I can't believe I really have Saturday and Sunday off. I keep checking the time to make sure I am not late for work or some other nonsense only to realize that for the next two days I do not have to worry about being anywhere but home. It's the greatest feeling in the whole entire world.
I had quite the panic attack yesterday which made me even more ready for a few days to myself. Anyone dealing with any sort of anxiety is aware that panic attacks come with the package. My panic attacks have been less frequent since college. I haven't hid in any bathrooms to escape crowds in a very long time. You might not think this is huge but for me it is.
This doesn't mean that I don't suffer from a panic attack every now and then. I mean I am still very socially anxious. Large crowds turn my stomach into jelly and I have this unfounded endless thought that I am not interesting around other people.I often feel threatened when I am in a group of more than five people because I don't think I am interesting enough to hold anyone's attention. Like if we were on a desert island that for some reason could only sustain four people I would be booted off first because I have nothing to offer, not even great conversation.
It's illogical thinking. I know this. I do. But my brain doesn't. While social anxiety, for me, has a lot to do with my discomfort in large crowds it has more to do with my inability to separate myself from the constant thoughts that people are judging me. I have obsessive thoughts about perceptions (damn you high school) and that the person I think I am is not the person coming across to the people I am around. That that person is a lame awkward duck.
I am trying to bring some congruency to my life. I am trying to merge the two me's together into one whole congruent person. But it's hard. Especially because congruency often times means not over thinking things (which I do a lot), loosening up the reigns (but i adore control) and remembering how to breathe (but how do you do so underwater).
So having a panic attack yesterday (at work have you) felt like some huge setback. It was as crowded as crowded could be in Le Sad Store. On Fridays it's as if people got out of work early just to terrorize the store. While I like working in the kids department the amount of parents letting their children destroy the department was overwhelming. As a person who loves control, yesterday felt chaotic.
Trying to maintain a clean store was thrown out the window when parents from hell came in to the store with their evil spawn. They destroyed the place in a matter of hours. While the moms and dads drank their lattes and discussed plans for the summer, their babies went ape shit. They ran all over the place, throwing books on the floor, screaming, destroying merchandise. I went over to the area where they all were sitting and start cleaning up in hopes that this would inspire the parents to start picking up after their children. But no. They sort of looked at me as if I were hired helped and went about their business.
I felt so powerless. So powerless I was overcome with pangs of anxious thoughts. I felt a surge of jittery jitterness. Compounded with rapid thoughts that I'd lost control of the situation. I left the department for air, came back and felt myself tearing up. For the first time in a long time I wanted to hide in the bathroom. But the bathroom was full. So I went in the 'employee only' hallway. My chest felt tight. My palms were sweaty. And I could think only of my inability to assert myself better in the situation.
I was having an attack. An all too familiar one. Anxiety will always have a hold of me? Won't she.
I called the manager just as I was near tears hoping someone could explain to me why 'we' are not allowed to tell customers they can't let their kids play in the store like animals. Our new manager Dan picked up, trying to calm me down over the phone. I apologized profusely for the department being a mess but that being unable to approach customers anymore (a dumb ass policy) in regards to disruptions in the store isn't effective, especially in the kids department where this would be useful.
He first told me to breathe followed by reassurances that it was not the end of the world (shit happens, people are animals, you leave in what '10 minutes'? Do youre best and enjoy your weekend from the crazy place kid). Oh and 'breathe beckett'. I calmed down some, hung up the phone, wrote the closing kids department person a note explaining the mess and ran out of work faster than I have ever.
The whole experience left me depleted. Or more correctly 'beat to shit'. Chaos that is not my own destroys me. I have a small sliver of control in the kids department when there aren't a billion fucking people destroying it. But alas, that was not the case and I will never completely understand people's lack of consideration. I am always (to a fault) so conscious of other people I couldn't imagine not having empathy for someone yet alone create a mess and not take care of it.
And for some reason the more I encounter these situations which remind me that people are assholes, the more my idea that people are amazing diminishes. The more it sort of feeds into my already anxious, black and white, illogical thoughts about myself.
And still having to deal with panic attacks because of shit like this only makes it worse.
So yeah, I am very excited about having the next two days to myself. I won't mind not being around people for a while. I bought a bunch of mason-isque jars the other day because I want to fill them with edible goodies. And it is a way for me to add color to my room using food. Outside of cleaning my very junky room, I will go shopping for almonds, cranberries and granola mainly because I like all of those things and they will look great in glass jars.
I'm such a nerd.
I had quite the panic attack yesterday which made me even more ready for a few days to myself. Anyone dealing with any sort of anxiety is aware that panic attacks come with the package. My panic attacks have been less frequent since college. I haven't hid in any bathrooms to escape crowds in a very long time. You might not think this is huge but for me it is.
This doesn't mean that I don't suffer from a panic attack every now and then. I mean I am still very socially anxious. Large crowds turn my stomach into jelly and I have this unfounded endless thought that I am not interesting around other people.I often feel threatened when I am in a group of more than five people because I don't think I am interesting enough to hold anyone's attention. Like if we were on a desert island that for some reason could only sustain four people I would be booted off first because I have nothing to offer, not even great conversation.
It's illogical thinking. I know this. I do. But my brain doesn't. While social anxiety, for me, has a lot to do with my discomfort in large crowds it has more to do with my inability to separate myself from the constant thoughts that people are judging me. I have obsessive thoughts about perceptions (damn you high school) and that the person I think I am is not the person coming across to the people I am around. That that person is a lame awkward duck.
I am trying to bring some congruency to my life. I am trying to merge the two me's together into one whole congruent person. But it's hard. Especially because congruency often times means not over thinking things (which I do a lot), loosening up the reigns (but i adore control) and remembering how to breathe (but how do you do so underwater).
So having a panic attack yesterday (at work have you) felt like some huge setback. It was as crowded as crowded could be in Le Sad Store. On Fridays it's as if people got out of work early just to terrorize the store. While I like working in the kids department the amount of parents letting their children destroy the department was overwhelming. As a person who loves control, yesterday felt chaotic.
Trying to maintain a clean store was thrown out the window when parents from hell came in to the store with their evil spawn. They destroyed the place in a matter of hours. While the moms and dads drank their lattes and discussed plans for the summer, their babies went ape shit. They ran all over the place, throwing books on the floor, screaming, destroying merchandise. I went over to the area where they all were sitting and start cleaning up in hopes that this would inspire the parents to start picking up after their children. But no. They sort of looked at me as if I were hired helped and went about their business.
I felt so powerless. So powerless I was overcome with pangs of anxious thoughts. I felt a surge of jittery jitterness. Compounded with rapid thoughts that I'd lost control of the situation. I left the department for air, came back and felt myself tearing up. For the first time in a long time I wanted to hide in the bathroom. But the bathroom was full. So I went in the 'employee only' hallway. My chest felt tight. My palms were sweaty. And I could think only of my inability to assert myself better in the situation.
I was having an attack. An all too familiar one. Anxiety will always have a hold of me? Won't she.
I called the manager just as I was near tears hoping someone could explain to me why 'we' are not allowed to tell customers they can't let their kids play in the store like animals. Our new manager Dan picked up, trying to calm me down over the phone. I apologized profusely for the department being a mess but that being unable to approach customers anymore (a dumb ass policy) in regards to disruptions in the store isn't effective, especially in the kids department where this would be useful.
He first told me to breathe followed by reassurances that it was not the end of the world (shit happens, people are animals, you leave in what '10 minutes'? Do youre best and enjoy your weekend from the crazy place kid). Oh and 'breathe beckett'. I calmed down some, hung up the phone, wrote the closing kids department person a note explaining the mess and ran out of work faster than I have ever.
The whole experience left me depleted. Or more correctly 'beat to shit'. Chaos that is not my own destroys me. I have a small sliver of control in the kids department when there aren't a billion fucking people destroying it. But alas, that was not the case and I will never completely understand people's lack of consideration. I am always (to a fault) so conscious of other people I couldn't imagine not having empathy for someone yet alone create a mess and not take care of it.
And for some reason the more I encounter these situations which remind me that people are assholes, the more my idea that people are amazing diminishes. The more it sort of feeds into my already anxious, black and white, illogical thoughts about myself.
And still having to deal with panic attacks because of shit like this only makes it worse.
So yeah, I am very excited about having the next two days to myself. I won't mind not being around people for a while. I bought a bunch of mason-isque jars the other day because I want to fill them with edible goodies. And it is a way for me to add color to my room using food. Outside of cleaning my very junky room, I will go shopping for almonds, cranberries and granola mainly because I like all of those things and they will look great in glass jars.
I'm such a nerd.
3 comments:
Wait a second, there's a policy where you can't approach someone for being disruptive? What if a dude is sitting there with his pants off or something? Yikes.
Anyway, I'm so sorry that parents let their kids run wild in your store. At my son's playgroup, there's a song we sing at the end that goes, "Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up. / Everybody everywhere, come along and do your share!" If I were in your city I would totally go into the kids' department when it's wrecked and start singing, just to see what happened. :)
it's a really stupid policy. We now have to contact the manager for everything. Even if someone is stealing something in front of us we have to call the manager first. Usually by then the person has walked out of the store.
We have this thing called Story Time at the store. I'll mention it to the guy who reads books to these animals. Maybe if he could read a story about cleaning up than the kids (parents) will be a little more conscious when they step into the department.
Oh god, the parents in the kids' department are heinous. I haven't worked at my Le Sad Store since September, but kids - especially on the weekends - was always a nightmare. For some reason, parents seemed to think that they were absolved of all their parenting responsibilities once they'd dragged their kid into the section. Parent(s) sit with their coffee drinks and a stack of magazines and/or their friends, while kids run around in dirty (stinky) diapers, peeling stickers out of activity books, creasing book covers, pulling all the stuffed animals off the displays, pushing each other, putting those vile little trains from the train table in their mouths - and parents are oblivious.
Ugh.
I love that "clean up" song, by the way.
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