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MarP
1 1,522 M Little Steps 5
PathStep 202 Compassion hearts88 Forum posts60 Forum upvotes59 Current upvotes59 Age GroupAdult Last activeMarch, 2025 Member sinceOctober 24, 2021
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Constantly questioning whether I’m doing the right thing
General Support / by MarP
Last post
 April 3rd, 2023
...See more Hi everyone. Putting this here to ask for help if anyone can relate. I’m an allied health professional that works in intensive care. I haven’t been practicing long. Coming up on 2 years. It didn’t used to be like this so much at the start of my job. But nowadays I’ve been sinking deeper into this rut where pretty much every single day I wonder whether or not I did/said the right thing for/to a patient and how it could affect their life. It’s been getting worse the longer I practice and it’s been driving my well-being into the ground. I know it’s part of the job and every day we are called to make decisions using clinical judgement often with limited information until more comes about dependent on the patients response and clinical course. I know there are many things I cannot control. And yet somehow I feel responsible and criticize and place blame/guilt on myself for anything that doesn’t go quite “right” or anything I say that is not exactly how I planned to say it. I belittle myself over any medical error (both actual and self-perceived) no matter the degree because they all are a big deal to me. I feel like this has been putting a lot of pressure on myself and is killing my confidence, sense of competence, and self-esteem in my job. I feel I am so concerned about being careful and not making a mistake that it is affecting my decisionmaking and time management. If anyone can relate, any tips for overcoming this? Appreciate your insight and time.
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Overthinking
General Support / by MarP
Last post
 July 27th, 2024
...See more Penny for your thoughts. Wanted to throw something out there that’s been bugging me to see if anyone can relate. Here it is: I second myself so much at times that it gets to the point where I think everything I do is a mistake and hardly get anything done. I talk myself out of a lot of things when I really should have trusted my initial instinct all along. Overthinking is my kryptonite. I feel like it makes me look so stupid and indecisive. I feel like I’m the mistake. Can anyone else relate and have tips to overcome this? Any insight is appreciated. Thanks. Be well friends.
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Vent
Anxiety Support / by MarP
Last post
 October 22nd, 2022
...See more Hi there. Just need to vent. Having another bout of bad anxiety. It has intermittently gotten worse over the past few months so I’m now at the point of seeking help. I’ve had symptoms of shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, heart racing, thoughts racing, chest tightness, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating that affect my activities of daily living and it’s really been sucking the life out of me. It feels like I’m merely surviving each day rather than living each day and I often feel like I can hardly ever just be and exist in the moment. I’ve been living in so much fear and worry and feel like I can’t seem to stop. I feel like I’m losing control of myself. It makes me feel hopeless and less excited about life and rising each morning. Some days I don’t want to live my life. Not in a sense that I want to nor intend to end or hurt myself, just that I don’t want to keep living this way/know it’s not sustainable and of course would rather live without this level of anxiety so I can actually live my life. I’ve had panic attacks while driving. I’ve had episodes of feeling like I’m about to pass out during meetings. I’ve had nights where I swear I didn’t sleep at all. I’ve had times where I feel like I’ll stop breathing if I’m not focused on breathing. And all this doesn’t seem to have a good reason behind it in terms of why it starts. I’m just going about my every day life doing something that is routine and then bam it strikes, even if I’m in a seemingly relaxed, comfortable, or familiar environment. I like to think I’m a fairly literal, logical person and it drives me nuts that this keeps pestering no matter how much I try to tell myself that it’s in my head, that this will pass, that worrying will get me nowhere. No matter how much I try to calm and ease myself such as singing, listening to music, deep breathing, repeating mantras, affirmations, or thinking about something else that is positive, I just can’t shake it off of me. All these techniques that used to work are now not working near as well as they used to. Why won’t this go away? Why is it so persistent? It’s a nuisance and frustrating, like why are you here? What provoked you? I don’t know why this is happening now and where all this is coming from. All I know is I just want it to end and be gone so I can go on with my life in peace. Or is that too much to ask? I know everyone lives with some amount of anxiety in their life but this is just at a level I’ve never felt before and it’s honestly getting irritating. Planning to start therapy and looking at low cost virtual/messaging/chat therapy options right now. Just frustrated right now that I can’t fully understand this and wanting it to go away. End of vent. Thanks for listening. Feels good to get some of this out of me and blow off some steam.
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Hurt
Relationship Stress / by MarP
Last post
 October 11th, 2022
...See more Sorry, need to vent. A guy just broke up with me today after 2 dates and I’m honestly hurt. so just a little background, I had never dated before until this guy and had zero experience. He approached me while at work and asked for my number. I gave it to him but flaked out at first because I was worried about how it would affect me, him, and our work so literally called HR to make sure we were okay and not breaking any policy. After getting the okay from HR, I agreed to dating. At first he was pursing me hard and after the first date wanting to hold hands and kiss which was very overwhelming for me considering I have never dated before and physical touch is something I don’t really do. Didn’t kiss him but agreed to hold his hand. To be fair, he had told me physical touch was his love language before our first date but I had also told him that I don’t really do physical touch well and was up front with him that I had zero dating experience. After the 1st date he seemed totally in love. He was super sweet. But after the 2nd date he stopped texting me as much. And then today he kissed me which was my first kiss. I initially didn’t want to kiss but he talked me into it. I thought to myself oh what the heck you’re thinking too much just kiss, so I did. A few minutes later after that he calls me while I’m driving home and says he doesn’t think we should do this anymore, that he felt no spark nor chemistry between us. He said it in a nice and respectful way and I kinda felt that this was coming but I feel like absolute trash. I mean I know I could’ve done a lot of things better. Our second date was honestly kind of a disaster for me because I was still very anxious and struggling to open up, which he was nice about. However, to be fair, he knew I had never been kissed before and he was my first kiss. On the 1st date, I let him know I was kind of afraid of and new to dating and that it can take me a while to open up to people. It took all the strength I had to date him and put myself out there, and this whole ordeal has taken such a toll on my mental health. I just feel like it wasn’t very fair because how do you really get to know someone after 2 dates? I feel like he didn’t give me much of a chance and didn’t love me for who I am. I mean I know I made mistakes but all this was very new to me and pushing me out of my comfort zone. Dodged a bullet I guess but it still sucks. One part of me is relieved, another part of me is really sad. I keep thinking of all the things I may have done wrong to cause this, like did I eat my spaghetti wrong, did I not hold his hand enough, did I not take a selfie with him when I should have, did my driving bother him, did I say the wrong thing, did I not say enough?…I know it’s silly to think all these things and I know I can’t make anyone like me or control what people think of me. Even after all this, I really liked this guy and wish it would’ve worked out. But I feel like if he truly loved me he would’ve taken the time to get to know me better and let me open up?? I don’t know…. I took a risk, did something I’ve never done before, put myself out there which took a ton of courage and then got rejected. Feeling pretty crushed right now. Don’t know if I’ll date again, at least for the next few years or if I’ll ever really be capable of love and opening up to someone. Don’t think my anxiety can handle going through this again. Any tips for healing from this?
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Never dated, panicking
Relationship Stress / by MarP
Last post
 September 11th, 2022
...See more Hey guys, could use some help here. So I’m in my early 20s and have never dated. I just got asked out for the first time today. I don’t know the person too well. We had briefly met while at work, but he seemed very nice and my coworker had good things to say about him. Asked for my number so I gave it to him and we have been texting back and forth occasionally. I am honestly terrified and anxious because I have been enjoying the freedom of being single and not sure if I’m ready to give that up. I don’t know if I can handle everything a relationship entails. I can hardly get my own act together sometimes and am really not a romantic person either. Romance kind of makes me sick to my stomach which is why I thought I would be single for life and am okay with being single for life. He’s also apparently really into me just from our one interaction from what my coworker told me and I just don’t understand how if we don’t really know each other. Is that a red flag? I didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to be rude so I thought I should at least give it a chance. But now that I think about it I just don’t think I’m the person he’s looking for and I don’t want to waste his time. I don’t know if I can handle this. I just feel this intense fear welling up in me and I don’t know what to do when it comes to this stuff as I have zero experience. I’m panicking. Not sure if I’m overreacting/overthinking or not. Maybe it’s just because it’s completely out of my comfort zone? Is it normal to feel uncomfortable like this? Anyone ever been in a similar situation? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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