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I just need to vent


Annia

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Today I'm having a challenging day.

 

As you know I'm working in another country and I'm living alone here far away from my family and friends. I'm very lucky to be here, to learn so much every day, to have met the people I've met (they are not many, but I've met a few people I really like) and I have a good job with a good salary, something that I was very hard to get in my country. I'm not complaining as this was my choice and I don't regret it in the greater scheme of things, but some days I feel incredibly lonely despite spending the whole day talking to patients and colleagues.

 

The work volume has been crazy to a point that it's hardly manageable. We have several sick or maternity leave colleagues and I have so much responsibility sometimes and so much on me (because of the lack of people and the "fantastic" decision of my company in letting us work understaff for so long and taking so long to find replacements to save money, but I digress) that I've been feeling very anxious again. Sometimes I feel sick, I can't sleep properly and all this stress and pressure are getting to me to the point of it reflecting on the quality of my work (not anything serious, but I notice that). And I have to endure this until September which is when I'll have holidays and visit home. On top of this I'm working on a third language which I've improved a lot and have professional fluency in, but still makes it all even more tiring.

 

So today I was feeling very stressed (and irritated). My boss asked me to work several days a week at another place (it's normal to "loan" professionals to other places of the same chain), which made me very nervous because I'm already stressed at a place I'm used to (my workplace), and now I have to be stressed at a place I don't know with people I don't know with services I'm not used to. My usual self would see this as a learning opportunity and a good challenge and chance to network, which it is, but this added up to my stress. Also, I'm responsible for a very sensitive and important service at work that I need to be on top of and pay very close attention to because mistakes can happen and they're dangerous but I hardly have time because I have million other things to do and some colleagues well, don't help. So having to work at two places for a while and keep the same function at the same time it's not ok.

 

So I talked to my boss calmly and told him that yes, I would work both at this place and the other place (I could refuse as I'm not obligated, but the smartest decision is to accept and he had already told them I was the best person to help them because of my experience in some services that my colleagues have not) but under one condition, he needs to get someone to help me at that service I'm responsible for as I'm not capable and are not given conditions to perform a good job and that I don't feel safe working on something so sensitive under these conditions, when I am responsible for so many other things at the same time and so many people depend on me and interrupt me so many times and the amount of patients we have now is insane. He said he totally agreed with me and that he himself would help me and support me and that I'd be able to divide my share of that work with him or someone else.

 

I should be relieved but I just came home and cried. And today I almost bursted in tears at work when I made a mistake (nothing important, just registered something wrong which made a colleague waste time looking for it).

 

I had planned to study the language today as I've decided to take an official exame to prove my level at the language and my writing is too weak for that exam and I had also planned on studying some stuff for work, but I've spent the afternoon crying in the sofa and can't focus.

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Wow. You have a lot on your plate.

 

Is it possible to cut down your hours? If you feel that your anxiety is affecting the quality of your work, maybe you should consider if this job is worth all of the stress. Can you take your skills and work someplace less stressful?

 

I think I can, the only limiting factor here is that I'm foreigner, therefor in bigger cities (where I'd like to live) it's harder to compete with locals which I totally understand. Which is why I've decided to take that official language exam to have more chances. I think I can do a good work because I'm very hard working and people in general like my work, but sometimes I make stupid mistakes because of stress and the volume of work but I think it's also due to being exhausted and not resting properly. I have 33 extra hours on my work time balance that I can use to take some free days but we're so understaffed and so many people will have holidays now, that my boss prefers that I wait a little until we have more people to use those hours (it's a lot of money they have to pay me if I don't use them, but at the same time I can't use them soon because we're understaffed even though they want me to use them lol ). I haven't exactly cut my hours but I stopped saying yes to making extra shifts when they need, because even though that money is very useful to me, I think my mental health and rest are more important. So now I'm working less hours than the previous months, but the amount of work in the hours I work is insane. If the other place I'll be working a couple days a week doesn't make me die of nerves (lol), I think it'll be a breath of fresh air and it's located in a nice place.

 

 

I think it'll get better, it's just that today everything seems dark and hopeless.

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Take it easy on yourself. You did the right thing. Sometimes very conscientious people get a touch of burn-out. Do something for yourself. Sheer indulgence whatever that may be. You can always get back to being perfect tomorrow.😊

 

Thank you, sometimes I'm too hard on myself and get too anxious.

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God I know the stress too....When I do, I go home, kick off my work boots, have a couple of beers. Sometime just doing nothing, and letting it all go even if it's for 8 hours, can bring your sanity back. if it gets bad and I think I'm losing it, I phone in sick for a couple of days to be me again...sleep, watch some movies, go out for lunch, internet shop. If you keep saying yes, that pile of responsibility keeps growing bigger. Learn to say no once in awhile. They sure ain't gonna fire you when they are so short staffed.

Just screw it, and get some rest...it will keep as my dad would say.

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God I know the stress too....When I do, I go home, kick off my work boots, have a couple of beers. Sometime just doing nothing, and letting it all go even if it's for 8 hours, can bring your sanity back. if it gets bad and I think I'm losing it, I phone in sick for a couple of days to to be me again...sleep, watch some movies, go out for lunch, internet shop. If you keep saying yes, that pile of responsibility keeps growing bigger. Learn to say no once in awhile. They sure ain't gonna fire you when they are so short staffed.

 

Even if they wanted to fire me (which they don't), it's very hard and expensive to fire someone here. I love my team in general, but I know of other workplaces where it's a mess and bosses can't do anything about it or people call in sick all at the same time lol

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Sounds like a glass of wine (or in my case, a night of sugar-free gummy bears) and a movie are in order, sister. You need way more time to relax and consciously spend more time on you. Sometimes even in our rest periods, we tend to overthink and worry about the next day, our families and the work ahead or even the work we've already done. That all needs to stop. You have to know when to tune out and put a cork in it. I agree with the pat on the back being honest with your boss. You're not going to get any studying done with all this swirling around tonight so let that go. Rest up and like they say, be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor the next morning, the devil says 'Oh sh-! She's up.'

 

One day at a time.

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Damn, you are going to burn yourself out and get sick. How many hours do you work in a week?

 

Are they going to hire more people?

 

I'm working less now because I stopped doing extras. In here if you work after 5 pm, it counts more, so my 33 extra hours are extra nights and weekends I've done and not exactly 33 hours. My issue is not the amount of hours I do, it's the intensity of it in the time I'm there and the amount of work to get done.

 

They will hire another person but they've waited all these months. They hired a friend of the boss that is fresh out of her degree and won't have much autonomy in the beginning and she'll begin next month. We'll be working understaffed due to this and people's holidays probably until September. It sucks because when I began we had all the staff and it was amazing. I was never stressed out and I didn't need to rush everything and I felt supported. Now I feel all the weight and responsibility on my back.

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I had planned to study the language today as I've decided to take an official exame to prove my level at the language and my writing is too weak for that exam and I had also planned on studying some stuff for work, but I've spent the afternoon crying in the sofa and can't focus.

 

I'm glad you're taking fewer extra shifts. Can you postpone this pending exam until you are able to work with more staff?

 

If the goal is exposure to more options, why not consider the second location to be fulfilling that exposure for now instead of adding an exam to your pressure cooker?

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I’m sorry you feel so stressed out, you need to find time to relax, and get enough sleep. I’m living in a foreign country too, and although I don't feel lonely anymore, I know it can be difficult. Do you have any hobbies? I also have a very demanding job, I’m meeting clients and basically speaking two different languages at work (none of them is my first language), and there are days I feel completely exhausted. What helps me is doing things I like in my free time – I play badminton, go to the theater, I have joined this local expat group, and I try to travel as much as I can. And don’t be too hard on yourself, one step at a time, good luck!

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Today I went out with my co-workers and it was nice but today I just miss my friends and my country. I miss my family so much. Sometimes I just feel so alone here. Sometimes it's so hard to express myself in Norwegian and be myself here. I just want to fit in but at the same time I feel that I'm so different from everyone around me. It's so weird because I wanted this and I wanted this experience but some days I just feel so alone that it's hard to cope. It's like I want to relate to people here but at the same time there's a wall. (I'm very dramatic today)

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I'm glad you're taking fewer extra shifts. Can you postpone this pending exam until you are able to work with more staff?

 

If the goal is exposure to more options, why not consider the second location to be fulfilling that exposure for now instead of adding an exam to your pressure cooker?

 

Which second location? (sorry, I'm very slow now)

 

But I think you're right, I'm too stressed and tired to study as I should. The idea of taking the exam it's because the places where I'd like to live in this country seem to be demanding people with language proficiency according to some job ads I've seen. I have professional fluency in the language but I don't have any official proof of that. I'd like to have a certificate of advanced proficiency in the language because I know that it'd increase my options.

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I’m sorry you feel so stressed out, you need to find time to relax, and get enough sleep. I’m living in a foreign country too, and although I don't feel lonely anymore, I know it can be difficult. Do you have any hobbies? I also have a very demanding job, I’m meeting clients and basically speaking two different languages at work (none of them is my first language), and there are days I feel completely exhausted. What helps me is doing things I like in my free time – I play badminton, go to the theater, I have joined this local expat group, and I try to travel as much as I can. And don’t be too hard on yourself, one step at a time, good luck!

 

I can totally relate to you. I'm working and socializing in a "third" language everyday (I consider English and Spanish my second languages and the language here my third language) and I'm also meeting clients everyday. I haven't found hobbies that give me pleasure yet here. I like being in the nature though. I have been feeling a bit unmotivated, but I think I need to exercise more. There are no expat groups here nor meetups nor anything of the sort but I'm now friends with a girl from my country that is going through similar experiences as mine, and that has been helping me. I can speak my language with her and I can relate to a lot of what she's feeling and we support each other. Before I moved here I lived in a place where there were mostly locals and almost no one foreign, so it's nice to be able to have someone to speak my language to and share experiences. I think that I've just been through a depressed and stressed phase, but I hope that it gets better.

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Which second location? (sorry, I'm very slow now)

 

The place you were stressing about in your OP that your boss had asked you to cover.

 

But I think you're right, I'm too stressed and tired to study as I should. The idea of taking the exam it's because the places where I'd like to live in this country seem to be demanding people with language proficiency according to some job ads I've seen. I have professional fluency in the language but I don't have any official proof of that. I'd like to have a certificate of advanced proficiency in the language because I know that it'd increase my options.

 

Apply for every desirable job that doesn't require the exam. Either you'll be a good fit, or not. If not, then it's not the right job for you regardless of your credentials.

 

One cause of stress is holding a higher bar for yourself than is necessary, practical or realistic. When you don't know another's expectations, it may be better to ask and find out than to overshoot--and harm yourself in the process.

 

Focus on one thing at a time. When you're working, focus on your work. When you're not working, focus on creating a healthy work/life balance. When your goal is continual improvement, take small and reasonable steps in the right direction, and allow for some plateaus rather than attempting to plow through those by overcompensating.

 

Consider how much of your stress is self imposed, and use discretion in how much of that is 'necessary' versus an inability to flip you own relaxation switch. Consider whether you've created a habit of catastrophic thinking that causes you to suffer bad outcomes in your own mind, regardless of whether they are likely to occur, and causes you to overcompensate and burn yourself out.

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Thank you everyone for your supportive comments, it helped a lot. I'm going through a mini mental breakdown now that I found out apparently they took away my monthly free day and trying to collect myself to when I talk to management. I'm having these nervous/emotional breakdowns because I think I'm too stressed and as catfeeder says I've created a catastrophic thinking. I like my colleagues in general, but I've reach a point where it's not healthy to live so anxious and sometimes so angry to the point that I have to control myself not to make passive aggressive comments to my manager. Passive aggressiveness is a bad thing I have that I'm trying to change but sometimes it almost comes out and work is the worst place to be passive aggressive. I've made a good friend from my country which is in a similar situation as me at her workplace which I think it's basically one of the reasons I haven't gone insane lol

 

I'll focus myself on trying to do the best possible and I'll start thinking ahead. I really want to move to the capital city of this country where at least I'll be able to travel and have more flexibility despite the high living costs.

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Good news: Saturday was the day we had most clients ever on a Saturday and I was alone there... I controlled and dispensed more than 300 prescriptions myself plus many other stuff I did that day, it was crazy and as soon as she got to know, she said that we can't continue to have days like this with such volume of work for so few people and that she'll find solutions so that I never have to go through that again. I didn't need to say anything or complain, she said immediately once she knew of that day that it wasn't safe nor logic to have such volume of work. I told her that I was glad to hear that because even though "we survived" and I have an high tolerance for stress (she doesn't know I've been having these mental breakdowns home lol), that I felt that it affected the quality of my work and that I didn't feel that this was a safe and sustainable situation. I felt a huge relief that my manager doesn't think that this situation is right and want to make things better. I still feel stressed, a huge weight on my chest, but I feel hopeful. Calling my mother also helped me and made me realize that I can't keep everything inside or I get into "panic mode" like I was these days.

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Thank you very much! I feel calmer now.

 

Good! Lean into this triumph and anchor it into your memory with emotion. You will be able to draw on it later whenever you need to tap into some confidence. Come up with a few affirming phrases that will condition your mind to trigger this response on queue.

 

Making a big deal of your accomplishments rather than minimizing them is key to building the confidence that overrides anxiety. People mistake minimizing their finest moments as humble, but false humility is a merely failure to capitalize on the strengths that can prevent anxiety from taking hold in the future.

 

One mistake people make when they spread that first glimmer of anxiety into a giant abstraction that feels like "this is the way I've ALWAYS been..." is overlooking times like this that demonstrate that old limiting habits are not accurate.

 

Head high, and enjOy!

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