Self sabotage

[Rut91]

Hi, I posted here once before but I have a different issue that has been on my mind lately. I feel like I'm sabotaging my own success at work and at uni. No matter what I do I am always late to work. It got to a point where I was arriving almost an hour late every day with no real excuse except 'feeling sick and nauseous' every morning (which is true and relates to my fear of unexpected things happening on the way to work). I ended up having a meeting with my manager and receiving a formal warning about my lateness. The issue is I know it's a bad thing to do and I know all I have to do is get up a bit earlier and leave but there just seems to be too much preventing me from doing it. At uni I fail every class at least two times, sometimes three times, before I pass and I've been spoken to by my senior lecturer.

Every time I get in trouble I cry and carry on making everything worse and now I'm seen as unstable and I feel like uni and work are rejecting me. I just hate that I can't get myself organised. I keep multiple diaries and note books, I schedule my days by the hour and I plan days in advance for public transport. I even make contingency plans if something goes wrong. I think what's the point any more of doing anything because I'm just going to mess it up.

I don't know if anyone will have any solutions for me but any advice would be helpful. Hopefully someone can empathise with me, even though I think I'm the worst human being to ever exist.

Thanks,

Tracey

[Eddie93]

Hi Tracey, sorry to hear about your troubles.

Do you have specific anxieties about what might happen on your way to work? (although you did say unexpected which implies you don't) I definitely get anxious when I have to drive somewhere (about nothing in particular) but I feel better if someone else drives even though I'm generally more confident in my own driving abilities which suggests I'm worried about making a mistake, also I find driving back home is much less stressful. (Are you driving?)

I think that possibly having such a clear and scheduled idea of what you are doing every hour gives you expectations of how things are going to go and any contradictions to these expectations create anxiety and in fact just the idea of a hiccup clearly does create anxiety which you are experiencing as nausea. (Very common)

An effective strategy to overcome this is exposure therapy which is exactly how it sounds, simply in your case I think trying spontanaeoty where practical would without a doubt help you, it's not pleasant but continual exposure to your fear/anxieties will tame them more than you know and I've found that exercise before doing something is VERY beneficial.(Oh and having a few drinks before driving somewhere always helps me (Joke!))

Based on your post and how it's written I can see you aren't dumb and even though you say you've failed everything twice or more it's actually very impressive to me to preserver after that. It sounds like only anxiety itself and a general lack of confidence is holding you back and little else.

Let me know if any of this makes sense to you

Eddie

[Rut91]

Hi Eddie,

Thanks for your reply. On the topic of sponteneity, I found that was a way of escape for me in high school. In primary school I was quite successful. I was school captain, I helped build the computer labs and I was just below to student that got school dux (highest grade). Upon entering high school I was placed in senior English and Japanese and placed in an extra curriculum class for high achievers. I was pretty confident and had a knack for chemistry and technology. Unfortunately I came across students that were equally as good or better and for some reason it crushed my confidence. I started skipping school and joking around. Never did homework and chose to go into lower grade classes so I could be with friends. When I skipped school I went to the city library to be alone or I went to my older sisters university classes. I had bad social anxiety and just couldn't cope with the competitiveness of life. I'm now 26 and still trying to recover my confidence. I feel like it's too late though and where I once had teachers telling me I could do great things, I would love to just do some menial job and never talk to anyone again until I die.

I used to say I don't have regrets but I know now that is definitely not true.

Thanks,

Tracey

[Eddie93]

I can definitely relate and what you are experiencing is really common, essentially from the sound of it, you've established a self image/identity at a young age of being someone smart, above average, someone who doesn't make many mistakes and you probably Identified as being the person who's best at a certain thing or things.

When our reality is contradicted and something we've believed to be true for a long time has now seen evidence to disprove it can really brake us, I've definitely felt this way at least.

It seems to me that you are a perfectionist and if you are anything like me you might be quietly critical, the problem with this is that I'm equally (if not more) critical of myself which absolutely creates anxiety (maybe I'm just projecting but just let me know if this applies to you) Basically just don't worry about if people think you are smart, don't try and prove yourself. Sometimes I find it fun to play dumb, really takes the the pressure off that I put on myself.

lol I can't tell you how many times I've thought of jobs like packing boxes or driving a forklift but the reality is that I couldn't sustain a menial existence like that.

Spontaneous acts don't have to be destructive though 🙂 Just do something you enjoy but not something you feel competitive about.

Sorry the post is scattered, hopefully you can figure out what I'm saying

Ed