Lately I'm just freaking out about losing my job. I'm an accountant but not a particularly good one. I seem to have attention, memory, and concentration problems that really weren't apparent when I was in school learning this stuff. I made A's in all classes but one. And I passed the CPA exam the first time. That's something that only about 12% of people who take it can say. It seems I can remember the material for a test, but I can't internalize it and use in daily activities.
I always knew I wasn't the best with detail, but I was always able to test well in school and get things done well when I wanted to. Somehow those abilities fail me in real life. I'm not sure if it's anxiety or some other problem like some learning disability or ADD that's the problem. I don't know.
I know anxiety is part of the problem. I hesitate to ask questions, point out problems, or change anything. My anxiety goes into overdrive when I have to do anything out of the ordinary.
I also have problems with memory and cognition more and more as time goes on. I make stupid errors and typos all the time on work I turn in to my boss. I can't seem to master some of the basic skills for my job. Work that should be routine regularly requires that I look back at notes or work out all over again how I need to do things.
Anyway, I just hope I don't get fired. Because I don't know how I'd find another job after failing at this one. And if I did manage to find a new job, I know it wouldn't pay nearly as well at this one.
The worst thing about all this is that my boss has consistently given me at least o.k. to good evaluations. The most negative comment I ever received was about 1.5 years ago (we have annual reviews in June). It was that she would like it if my work was more consistent. Hell, I'd really like that too. Then I wouldn't freak out every time I made some mistake at work and think it might be the metaphorical last straw on the camel's back that would get me fired.
You would think that if you have good reviews, you would at least have enough work to do everyday that you didn't have to sit and dream up makework. Or that you would be trusted with new or more important tasks. I'm not. It seems like every year I have slightly less and less to do.
I don't know. Am I seeing things that aren't there? Or is there something to this? I really don't have anyone I feel I can talk to this about except my therapist. I've had four sessions with him so far. It was starting to help to relieve some of the stress but last week we couldn't work out a time and this week it snowed and next week he doesn't have any openings.
Also, I'm having a hard time finding a psychiatrist. It seems like all the ones on my company's plan either have disconnected phones or don't answer their messages. Also, there aren't very many. It's about 80% LCSWs and other non-MD therapists. So no meds. And LD and ADD testing will probably be impossible to get too.
Tonight my anxiety level is going throught he roof and I'm just absolutely convinced I'll get a phone call sometime this weekend or next week telling me not to show up for work and I'd be able to collect the personal contents of my cube at the front desk. I even straightened up a bit and cleaned up some of the old post-it notes I had lying around so it wouldn't be as messy when they came to box everything up.
They seem to handle a lot of dismissals in kind of an anxiety provoking way. If someone is let go, all of a sudden you just find out they've "decided to seek other opportunities" and an e-mail saying just that is sent out to the whole organization.
It's almost Stalinesque, except no-one ends up in Siberia or dies of a "brain hemorrhage" in Lubyanka. Since I'm not tuned into any of the social networks, nothing is mostly all I ever know. So I don't have any basis for judging how close I am to a similar fate other than observation of what these people were doing before they were let go. It's not like I ever heard other people complaining about how lazy or incompetent the "other opportunities" people were. So I see them doing their jobs and all of a sudden they're gone. And I never hear anything definitive as to why. So then I'm freaked out.
I'm not even sure anymore that if I felt good about the job I did, I wouldn't worry about this.
]? TY for commenting on my blog post. Today I'm feeling contemplative with flashes of pure brilliance [Hey, I can dream, can't I?] so hope you don't mind me responding to your very long, but thought provoking post. 
] ... but I know that social anxiety is just anxiety channelled in one particular way and sometimes it has a habit of manifesting in different ways for completely different reasons.
