I had an anxiety attack at work..

[Tricky92]

I had an anxiety attack at work....

I work in FIFO, I am the only female in my team so fitting in has been hard.

ive always felt like I’ve never fitted in anywhere, and find it hard to maintain friendships and relationships from a very young age. I grew up only knowing my parents, no family.

im searching for what kind of anxiety I have so I can get some answers and understand why I am the way I am.

one of the boys who is close to my age (27) he’s 38... I’ve always butted heads with, sometimes I do get a bit defensive because I fear failure. This person I feel takes this personally and starts to attack me.

Yesterday I jumped on the fork lift and was my first time unloading the big centurion truck and had him being my spotter. (I work in warehousing) I was using the peddle like an automatic not realising that this particular fork had a semi clutch peddle, instead of explaining how to use the other peddle, he went on the defence and was saying that I don’t listen when all I was doing was laughing at the fact I was unco on the peddles. All he needed to do was explain that I was using the wrong one. But he started going off at me, all of a sudden I started crying and was trying to get him to talk to me professionally. But he lost the plot, walked off and told everyone else in the office and then got someone else to come spot me.

My silly mind goes into you are not enough mode, and all I had running through my head repeatedly was you are pathetic and you will never succeed .. yay!

Should not have continued, but un be known to me I was suppressing a bloody anxiety attack. Everytime I got off the fork it felt like I was numb, floating I guess.

i built up the courage to ask this person for the paper work, and he literally just said I’m doing my own thing and walked away, and then I lost it, walked into the lunch room and just lost it. I couldn’t breath, my heart was racing and I was sobbing. I kept telling myself just to breath, mostly because if someone walked into the lunch room, that would have been embarrassing.

I’ve only had an attack maybe twice in my life, my body hurt and I had after waves of my muscles spasms and shaking. Had to leave work.

ive tried to search into what anxiety I have. I get really intrusive negative thoughts when negative things happen or I feel like I have failed, can fail or people don’t like me. I get inside attacks. I’m not that shy tho on the outside, I guess there’s one side of me I show to the world and one I don’t

[Here_I_am]

Hi Tricky92,

That sounds truly awful. To have our anxiety manifest in a place where we would really prefer to keep it together is an added level to the impact this would have on our wellbeing for sure.

It's a real rabbit warren of a journey to try and nail down anxiety to cause and type and the like, as often our goal is to make sure it 'never happens again', which unfortunately is a tad unrealistic for most people. What is far more realistic and beneficial is finding ways to reconcile our anxiety and find a way to be functional even when it is peaking. Ideally, this can be achieved by working out ways to ensure that when our anxiety peaks, the spikes are not too high and the lows are not too low.

You describe a very physical response to your anxiety. Is there anything you do that minimises the intensity of these attacks, or are they so random and rare that they take you by surprise? You've certainly made a very healthy choice to reach out and talk about what is going on for you via the Beyond Blue forum space; this is a spot where you can talk freely about your experiences and gain and grow from the collective wisdom and learning of the group here on the forums. Beyond that, have you considered reaching out to a local professional - a GP for instance, or a counselor - to discuss what's been going on for you? Getting a bit of an anchor out to slow down the world around you is a really important part of the process, and beginning the conversation with a health professional is a great starting point. They are best placed to guide you through the twists and turns best for you in the coming weeks and months.

I hope you find some answers on your journey.

Hope to talk soon.