Hi! I love your picture.... sweet little bunny! I am pretty new here and can't offer you any advice, but I wish you the best...this is a great place..listen to Davit! He is right!
Hi Caden: pls. don't let that potluck lunch get you down. You may be "mindreading" what they are thinking. It's hard to feel accepted when you feel they have excluded you on purpose. Perhaps they had planned these before you came and thoughtlessly haven't thought to invite the newcomer. Office politics are sometimes hard to read unless you've been there for awhile. I do as Davit suggests, concentrate on my own job and know my own worth. I didn't get that happy-go-lucky attitude overnight, it did take practice. I started volunteer work over 10 yrs. ago and believe me, you meet all kinds of people with different agendas. Some go to be seen, some are genuinely generous, some like to boss others around and feel important, some do it out of guilt. I concentrate on the job to be done and how I can be as effecient as possible with the resources I can work with. I now organize more than one event and train newcomers, but it took experience and looking the other way when others acted unprofessionaly, even though I've had to work with them sometimes. I try to set a good example for the new volunteers.
Hope you don't give up - you are a contributor to this company and therefore, an asset. Bravo to that! and how brave of you to get back out there in the office! These are all positives. Way to go!
As Davit mentioned the past is the past, the main thing is to focus on the present and put your energy and effort into today. Get out for those nightly walks, it sounds like you enjoy those walks and it is a good way of relaxing. Be sure to take the time to do them. I can hear your frustrations about dealing with the same phobia for 3 years, use the program and keep chipping away at it.
A couple of questions you might want to look at. Why did you take an unpaid job? Who benefits from your work? If you are doing what you like why should it matter what others think? Are you doing the best you can? Is that not reward enough? You are not doing this for the other workers, you are doing it because some one needs you. Any one who is taking the time to look at you is not doing there job and since you are then you are the better person. Do this job for you and for the people who benefit from you and to hell with the politics. Every job has this kind of stress. For thirty years I was less than I could have been because of my disorder. But it is in the past and the past can't be changed only learned from so it doesn't count. And you don't know what the future will be so it doesn't count either. Only now counts. Do the job and find something positive in it and ignore the politics. Do the job for the job and for you. It is preparing you to go back to a paying job. Take this opportunity to learn how to ignore the office politics because it will always be there. You can not expect others to like you if you do not like you. Find reasons to like you. In fact post it here. What are the reasons you and I should like you? What are your good points?
Well I joined way back in 2008 and thought I had mastered my PD but have started an unpaid work placement a couple of month ago, my first office environment in over 3 years. Anyway to make a long story short, my self-esteem is very low - I feel defective for having lost over 3 years of my life to my disorders.
A couple of times there have been pot luck lunches in the office and I was never invited, which made me think I wasn't good enough, I wasn't worthwhile, just re-inforcing the negative view I have of myself. I spiraled downwards and am now very panicky and on edge all day. When I'm outside among people I am so self-conscious I feel like running away, I think people are looking at me & judging me. I tell myself I will never work again since I can't deal with the office politics like this.
I can whip myself into a frenzy in no time, take tonight. One of my biggest phobias was I have to get out for a walk every night. I know avoidance is only perpetuating the phobia, so I decided to stay in tonight, I was really on edge and angry that I am having to fight this all over again. I have had to face this same phobia every year for 3 years now & I'm so angry that I have to keep doing this.
