Personal Growth Is Totally, Like, HARD!

As I said in a previous post, I started a new job in January. This is the first proper JOB I've had since leaving the company where I spent 10 years. (It was really tempting to say waste, if we're being honest, which we generally are, in this space.) I had the two nannyish type gigs in between, and the jewelry selling, but this is the first job where I go to an office and sit at a desk and all that good stuff. 

Anyone who's been reading this blog for a while knows how...effing brutal my old work environment was. I had the boss who was verbally abusive, who had a boss who was, I'm pretty sure, actually insane. Then, I had the chaotic, rudderless group wherein my boss literally hired someone two grades my senior to DO THE SAME JOB I WAS ALREADY DOING. Basically, by the time I left that joint in 2010, I had no professional confidence left. None. I had come to believe that, while the environment was crazy, I must also be a sub-par employee. I believed I wasn't competent. 

I've been in regular therapy since just after my miscarriage in 2010, and we've spent quite a bit of time on the anxiety that started during that work experience and exploded after E was born. And I've made a lot of progress. I have. But I've got a long way to go.

I panic over work on the regular. I convince myself I've made some kind of massive mistake. I convince myself I haven't done something I was meant to, or that I've done something I wasn't meant to. I work myself up into actual panic attacks. I can't seem to trust my own competence. But understanding that is in itself a huge step.

I'm a work in progress (you guys know that's my mantra, right?). I'm learning. I'm learning to leave old experiences behind me. I'm learning to trust myself. To trust that if I'm doing my best, that's the best thing for me.

And since I process through writing, it felt like something I should get out in this space, this struggle. I know my anxiety as a general thing is well covered hereabouts, but this particular issue felt like it needed addressing. 

I'm going to fight through this. I'm not going to live my life in fear, whether it's fear of freak medical diagnoses, or fear of trusting myself professionally or personally.