Hey Alison!
Sorry I didn't post back to you sooner, but I didn't see this until just now. :confuse:
Anyways, I work in a community clinic so we do everything here. Family practice, pediatrics, podiatry, gynecology, physical therapy, lab work, vision and even dental. Although I don't do anything with the vision or dental - but they are here all the same. I work in the office. I absolutely love it here! It's a fabulous place to work!
I have some pretty serious health related panic and always have since the beginning so when I was offered this job, I decided to take it and use it as exposure work. It was so hard for the first two months!! Constant anxiety all day, every day! And then, of course, I would go home and be just fine. So I knew the physical symptoms of dizziness, shakiness, heart racing, vision problems, etc.... was just anxiety / panic related. Whenever I had panic at work in the past I would take off to the bathroom until I could calm down. But, since I've been working on the CBT program offered here, I knew that if I was ever going to beat this, I couldn't keep doing that. So, I would force myself to stay at my desk and ride it out. I forced myself to talk to other people in the office and come out of my shell and I even forced myself to eat lunch in the breakroom - that was a big one for me because I realized that the reason I always ate lunch in my car or at my desk is because the break room had always sparked anxiety for me. I remember when I would walk to the break room when I first started here and going down the hall, I would keep breathing deep and telling myself over and over, you can do this, you can do this.... It seems silly now although I know that at the time, it was very hard for me. But making myself do this has helped tremendously! I even had insomnia the first two months working here because it was so hard to get myself to be in a calm state while working here. When I first started, I would look at a patient's diagnose and would start to panic and then I would have to tell myself, this is not you, you do not have this disease, it's ok. But, the anxiety of being here is gone (sometimes a little bit still, but not as bad) and the insomnia is also gone. I still have some nights I have problems getting t
