Dear E:

First, I will retell your story (it helps me process information when I do that):

You went to undergraduate school, worked very  hard to get good grades, worked very  hard to get into a good graduate school and fund it, then you graduated, worked hard to get into internships and build an amazing resume.

In a new city, you worked as a full time intern in a small office in a field related to your studies for six months. During these six months you strongly dislike the clientele and the “dysfunction and toxic environment” of the job. You suffered and you were burnt out. You then applied for a full time position in a your field in your dream company, for a position very similar to the one you disliked so much and suffered doing.

You didn’t want to keep doing the job you were doing where you were doing it or anywhere else. It was logical that you will (it being a larger, more stable company, proper systems in place, larger group of colleagues) , but you just didn’t want to suffer anymore. The idea of being “stuck in that line of work forever”, that is, suffering forever, even a one year of this forever-feeling, terrified you.

You kept going with the application through the fear but cancelled the final interview, then asked to reschedule, and then cancelled again at the last minute.

You wrote: “I knew objectively this wasn’t a good idea”. My input: according to logic it was a good idea, but we are human animals, not logical robots. We are very much emotional beings. To function well in life we have to incorporate both: the logic and the emotional. Here is an equation I came buy a few years ago: Wise Mind= Logical Mind + Emotional Mind.

For a long time you functioned like a robot, that is, according to logic but you didn’t attend to your emotional well being. As you found out, it doesn’t work, to plan and execute a life according to logic alone. Our emotions provide us with information that is essential to our well being and effective functioning in life.

Maybe you need a break, you’ve been running on logic alone for too long. I think you need some time away from what-makes-sense. Because what really makes sense is that you attend to how you feel, what you need right now. The human/ animal part of you (which preceded, evolution wise, your logical part) doesn’t want to suffer. All animals withdraw from pain.

What do you think/ feel?

anita

Dear E:

You are welcome.

“By declining that interview and burning that bridge, I’ve become miserable… All I know is that right now, my anxiety .. is at its lowest.”

This is the logic of your emotions, and it is the logic of everyone’s emotions: better be miserable than anxious. And so, your emotions led you away from anxiety and into the preferable experience of misery.

Fear really is the worst, most distressing emotion there is. It is because the number concern of all animals is to survive, to not die. It takes a very distressing emotion to motivate an animal to do something drastic and to do it  immediately, to run as fast as it can run from a predator, to fight as hard as it can, do whatever it takes and fast!

I have no doubt that psychotherapy with a capable therapist would benefit you a whole lot in gaining the emotional understanding you need and reduce that anxiety, so that you don’t get overwhelmed at critical times.

You wrote: “Ever since graduate school, my emotions have always been in constant battle with my logic. I know what I should do, and often follow through with those actions, but never without a major sense of anxiety and dread”- do you remember how it was for you, the anxiety, the battle,  before graduate school, as far back as you remember?

anita

Dear E,

Hope you are able to forgive yourself soon. Guilt and regret are useful only to the extent that they teach you about the mistake that you made. Once that is learnt, continuing to not forgive yourself only serves to divert the energy that you need to move on. Change and growth that you need are more likely to occur when you cover yourself with an attitude of self compassion.

What needs to be done is measures to overcome the anxiety itself that led on to the situation.

Take care.

Dear E:

Yes, progress doesn’t happen over night and you are trying your best as you have for many years, working hard, trying your best, muscling your way through anxiety.

It is quite clear that you suffered a loss, an opportunity lost already, possible loss to recur because of that burned bridge and reputation. Got to accept that it happened and mourn those loses.

There is still hope though, but for it to be a reasonable hope, you have to learn to better deal with the anxiety. I write about anxiety every day here, if you click my names you can read what I wrote today about putting together a tool kit to use so to manage/ heal from anxiety.

You are welcome, and please do post again anytime.

anita