Tip: Anxiety Overload Escape Plan at Work

Sometimes, no matter how much therapy and practice you have put in, you can still be overwhelmed by OCD anxiety. And this scenario is exacerbated when it occurs at work because in the workplace, you are expected to be socially “normal” and there are less places to hide. So, in this more practical post, I will detail what some of my strategies were in this situation as it happened to me multiple times. This post will be less about optimal overall therapeutic practice, and more on just coping and “surviving” in the moment until the overpowering OCD anxiety starts to fade.

Once I knew that I was dealing with a level of anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to deal with in the normal manner, I immediately went to a place where I could be alone. I knew I was going to have to try and calm myself down by “attending” to the OCD in a compulsive manner (obviously, this is basically the opposite of what you should try to do in an ideal world, but in rare cases, I knew that letting the anxiety be there wasn’t going to work and that I needed to mentally reassure myself). My first choice would be to bolt for an unused office or conference room, and then I would shut the door and begin pacing and verbally reassuring myself that this current OCD anxiety didn’t represent me in any way nor did I want to act on it. And in case someone accidentally walked in, I would often fake a phone call so it looked like I was just on a call, rather than dealing with a mental health mini-crisis. If there was no empty room, I would walk outside my office and pace up and down the street or around the block until I calmed down. Some people may be able to deal with extremely difficult OCD anxiety in their head while at their cubicle, but for me I needed to move around and hear my own words. I would make a point to avoid bathrooms in this state as while every teen drama tells you that they are the perfect place to vent your feelings, there are often multiple people in the bathroom, making any sort of privacy hard to come by. And if all of these other options fail, I would advise, depending on the distance, to go sit in your car and give yourself the time you need to return to mental neutral. As I have stated previously in the post, this tip is far from the best way to deal with OCD anxiety, but sometimes, it is the only one that feels like it will work in the face of extreme anxiety. It is ok to not be “perfect” in terms of how you respond to OCD. It is ok to understand that sometimes you just need to fall back on old habits to get through and finish your day. And then by the next time the issue arises, you will have learned how to grapple with it a little better and sooner or later, you will be able to deal with the problem without giving it a second thought.