Yeah I’m finding way and way more people who this happened to over the pandemic (myself included). I think it’s just taken time to get back to normal and get our heads on straight. The added stress of working in medicine throughout the whole thing made bad habits easier to form
It took me a bit after graduating to realize that college had reinforced my bad work habits. I just piled on more and more stress and didn’t know how to deal with it beyond pushing myself too far. It worked well in a punctuated semester system, but not so much at an actual job. Not to mention it was horrible for my mental health.
And the only coping mechanic I learned in college was drinking, which is a horrible coping mechanism. I didn’t know how else to handle stress, so when the pandemic broke all of us, I drowned my anxiety and worries. It was when I went through an entire 2L of soda in one night as mixer (for heavy poured drinks) that I knew I had to cut back.
Looking back, it always felt like I was chasing something while drinking after graduating, that I could never find. I don’t think it was the alcohol that helped me cope so much in college as it was the socializing and the company. It could never replicate that feeling because it was the people who made it enjoyable.
You just gave me a huge insight into myself I had never realized—I think I did the same thing with school regarding work and never realized it. All through graduate school I could push myself to keep doing more and more work, and I would celebrate the end of a unit in a class or the end of a semester by really letting loose, partying, and drinking. I think that pattern translated into my work life (when problems started) and then peaked during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing your story, it helped me learn something about my own maladaptive patterns.
You’re very welcome! Something else interesting is that the pandemic really broke my productivity, and I discovered I had ADHD that was never diagnosed. It was the whole forcing myself thing that masked it all my life.
I dunno if that’s true for you also, but I figure we’re similar enough that it could be helpful.
Yeah I definitely have ADHD, but have been functioning well and I think I self treated by career selection (I work in the ER and the ability to hyperfocus and rapidly task switch is actually an asset).
I had no idea that hyper focusing was a symptom until later, and it makes so much sense in retrospect. That’s basically what I did to force myself to plow through work
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During those first months of the pandemic I turned into an alcoholic, I was drinking way too much.
Flash forward to last month at a wedding, where my friends and I chugged some Gatorade and we were all tired and sleepy.
Honestly, it’s good though. We hammered our poor livers so bad, they deserve a break.
Yeah I’m finding way and way more people who this happened to over the pandemic (myself included). I think it’s just taken time to get back to normal and get our heads on straight. The added stress of working in medicine throughout the whole thing made bad habits easier to form
It took me a bit after graduating to realize that college had reinforced my bad work habits. I just piled on more and more stress and didn’t know how to deal with it beyond pushing myself too far. It worked well in a punctuated semester system, but not so much at an actual job. Not to mention it was horrible for my mental health.
And the only coping mechanic I learned in college was drinking, which is a horrible coping mechanism. I didn’t know how else to handle stress, so when the pandemic broke all of us, I drowned my anxiety and worries. It was when I went through an entire 2L of soda in one night as mixer (for heavy poured drinks) that I knew I had to cut back.
Looking back, it always felt like I was chasing something while drinking after graduating, that I could never find. I don’t think it was the alcohol that helped me cope so much in college as it was the socializing and the company. It could never replicate that feeling because it was the people who made it enjoyable.
You just gave me a huge insight into myself I had never realized—I think I did the same thing with school regarding work and never realized it. All through graduate school I could push myself to keep doing more and more work, and I would celebrate the end of a unit in a class or the end of a semester by really letting loose, partying, and drinking. I think that pattern translated into my work life (when problems started) and then peaked during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing your story, it helped me learn something about my own maladaptive patterns.
You’re very welcome! Something else interesting is that the pandemic really broke my productivity, and I discovered I had ADHD that was never diagnosed. It was the whole forcing myself thing that masked it all my life.
I dunno if that’s true for you also, but I figure we’re similar enough that it could be helpful.
Yeah I definitely have ADHD, but have been functioning well and I think I self treated by career selection (I work in the ER and the ability to hyperfocus and rapidly task switch is actually an asset).
I had no idea that hyper focusing was a symptom until later, and it makes so much sense in retrospect. That’s basically what I did to force myself to plow through work