Polaritical

I'm totally ok with all if it. I'm also completely fine talking to customers in a customer service role. I think that as long as I have a sort of role to perform with clearly drawn boundaries and expectations,I'm fine. Where I struggle is very specifically with interpersonal relationships.

I'm not afraid of tripping or saying something stupid. I'm terrified of rejection like "nobody likes me", "I am a loser", "everyone thinks I'm weird". And I know it's this self perpetuating cycle where my anxiety makes me withdrawn which means I don't forge personal friendships. I become the exact friendless loser I was so terrified of becoming.

Its great that the company is making money but profits that are invested back into the company isnt really comparable to salary.

I think theyre wondering what you're personal take home pay is now compared to corporate jobs.

I decided on Monday that I need to start therapy. But I don't get how the fuck I'm supposed to find a therapist. I googled therapists in my town who have hours that fit with my work schedule and accept my insurance....And it's an overwhelming number of people. I've never properly done therapy so I have no idea what I'm really looking for.

Yup. It's like my entire digestive system is panicking even more than I am. I frequently get weird bowel movement and have on more than one occasion spontaneously thrown up out of nerves.

I'm not sure about the latter part, but the "epiphany" sounds like depersonalization/dissociation. I've had a few episodes and interestingly I also experienced them when I thought and felt like my anxiety symptoms were beginning to lessen.

I would describe it almost exactly like that. My anxiety was getting better. The fog was clearing. And suddenly I'm sitting there thinking about my life and my choices. Only as it went on it didn't entirely feel like mine. I didn't feel like me. It wasn't like I had disconnected from reality and was delusional but almost the exact opposite. Like suddenly I was experiencing reality in high definition and I couldn't handle it. I was suddenly seeing everything with this crisp clarity and it was causing me to question the most rudimentary things. The connections between very basic things stopped making sense. It was like I was observing myself and I recognized I was me, but at the same time who was me anyway? It was almost like I was questioning my own conscious identity.

They have fucked me up for weeks and months afterwards and definitely lead to massive isolation and withdrawl. There were points when I felt like I didn't really understand how to communicate anymore. I could go days without talking and when I did talk it was like a foreign language.

I've found that working on my anxiety and intentionally not thinking to deeply helps. When reality starts to feel a little to real, I keep myself busy to act as a sort of white noise to keep my thoughts from drifting to far. I've also learned to recognize the beginning of those spirals. Recently I was sitting with a group of friends when I felt that eerie creep of "clarity" and hyper-awareness taking shape. So I hopped up and went to the bathroom and thought of the to do list of everything I needed to get done in the next few days. I'm also in the beginning stages of finding a therapist.

An interesting thing I found was that the fearful reaction we have to dissociation (oh my god, I'm fucking losing my mind. I'm a crazy person. What is wrong with me!?) is probably more harmful than the dissociation itself. It's not that uncommon to experience it to some degree at some point in your life.

So the best thing is to not worry about it. You had a tiny little freak out during board game night. No biggie. Rather than panicking about an abstract thing, just focus on the actions and behaviors within your own control. It doesn't matter that you're hyper aware of your speech. Just talk.

Honestly I think it's like automatic breathing. 99% of the time we can do this thing without ever thinking about it. But sometimes were made aware of it and the very act of consciously recognizing it makes it break down. You've just gotta start breathing and trust that at some point something is gonna attract your thoughts elsewhere. Your brain will think about the new thing, and without even realizing your body will keep trucking as designed. Eventually your brain will calm down. You've just stop panicking about it and figure out how to cope in the meantime. You should definitely start therapy back up.