My new job

It's hard to believe it's only Tuesday when it feels like I've done a weeks work already. Last week felt the same, maybe time actually has slowed down? But then that doesn't explain why my weekend seemed to pass in a heartbeat.

My new job is going both well and badly.

The good part is that I've been managing well with the clinics so far. I had some huge concerns that I wouldn't be able to focus myself to see all of the patients in a timely manner and give them the correct information, because in the past I found that dissociation affected my ability to concentrate and remember anything.

So far dissociation hasn't caused me too much trouble in the clinics. I experienced it at the start when I was shadowing a colleague and felt very stressed, but now I think that this was because it brought back memories of being bullied by my supervisors as a student.

I've done a handful of clinics on my own and in all but one I felt confident and focussed.

Today was the 'one'. For some reason my anxiety levels were quite high beforehand. I didn't feel confident and I felt like I didn't know anything. I had a few minutes before my first patient arrived and so I tried to take deep breaths and read aloud some of the information that I was planning to give the first patient. I internally asked for the person/people who had the skills and knowledge to do the clinic and I tried to be aware of my body and the room. I felt like I wasn't in the room and even while reading, the page was fuzzy and blurred and I couldn't concentrate. I had a bit of tunnel vision; not as defined as a tunnel. My vision was more a circle of OK sight but the rest was blurred. I get this when I'm really anxious.


Once I got started with my first patient, all of that left me. I became clear minded, confident, assertive, efficient...competent. Get me! Sometimes I find it incredible to think of myself running a clinic as a health professional. If my psychologist saw me doing it she would see a different side of me than the one that sits in front of her in our sessions: nervous, monotonous, closed, serious, slightly stupid. I find it hard to fathom myself sometimes. To think that I am treating people in a medical setting (and doing a good job I might add!) when only 12 hours previously, I was curled up on my bedroom floor, hugging a teddy and crying my eyes out.

Reading over that makes me see how crazy I actually am and I feel like I have a terrible secret. But I shouldn't feel that way. Everyone has their own secrets and issues in life. At the end of the day, as long I am not breaking the law and am doing the job properly, what does it matter if the rest of the time I am as crazy as a bag of cats?

I guess maybe everyone feels this way to a greater or lesser extent sometimes.

The bad part of my new job is the other part of my role which is much like the role I had previously. The problem is, the job post I left to go into this new job is in the same work and hasn't been filled so I'm effectively having to do all of my old job, plus my new responsibilities in that area, plus clinics. There is no way on earth it can all fit into one week. On top of that, other colleagues have left (who were on a higher wage than I am) and haven't been replaced and I've been asked to take on their work too. It's too much work and already I feel stressed by it.

I'm angry with my boss for putting all of this on me and it's not helped by the fact that she is constantly nagging me and asking me stupid questions while I'm trying to work so I can't actually get anything productive done. As if it isn't hard enough to concentrate with everything that's already going on in my head!

I'm just trying not to worry too much about it. I can only work as hard as I can and keep a record of what I'm doing so that if it comes back on me I can defend myself.

I haven't enjoyed talking about this and it's not what I even had in mind when I decided to write a blog post! I may just post this and then start again with the subject I came here to share with you!