Asking for Help

I wish I would stop waking up at 3am and spend 2 or more hours unable to get back to sleep. There is a lot going on in my life at the moment, and my brain seems to choose the early hours to process things. Today I ended up speaking to a solicitor on one phone and the hospital on another. I don't appear to be a very stereotypical female, because I proved unable to multi-task and got totally confused trying to juggle the conversations.

None of these issues are connected to work. And stressful though some of them are, they don't seem to be triggering my anxiety symptoms. I am just putting one foot in front of the other, and managing not to take anything personally. It was suggested to me recently not to describe things as "problems" but as "situations" - and this makes a significant difference to how I approach all the things I need to deal with right now.

So why can't I do this in relation to the workplace and my colleagues? WHY have I been finding it so impossibly bloody difficult to maintain detachment from everything that has happened, to ensure my feelings remain undamaged, and my sense of self stays intact....? Why does my Stepford Employee persona periodically wobble, and get shoved aside by Real Woman who appears unable to resist coming out with acidulous asides and pointed pronouncements...???

I need to take a fresh look at my stumbling blocks. And I think I need some help.

I'm quite good at asking for help these days. I freely seek advice on matters legal, medical, and procedural. I am happy to consult more knowledgeable people about DIY, fashion, curtain making and gardening rather than attempt to deal with such arcane matters unaided. And I regularly bombard my friends with questions - the best local cafes, if they know a good plumber, and where to buy that stain remover which gets turmeric out of white shirts.

So it isn't too hard for me to follow up my doctor's recent advice to me - that I get some professional help to deal with my anxieties in relation to the workplace.

After dithering around for a few days consulting the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy website, flabbergasted by the number of practitioners listed within a 5 mile radius of my postcode, I elect to keep matters simple and send a text to the counsellor I saw for several sessions while I was signed off work earlier in the year. On that occasion, the sessions were arranged by my employers (for which I am genuinely grateful, irritating though their manipulations were at the time) but I am now asking if I can see him as a private client.

He responds within a few hours, suggesting that we discuss the matter when he returns to London this week. I am quite glad that I have decided to do something pro-active. Because I haven't been to the Town Hall for almost a week, and already I can feel my phobic resistance to the dear old place starting to creep back in...