Anxiety in the Workplace

Today was a pretty good day at work. It's New Year's Eve so it's slow and relaxed. It felt sort of like a few friends just hanging out while getting some stuff done.

One of my tasks today was to empty a drawer on fourth floor and put my belongings down on the ground floor where my team sits when not training or supporting a class. The ground floor is where there have been rodent sightings, so I've been pushing through some anxiety.

When I was cleaning out my drawer I found a bunch of papers that I no longer needed. I had two options:

1. Walk out of my way to go to the lobby and either take the stairs or the elevator to another floor to dump the papers in a secure "shred-it" box, or
2. Walk 20 feet behind me to the door that separates us from HR/ Recruiting and use their box. 

Option #2 is the area where the rodent was just last week. For some reason (braveness or laziness; I'm still unsure) I chose option 2. I opened the door and the room is empty because the ladies weren't in today. I made my way across the room to the shred-it box and dumped my stuff (all the while eyeballing the room). I saw a trap on the floor near the box and I felt sick to my stomach. Is this where the little bastard was last week? I hightailed it out of there, and as I'm approaching the door that separates the two rooms I saw two traps on the floor - one on each side of the door I just walked through and will again have to walk through.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I honestly didn't know if I could walk in between the two traps. It is a secure area so I had to swipe my pass to make things even worse. There is another exit, but I didn't know if I wanted to run in that direction, either. I reached out, swiped the door, pulled and ran in. My heart was racing, the air felt thick. I felt sick to my stomach.

It is about 20 minutes later and I'm still anxious. I hate this feeling. I keep hearing things now; little rustling noises, keyboard-type clicks. I am alone so I'm scared thinking that all of a sudden, now that everyone else has left, the rodents are coming out to play.

My chest feels heavy. Luckily, it's time for me to go home. 

Until next time,

D

First meeting

I had an appointment on Thursday evening with my new psychologist, Megan. I wasn't sure if I'd be okay talking with her about my phobia. I don't even like saying the word. Right away she set me at ease. Her smile is warm, her office is cozy. She uses an iPad, and that made me like her even more. She is from Nova Scotia, too. A Maritimer. We all know Maritimers are good people. ;)

Megan said something that made me know that she knew what she was doing. She referred to my phobic object as a phobic object. She didn't say the word. The word is hard enough for me to hear. I thought, "she's good." I told her a bit about my background - living in Sydney near the tar ponds meant I had far too much contact with them. I told her how I'd been away from them for years, and that I thought I was now more scared than ever.

Megan told me about a client who had a phobia of crossing the street. It was very difficult for this client to even make it to their first session, but now this person crosses streets, drives a car, and even travels for work driving rental cars in unfamiliar areas. Impressive. So, how are we going to do this? Hypnosis? Sign me up!

She then told me of her plan. It wasn't hypnosis. It was something called Graduated Exposure Therapy. Oh SHIT. I know what that means! I can't do this. I can't do this! I can't do this!

But guess what? I CAN do this. My daughter, who is one of the greatest people I know, loves going to Canada's Wonderland. We used to go sometimes, until a friend told me that she used to work there and she remembers seeing snake skins when cleaning the park at night. "Snake skins?" I asked. "Yep," she said, "they eat the rodents." I haven't taken her back. And what about that trip to NY we've been wanting to take? What's stopping me? Rodents. And camping; my partner loves to camp. I can't go because of the damn rodents. I have nothing to lose and so much to gain. I need to do this. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS.

Megan explained that we'll be taking a ten step approach. We'll be coming up with the steps together. She asked me if seeing the word and saying the word causes the same fearful response. I explained that saying the word is harder. So we now have the first two steps:

Step 1: See the name
Step 2: Say the name

Guess what step 10 will be? Holding one. She kept telling me to relax my shoulders; they were up near the top of my head apparently. OMG. So scary. So at my next appointment we will start step 1. She gave me a brief rundown of what it will look like. Apparently, I'll be posting the words around me. I'll make them my own. Glitter, cool font, colors, whatever.

January 9, 2013 is the start of step 1 for me. I'm scared, but sort of excited to see what happens. She told me that when I'm ready to move on to a new step it's not like I'll be going from step 1 to step 2. She said that step 1 will be so irrelevant that step 2 becomes the new step 1. I asked what happens if it doesn't become irrelevant. She said that could be for one of three reasons:

1. I'm not doing my homework (not going to happen, as I've said, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain)
2. There is some sort of benefit to me holding on to the fear
3. I've suppressed something, in which case she'll use hypnosis to see what it is.

So that's it. I'm excited for my next appointment. I want to start step 1 now, but I know there's a method to her madness so I will wait until she gives me the green light. 

Background

When I was a kid I had a friend who had a pet. A rodent. I played with it, fed it, and even remember trying to catch it when it got loose.

Something happened after that and I developed a huge phobia. It could have been that we moved to Nova Scotia and we lived near the tar ponds, and the city had lots and lots of rodents. It got so bad that we found them in our oven, baked. We found them dead under our bed mattresses. They were in our cereal boxes. They were rustling in our garbage cans at night. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it.

I remember being pregnant with my son and I was in the washroom when I encountered one. I was so scared that I worried I'd go into labor early. It really impacted me. I remember sleeping with shoes on. I remember sleeping sitting up at the kitchen table, fully clothed, because I was afraid to go to bed.

In 2002 I moved from Cape Breton to Fredericton, New Brunswick. I spent 5 years there and I never came across a single rodent (of the phobic variety). From there we moved to Ottawa. Shortly after moving to Ottawa we signed a lease on an apartment, and as we were moving in I spotted traps under the sink. My partner assured me, "It's just a precaution. There aren't any here." Although uneasy, we continued moving our belongings in. That's when we ran into the superintendent who mentioned that we were the first occupants after a 6 week quarantine due to an infestation. We packed our crap up and got out of there!

We've been in Ottawa for 5 years, and we've been blissfully living without any run-ins with my phobic object. At work, though, there was some chatter of rodent sightings in the building. I almost quit. How could I possibly work under these conditions? I began to see dreaded signs. Traps in the training rooms. Luckily my position didn't take me to those rooms very often. Until my position started taking me to those rooms more often. Crap. I talked myself off the ledge, so to speak, because I was the breadwinner. I can't not work.

Three weeks ago I was prepping for a class I was going to be teaching. I had a full house, so I had to organize the room to ensure everyone could fit comfortably. I was moving flipchart paper off a desk when I saw rodent poop. OMG! I ran out of the building and ran right to a friend who was on break and going to get a tea. She went back into the building to get my jacket and gloves as it was a cold, Canadian winter evening. She took me back into the room and finished cleaning up. She let my loving, supportive partner know that there was trouble for me and she came, too, to help. I managed to train my class the next day, and for a number of days after that.

Last week, a sighting in the lunch room. I almost quit. I can't do this! A coworker was kind enough to bring in little devices that plug in and emit a noise that rodents don't like. She did this because, for the following number of days, I was going to be working downstairs where all the sightings had been. The first day downstairs was ok. Then came day two. I was sitting at my desk listening to a recorded conference call that I had missed due to scheduling conflicts. Right behind me, and about 20 feet away, is a door which leads to the HR / Recruiting area. As I'm listening to my call I heard screams, and even though the tragedy in Connecticut was less than a week old, I knew those screams were not a gunman, rather a rodent. I scrambled to get out of my chair and onto my desk without touching the floor. My heart raced, I felt dizzy and light-headed, but my limbs felt so heavy. My throat was dry and I wanted to go home. My friend and coworker Cindy (the one who saved me a few weeks ago by prepping my room after finding the poop) tried to talk with me. She tried to bring my focus to her instead of to the door where I was fearfully awaiting the rodent to make its way to me. She said we could go home if I wanted, but I still had things to do and I didn't want to let it get the best of me. But it did. I went home. But not before sending an email to a psychologist I found online who specializes in phobias and also does hypnosis. It would be easy - I'd book an appointment and get the fear hypnotized out of me. That night she emailed me back. She had a cancellation for the following evening. I was going to go.