Work Related Stress

alex3d

First of all, I'm expecting posts saying 'man up' and it may help me to get a grip - so any thoughts are appreciated.

It's a bit tricky to explain, but I work in a contact centre environment and love my job - we deal with different types of services, and around a year ago they decided to make 8 of us 'specialists' in one type of service. The particular service is one that isn't particularly enjoyable to deal with and has never been a favourite of mine...

Now I really struggled, and after a month or so of becoming a 'specialist', I ended up depressed, to the point where I tried to commit suicide - now I didn't realise for a while that it was actually brought on by stress at work and I had started to look at everything in a negative light.

I will add I have had many jobs before where I've not enjoyed aspects, but I've been able to look for other jobs. I think the reason I've found this so difficult is because I've never had a job that I've enjoyed this much - and there are still people doing the job I used to do (we weren't picked to be specialists for any reason, it was random - and no-one is actually enjoying it). I'm also on a sort of graduate programme, so I feel like I have to stay for at least the next year or so.

I was signed off work for 6 weeks, and put onto anti-depressants which helped. I came back to work, and the 'specialist' part of my job was removed temporarily. After a few tearful discussions with my GP and Manager, I realised that the issue had primarily been caused by work.

Work sent me to see an external occupational health doctor who agreed with me that the change in role was not helpful for me. This report was completely ignored by work.

They then sent me a risk assessment form, which I filled out, and we had a farcical meeting, where they basically said there is nothing they could do and I'd have to start being a specialist again, but they would only give me 20% of my workload the first month, followed by another 20% the next month and so on.

They then changed this, so it was increasing by 20% every 2 weeks (I'm up to 60% now). I'm coping OK with this (although I wan't given any opportunity for discussion when they changed it from every month to every two weeks).

I had a meeting on Friday where they announced that for a single week, 2 specialists (it's for 4 weeks, so 2 specialists each week) will be dealing with everything to do with that particular service. That's 400% of the workload I would normally have.

I felt like crying in the meeting, and had a quick chat with my manager who has managed to push it back to the beginning of April, but I have spent the whole weekend being unable to get the thought of it out of my head. I genuinely can't think or sleep properly, and I'm worried it's going to turn into a downward spiral.

I'm going to go back and get some more anti-depressants from the GP, but I don't know what else to do. I've started applying for jobs elsewhere, but they're not exactly easy to find. I just feel so helpless and out of control of the situation.

Racheldevon

Firstly, this is nothing to do with 'manning up' - I can't think of advice that would be less useful for you!

Do you receive clinical supervision for your role? Often within this type of work evem if you do get it it's provided by your line manager which isn't particularly ethical. One thing you may really benefit from is funding your own clinical supervision on a monthly basis - you can then pick a clinical supervisor external to your organisation. This might go some way to reduce the impact of the work you do on your mental health. The risks of vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress are well documented within this type of work, and yet most of us are unaware of this, and organisations often are very poor at supporting staff in this area - without pathologising the individual worker. I would strongly recommend exploring this.

You may also want to think about your own personal therapy, you mentioned antidepressants, but i'm not sure if you've been linked into therapy - the NHS often has very long waiting lists, for time limited therapy. You may want to consider looking for low cost counselling services in your area - many places have them.. This alongside clinical supervision could potentially support you a great deal.

If you're in a Union, you may also want to get in touch with them - however this doesn't provide a forum for you to explore the experiences you've had and the impact this work is having on you on a personal level.

If you want any more info let me know