I'm on COVID leave from work and in order to validate my leave, they want me to get a form filled out by a doctor. It's filled me with anxiety the entire time. Without going into too much detail, there are few issues complicating this. For one thing. I don't have a doctor. I've been trying to work out how to get this done. I myself think it sounds irrational, but every time I even think about it, I enter a downward spiral of anxiety and despair and I put it off just to feel better. Part of it is that it involves making phone calls, which I hate doing. But mainly, it's probably just that it's uncharted territory for me, outside of my usual routine.
Then I picture that I will lose my job over this and eventually become homeless. Then I'm filled with such anxiety about having to get this done, I think it will be better to lose my job and become homeless than to have to deal with it. Then I remind myself that I have a history of thinking I'm going to lose my job when nothing of the sort was happening. Part of my anxiety about that is the extremely difficult time I had getting a job before I was finally hired for this one.
The other thing is that, while I'm aware that I financially need to go back to work, I don't especially want to. My job sometimes also causes me anxiety. This is the longest I've had away from it in 12 years. I haven't left the house at all since I've been on leave. For the first two weeks I was basically incapacitated, since then it's been mostly fatigue. Up until this, I was resigned to having to go to work constantly, (I actually had a very good attendance record) and work is pretty much the only thing I went out for, but now, I have tasted the forbidden fruit of free time. If I had enough money, I would probably just stay at home and draw all day, only leaving two or three times a year to go to Disneyland. Most people would go stir crazy, but it's starting to sound pretty good to me.
09 Nov 2021, 7:26 pm
