your partner however always consider if there's substance in their claim eg could his drinking become an actual future issue?
Management are never your friends. It's common they'll never treat you for the effort you put in.

Your sleeping issue could be helped by diverting your attention eg watching YouTube videos until you're really tired. See your GP about a sleep study. Talk to yourself reminding you that it's not your fault, that you're a good person and that these people "don't know me".

I hope that helps.

TonyWK

Croix

Dear EllaUmbrella~

Welcome to the Forum.

I guess the incidents your raised seemed ot point to reluctance ot stand up for yourself. You are not alone in this, many peple here have hte same.

As I have an anxiety condition htat tends to make me behave hte same way I found it was only by seeking m-clinical treatment -and hte spupport of my partner hom I trust - things have improved.

That first job had the sort of manager you are never going to win with, toxic, demeaning and having no regard for your rights. I would not be surprised if the alleged confidentiality breach was simply means of showing resentment at your leaving, and a power trip by sending you home wihtout proper procedures.

The whole company sounds pretty hopeless with an ineffectual HR system. You are certainly better off away from them .

I'm very glad you took it up later, and the breach was found not to have occurred. While you might feel you let yourself down by not standing up for your rights right at the time, in practical terms it was going to be better after you had time to present your case logically, so in effect a better way.

Wiht the agency who has no regard for your expenses I'm afraid the only long term answer is practice, setting out their faulty reasoning at the time and if still forced to do it put in a letter of complaint afterwards. Here if you have faith in your partner's views you may get some help.

The false freind is one of those things, it takes awhile to know a person, in this case you found out pretty quick.

All these things can repeat in your mind.

I try to deal with anxiety attacks. I've had them for a very long time and still am on clinical support and medication.

For me the first problem is I may not realize that anxiety has taken over and my thoughts are illness driven, with me thinking of a particular thing, conversation or event and getting to where it seems quite logical to me that the very worst outcome is quite possible.

If left like this unchecked my decision making capacity is not good, I'll treat everything as huge barriers, and the thoughts go on and on in a 'hamster wheel', frequently keeping me awake at night as they go round and round.

I've found the two main ways to break this cycle of thoughts is firstly though another whom I trust, normally my partner, sometimes my psych. They can point out my thoughts are skewed and no disaster is likely.. My partner then deliberately distracts me into doing something else, from opening a stuck jam jar to walking with Foxy Dog.

If I am by myself I really have two things to do once I realise I'm having over-anxious thoughts. The first is to break that continuous loop of thoughts, going over the same thing again and again. The second is how to stop them coming back.

To break the loop I use the free smartphone app Smiling Mind. This has exercises in it to focus you mind on a particular thing, perhaps a leaf in a stream. It has umpteen exercises for all levels of skill. I have the attention span of a gold-fish and even I found an exercise that suited me. It must be admitted it does take practice when you first start, however it is worth it. It leaves you calm and not thinking of the thing you were stressing on before.

Left to itself shortly later my mind would start to return to that set of thoughts so I have pre-prepaired a number of things I can do straight way. As an example I read, however when anxious I can't concentrate, but now in this temporary calm I can start to read, and that then takes over. I have a number of enjoyable books put to one side and will start at a chapter in one of these.

Same applies to movies, tv shows, walking the little fat dog, ringing a friend or many more. Your tastes will be different, but when feeling well I'm sure you get the idea and can put things aside ready to be used.

Please do come back and talk some more should you wish

Croix

Butterfly101

Hi - I think that you should consider letting your manager know that the shift that she has demanded you do is causing you hardship for the reasons that you have stated above. I think you should put this in writing and make sure that you are very polite and respectful to her. You need to give her the benifit of the doubt and assume that she is not aware of the hardship her demanding that you work that shift is causing you. If she still continues to insist that you work that shift, I would then make a complaint about her to her manager. You said that you work for an agency, I am assuming she is just an agent and not the manager of that agency. So I think you should go higher if you can. If you can’t, can you go and work with another agency ? If you go to work for another agency, please make sure you inform them upfront of the difficulties you have in doing shifts that are in the middle of nowhere. There is not much point in you working a shift if you have to use almost all of the money you will earn on a cab fare. Basically, I think you should try and stand up for yourself although I know this is scary. It just depends on how you manage things. If you think that by doing this shift you are going to be in a position where you have made your agent happy so she will give you extra good shift in the future or by doing this shift she has caused you hardship and will not regard you for good shifts in the future. Consider where you stand. Do you really need to bow down to this manager’s unfair demands? What suits you best ?