Anxiety attacks

I think I'm having them. My body is retaliating against the situations I am putting it in.

On Christmas Eve, the last hour of work was spent with my boss hovering around and making it difficult to work without feeling monitored. The last half hour of work and the half hour it took to get home held me feeling strangled; literally, not figuratively. I thought it might be the new necklace I'd been wearing -- it had a ribbon to tie it and not, like, a clasp -- but even after I took it off, I still felt throttled. My chest and breathing felt pressured, and vomiting seemed imminent. I came home, stretched out on the couch, and ate Chinese food with my husband, and started to feel better. I figured it was because I'd not eaten since eleven that morning, and left it at that.

After a stressful day spent at the office again, I re-experienced the same things as listed above: chest pressure, constricted throat, difficulty breathing, nausea. I got dizzy a few times, once noticeably in the elevator heading up to my office. Being overweight and out of shape, walking up the stairs to the organ loft is already not a pleasant experience, but I don't ever feel dizzy afterwards. Last Thursday, however, I did. Husband looked up symptoms, found it could be an asthma or anxiety attack. I'm leaning towards the latter.

I usually go through cycles in the office. A few months will go great, a few months will go poorly. This time around, it's been six months since I've felt happy about going to work downtown. Six months. Whatever fight my boss is having with our main boss, whatever is going on there, is putting a strain not only on me but the rest of us in the office. The main boss has never spoken to me about it. He never treats me any differently because he is on the outs with my direct boss. When the direct boss got sick, I was asked often after his health. And yet my direct boss continues to think he is under attack, that his every move is monitored, that he is targeted for abuse.

Funny thing, guy: that's how I feel around you most of the time. You're feeling pressured, so you're looking for someone to pressure. But you don't do it directly. You do it in manipulative ways. You tell me I can't put my name on emails. You tell me to not speak directly with people. You monitor my phone calls and my emails. You delete emails before I can see them. You change things I've drafted even though they're more than sufficient. You probably tell yourself you're doing it to ease up on stress I'm feeling, so you can look like the good guy. "I did all these things to make her life easier, and now she's mad at me." Well, guess what? You didn't make my life easier. You made it look like I couldn't handle the job that was given to me. You made me seem inefficient, unable, and worse. You made me question every move I made, because most likely, it would be wrong. Except it wouldn't be wrong, it would be, "Great, but...", which is just as damaging, if not moreso.

And now I'm caught in the middle of a fight, simply because I took initiative and tried to make sure all our bases are covered.

It's hard to have an on/off switch between jobs. At Target, they want you to ask questions if you're unsure about something, but they also expect you to have some sense of responsibility, and to take initiative. They reward you for offering to help, for taking on tasks related to your job area, for reaching out and trying to become global. At my day job, everyone but my direct boss rewards such things, as well. They are happy that you know what your job is and that it gets done.

Except that now I don't know what my job is. If it's to be a receptionist, then my job needs to be revisited. I should not be doing bookkeeping, or schedules, or booking musicians, or setting up for rehearsals, or copying and distributing music. I should be simply answering phones, directing calls, answering and directing emails, and scheduling appointments. That's it. I should not be listed as an administrative assistant, because I'm not that. I am a glorified receptionist. I am happy to be so if my job would get reassigned that way. But if I'm expected to do all these other things as well, I expect to be given the freedom to do them without all the attached bullshit. And since that'll never happen, I want to be reassigned. Or let go. Or allowed to quit.

That's the other thing. The other people seem to think that they need me so much that I don't know that I'd easily be allowed to quit.

I'm done with this for now. Chest pressure is returning. Plus, I need to stop avoiding things and get ready for work.