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New job

Llama

How long did it take for you to settle into your new job?

I am struggling to settle, each day I wake up feeling sick with anxiety and even when I get home I struggle switching off, like I have a constant internal monolog, anyone experienced the same thing?
If so, what did you do to cope?

  • in reply to Iain

    My therapist often suggests mindfulness as the answer to many of my issues.

    I think it's true that it's probably the strongest tool in our Armoury as autistics, instinctively we react "wrongly" or at least "wrong" when comparing to typical people. So being able to watch over ourselves in the moment and step in to correct the course could be our way to avoid conflict.

    The issue I have is, knowing what the "proper" response should be, without being too harsh (risking alienating people when we don't want to)  or too soft (and risking being taken advantage of)

    The other issue is that if we keep stopping ourselves mid outburst and holding the emotions back, I think that creates "unspent stress" pressure within and might be dangerous long term.

    Also, if the FFF response has kicked in, it's not always even possible to stop as we loose our objective mind to the adrenaline.

  • Llama said:
    How long did it take for you to settle into your new job?

    I used to contract and had new jobs every year or two, sometimes every 3 months and I found it took about a week to settle into the new environment and maybe a month to get familiar with the ways of working to get up to speed to do most stuff.

    For the anxiety I found a mix of mindfulness (to put things into perspective and shut down the internal "what if" conversations) and meditation (to relax) worked the best .

    Towards the end of my career I was a specialist in being brought into IT teams which were either performing badly or were really falling apart (one team lost 5 out of 6 staff before I even joined) so I often had chaotic and conflicted environments to take over and manage, but these skills (mindfulness and meditation) always kept the stress from being more than a nagging annoyance.

  • in reply to Autisician

    Don't be sorry! - I can totally feel your pain.
    I am waiting for an ADHD diagnosis as well and I find myself getting bored in a job so I go for something with more mental stimulation (usually still admin related, I love admin) but then (like now) I find myself feeling extremely overwhelmed and struggling to cope with all the changes!!

  • Don't think I've ever settled totally in any job in the 33 years since I left school and started working life. I always felt a bit like I wanted to do something else, find certain things annoying and get anxious about all sorts (usually other people and their behaviour) but the constraints of salary and hours V work life balance have always been greater than my need to enjoy my job totally.Nauseated face

    I doubt that's helpful sorry!