Due to a certain situation I’m living at work (for about two months now) I’ve basically given up tending to all the other stuff in my life and it’s really starting to impact my relationships, my mental health and my job itself.
I feel so overwhelmed about all the stuff I still need to do I’m starting to have meltdowns everytime something new pops up (even something as small as a friend’s birthday).
Just yesterday I managed to tackle one of the things I’ve been procrastinating and felt no satisfaction whatsoever due to the huge amount of things that still need to be done and situations that need to be addressed.
I feel I’m only able to handle one “crisis” at a time, and the moment there are two going on, everything else becomes one.
I also can’t stop thinking about this whole situation, it’s like my brain is constantly active but in the end I can’t manage to get me to do anything. It’s exhausting.
Does it happen to you too? How do you deal with that?
Edit: thanks to everyone who took time to reply and give honest advice. I’ll read all the messages at the end of my shift
You need to watch a movie.
The Martian. (Yes its fiction but still)
The man is injured and stranded on Mars, at every step of the way he identifies the biggest barrier to his survival and works the problem then moves onto the next one and works the problem. You dont have a giant insurmountable mountain of problems. They just look that way. Watch the movie, look at how hopeless it was when taken as a whole and then watch him knock his issues on the arse one at a time.
Then sit down and make a list, then pick one and work the problem.
This is excellent advice. There’s also very motivational music (at least to me) to be had.
Making Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuNq7NWGCfo Science the Sh*t out of This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxV9a25TlE
This can help get your brain to problem solving mode if you’ve made the association like I have.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=XuNq7NWGCfo
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=DTxV9a25TlE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Have you written down all the things you need to do? This, for me, gets it out of the swirl of things in my head and when I see it on paper I can start picking out the urgent ones and the easy ones and suddenly it feels more manageable
how do I deal with it? awfully lol
what can help though is increasing your sens of self-efficacy. the belief that you can do/change something.
and it can be anything, really. read a page in a book if you atruggle with that. make something with your hands. beat that stupid boss in elden ring. doesnt matter, as long as you can finish it.
tiny steps. dont try to read the whole book
I feel you, it’s hard to get things done, it’s hard to track every thing that needs to be done, it’s hard to maintain a balance when things are difficult at work.
The past I have pursued an ADHD diagnosis, and gotten medication. It helps a lot, it provides emotional stability and the ability to focus on something without getting distracted all the time. Task initiation is still difficult though…
I don’t anybody has a perfect solution but there are things you can try:
- Prioritize your mental health and not your work. It sounds difficult, I get it, if I don’t get paid me and my sister aren’t going to have food on the table. But, having a balance helps you be productive, which in turn helps you maintain a job.
- Make lists, your brain will forget. Also, having things written sometimes helps with anxiety (though seeing the volume of things to be done can be intimidating)
- Routines help a lot. It’s hard to establish one, but once you do it make things easier. Remember to make them interesting, but don’t depend on that. Your brain will get used and get bored easily, but you got stick to it, until you no longer have to think about it.
- Remember to take a break. It doesn’t matter how productive (or not) you were, you get tired from all this anxiety. Just allow yourself to be free a few hours every once in a awhile.
The way I dealt with it was to get rid of the source. So in your case, I would have quit the job, or in some other way eliminate the “situation you’re living”, instead of continuing/finishing it. Basically I gave up on a lot of things, recognized I’m not good enough to do some things, and then everything became much better.
