Having a screw loose

I had the talk with the supervisor. The one thing she said that struck home was: "You need to take care of You. The work will carry on. Nothing is more important than yourself. I could try and get you back to work as fast as possible and then lose you all together, because that wouldnt work. Do what you need to do to get right. Get help, talk to people, take all the time you need. Don't worry about work, appointments and stuff like that, we'll take care of those. We'll be here when you're ready."

Of course hearing those words and actually letting go of work, appointments and the like was much harder. I had applied for a position i'd been wanting for some time now. Actually got invited to the interview aswell. Had to call them and let them know, now wasnt the time for me. I felt like a failure. Worried that they might consider what i'm going through right now, if I apply in the future. How would that affect my chances.

Besides that i had several projects going on. I wanted to implement some changes to our social media system at work. And suddenly I wasn't at the meeting. Colleagues started to worry. They started to message me if everything was all right. Thats when I asked my supervisor to send a general e-mail to let them know I wouldn't be at work for the forseeable future. Thats when even more messages came. The I dont know what is going on, but I'm here for you if you need me messages. I do so appreciate these messages, but I still dont even know whats wrong with me. 

During this time, the thoughts that kept popping up were: I'm not even sick, why cant I just go to work? I can go grocery shopping so why shouldn't I be working? I can take my kids to school, there's nothing wrong with me.

And then inevitably it hit me over and over again. For example: While walking back from the school a car went by, it probably went a bit to fast for my taste. Thats when the flashback came back. I saw myself in the crashed car giving CPR to the driver even though I knew it wouldn't work. I stopped in the middle of the street and started crying my eyes out. Of course these kinds of flashbacks happened almost every day. And that made me realize: No you can't work like this, there is something wrong with you and you need help!

The thing that rattled me the most in the beginning was the anxiety. I could be walking, sitting or driving and suddenly out of nowhere panic sets in. Not you're regular I might miss my train panic. But real, life threatening fight or flight panic. It's pretty hard to describe this feeling. But it feels something like: I have to fight my way out of here or i'm not going to survive. Your body gets ready to fight. My muscles tense, I see everything and I look for the nearest hiding spot. A spot away from danger, away from pressure. It's the worst feeling in the world. Blind panic!

So now I'm having flashbacks, panic attacks, mood swings and I can't control my emotions. Anyone dare to guess what's wrong with me? Because I still didnt know. I just worried I was doing something wrong, or didn't do something wich i should have. My first thought was always that I was the problem. I unscrewed my screw and I need to fix this.

Have you ever experienced something similar? Let me know in the comments. Check out our Frequently asked questions tab for more info on symptoms.