I’m one of those people that let’s my environment effect my mood. If the people around me are calm, I am calm. If the people around me are stressed, I am stressed. It’s a terrible habit to have, letting your surroundings constantly sway your emotions. I am an anxious person by nature but I try to fight that feeling to stay grounded in reality. Other times though, I let my crazy escape. For example, we all read those list articles on buzzfeed or hello giggles sites. One that I recently read was titled “26 Problems Only Anxious People Will Understand” which include convincing yourself that if a person doesn’t respond to your text they might hate you (I do this all the time) or missing a call from an unknown number will ruin your day (but it could have been important).
Obviously I wrote a long time ago that I got a new job back in September. I enjoy this new job. I have more job responsibilities, better benefits, and a much more reasonable salary. But I also deal more with people everyday. I am in constant contact with taxpayers, attorneys, etc. And most days it can be exhausting. Especially when it’s a day like today when an attorney writes you a whole page on how much of an idiot you are in the most condescending email ever. At first I laughed. It was a ridiculous email response to my simple question of “do you have more documentation to submit to us”. It did not warrant a whole 5 paragraphs of contempt. My supervisor told me not to worry about it, that this attorney has short man syndrome. And we laughed about it.
But now, my anxiety spiral is in full gear. And this is the worst part of my job. Because I blow things off until later and then I start to think about all the people in the last month who have ripped me a new one. It’s a running joke in our office lately, “Nancy gets all the complicated people”. My co-worker compared my lack of confidence with issues to an injured seal and the attorneys sense it and attack. What a vivid yet very true analogy. And I’m letting it wear me down. So I know that is a stupid thing to let happen, but sometimes you don’t even know something is really getting to you until you just snap at something else.
Lately it has been my poor husband who has gotten my quick blow ups. Seth likes to push my buttons, ALOT. He makes fun of everything I do and say. It’s his weird way of flirting and playing around with me. His favorite button to push is to tell me how gullible I am. He loves to try to convince me that he doesn’t have the car keys or the cash that I knew I just handed him 5 minutes ago. Even if I don’t fall for it he still says “OH you are so gullible”. It annoys me to no end. Tonight though I was feeling really bad about that email. I let it sink in and really stick with me that the people that I deal with think I am incompetent. And when you add a husband who keeps telling you how gullible you are, you may tend to blow like a volcano (which of course I did).
I am a reasonable person. I know deep down that I should not let a man that I’ve never met, that has no idea who I am, get inside my head. But it’s not just him. He’s not an isolated incident at my job. My confidence on the job is a problem and I need to really push through it or I will never move up. It is in my opinion a huge weakness. So after a few deep breaths and a small outburst I think I can put it behind me. I just hope that I can get used to being in this sort of environment and not let it end up breaking me down or burning me out in the long run.
A Weird Sort of Story 