Relentless anxiety attacks are difficult to identify. Most people have anxiety attacks, so when does someone have a problem? Anxiety attacks affect individuals and people around them. Management perspective focuses on efficiency, so everything a person does is wonderful. One trait associated to anxiety disorders is tending to people's needs or being submissive. This is useful in several jobs: psychologist, customer service, administrative assistant, janitorial staff (doing and job no one else wants), restaurant server, hotel manager and chef.
There is an ethical debate between several issues. People should feel good about themselves. It is nice to acknowledge the best and appreciate everyone. There is a responsibility to maintain order and identify potential issues in advance. Frequently, people must help themselves, because other people will make any situation workable.
Sometimes workable is not good enough. Managers might be trained to recognize potential and potential situations. It is standard to learn quick profiles to identify normal traits. Anxiety is a normal trait. Some people say it is silent strength or demure; however, severe anxiety is a determent to individuals left with the responsibility of diagnosing themselves.
Some work issues involve harassment and proactively diffusing hostile or potentially violent situations. When realizing a person may experience three anxiety attacks every week and people with higher levels of anxiety are all working together, people want to quit. A couple work stories involve one, hypertensive woman who spent most time watching other employees. Managers tried to handle the issue. I don't know what happened to her.
At the same office I was having problems with sexual harassment. It was okay for a long time. I ignored it or felt complimented, until one day. One day, I was already upset about changes to my schedule and then the harasser appeared out-of-nowhere and made a comment. I left work that day and spent a week calling in sick until packing up my box and leaving.
This is what happens. Someone may diminish problems and say they are high-strung or overly-sensitive. This is a cold, reactive method. I am tired of people glorifying abnormal psychology when normal psychology is something people have to deal with constantly.
Jerilyn Ross' book "Triumph over Fear" makes valid suggestions applying to everyone. A chapter addressed to family and friends lists out "I" statements to identify personal rights. Not quoting the entire section, rights include: the right to not care, the right to feel confused, the right to be scared and the right to not like everybody.
A source of irritation, for me, is when people attempt to diminish my emotions. They may want to diffuse the situation by telling me to be more understanding or say disliking anyone is wrong. I suppose carrying a grudge over absurd amounts of time is excessive. However, reacting to feeling judged or being harmed emotionally or physically is normal. Disrupting the reaction seems hostile and an effort to control people through humiliation.
Thinking about it, the person promoting these ideals is probably obsessed with making everything "fine," because they suffer from anxiety attacks. Listening is a worthwhile method for identifying people with ongoing, out-of-control panic attacks. This idea would have to be tested. Find out if it okay for them to become emotional, but not "you."
Another section of the book talks about Contextual Therapy. It is a type of therapy; wherein, people meditate on issues to undo unproductive thoughts by experiencing alternate outcomes until original fears subside enough to live a normal life. This book is orientated to a smaller percentage of people with excessive amounts of fear, yet I found a couple points of interests.
Dr. Manual Zane created "the Six-Points." These points are proven helpful to those with anxiety. The third point is, "Focus on and do manageable things in the present." This makes a lot of sense. When feeling apprehensive, experiencing heightened emotions or wanting to run away, remain focused on current tasks. After fear subsides, it is easier to carry on and endure through similar situations.
The sixth point is, "Expect, allow and accept that fear will reappear." It is true. Sometimes, even in similar situations, fear reappears. It might not be as intense. A person not only acknowledges fear, they must establish ideals in relation to events causing fear, because the fear response returns. We are also unable to now the future. Some people want to build endurance; however, any new experience might feel threatening at some point, because it is awkward and produced by sudden changes in physiological function.
One fearful thought I had while reading the book, because latent anxiety is produced when reading about anxiety, was related to the woman who ran over a man and drove all the way home with the body attached to the front of the car. That is a nightmare situation Ross refers to in the book. She claims it could never happen and yet it happened.
Speculation makes me wonder if the person driving the car was in therapy for obsessive compulsive disorder. Sometimes people are afraid to drive, because people with OCD get out of the car and walk around several times to make sure they did not run over anyone. Someone actually did and drove over a mile before checking. I can imagine them sitting in their car thinking, "You didn't run over anyone. Don't get out of your car and check, because everyone will think you're crazy."
People want to dismiss etiquette. I am even guilty of noticing etiquette lost some functionality and become overly-demanding. However, there is nothing wrong with empathy, sympathy and refraining from hurting people's feelings.
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