What is the difference between ADHD & Anxiety??

At work many times, I feel this feeling of extreme anxiety almost panic (though I never act it out). Unfortunately, I give off this perception that I lack the ability and usually get fired after less than a year or feel forced to quit. My supervisor even told me that I seem to lack focus & follow thru and people that they hired right out of college aren't making nearly the same errors.

Right now, I am on another written performance plan. Accompanying it there is a laundry list of every error made from early August. If anything goes wrong in the next 60 days I am out the door.

It goes in a vicious circle. I make mistakes, don't catch mistakes, have a hard time concentrating & focusing on detailed step by step instructions.

I am in Hedge Fund Accounting. The smallest misstep, checking the wrong checkbox in the system, can have major repercussions. It just leaves me always feeling stressed, anxious, aggravated & depressed.

Honestly, I am bored & burned out with what I am doing. There is high turnover as well. As one of the VP's told me -- "We hire people and throw them in without much training. We know a fair percentage won't succeed".

I am just scared that at some point -- even though I am still fairly young at 31, I will be unemployable. Most of my jobs have lasted less than 2 years in the past 6 years.

For the past eight months I was on Prozac -- a high dose of 80MG a day. I found that it made me less anxious but didn't really improve the quality of my work. That psyc wanted me to go for extensive psyc testing before considering ADHD.

On Thursday I have another appointment with a special center for anxiety & depression here in CT. I hope I can get some type of meds which can help.

Good luck with your appointment on Thursday.

I couldn't think of a job less suited to most ADHD individuals than what you describe. Accounting itself would be bad enough but add Hedge Funds to that .....nightmare. Hardly surprising your needing pills to keep going.

I have a couple of friends in the accounting front line and when talking to them I realise just what an aggressive darwinist environment it is. The lack of support, high pressures and utterly callous way managers treat staff beggars belief. It produces an environment where only the toughest and most self centred survive to get the fabled rewards.

The culture brings to mind the phrase "pour encourager les autres" taken from Voltaire

"in this country (England) is is wise to kill an Admiral from time to time to encourage the others".

This refers to the unfortunate Admiral Byng executed in 1757 after the Battle of Minorca for "failing to do his utmost".

Many modern businesses managers feel that regular sight of subordinates clearing their desks encourages the remainder to spin their hamster wheels that little bit faster.

Bait and Switch anyone?

You are not unemployable. No matter where you go in the world you will bump into ex financial sector people, including some hedge fund accountants, doing interesting and unusual things with their lives and heartily glad they did.

Concentrate on the work in the short term and tell yourself this is buying time to assess yourself and your options. In your mind shift control back to yourself. You leave the job because you want to at the time of your choosing.

kilt

This has nothing to do and everything to do with A.D.D.

I'm trying really hard to be concise. I have a Dr. appointment soon and I'm not ready yet.


Our economic system has changed from our parents time. You will notice that we are ALL short staffed, underpaid, over-worked and under appreciatied. Our society tells us to buy, buy, buy. But we should be saving. Citizenship, ability to get by... are looked on as weak. Having the latest gadget and striving for more money are considered strong.

Is it any wonder, we suffer at work as we do? :soapbox:

there is an important thing to ask yourself here, are the feelings you are having related to the work stresses you feel you are under.

It is quite a big decision to take drugs (prescription or otherwise) to alter your mind to allow you to meet expectations set by others.

If one tries to hammer a square peg into a round hole it may appear to fit but damage will have occurred...usually to the peg....and once in the hole extraction often requires use of the hammer and yet more damage.....to the peg depending on how much force was originally used and for how long.

Seeking drugs to allow one to continue in what would appear to the outsider to be an unnaturally stressfull environment is really hammering yourself deep into that hole.

I have high anxiety lavels....as my post last night will indicate. I have a patchwork employment history across many jobs and careers. I have/had roughly the same issues regardless of the career or job I was in.....thus I can safely say that my issues are not related to one job or career. Thus the issues I have are more likely to be ADHD or similar.

My strong view wold be to seek counselling and be wary of people who would be willing to chemically alter your mind to allow you to fit a very particular set of environmental factors.

If on the other hand after talking with a counsellor you still feel that hedge fund accounting is the passion of your life then maybe drugs are the way forward.

Sorry but I just can't get the idea of someone being passionate about hedge fund accounting and this comes out in my posts in this thread.....one of the places my normally empathetic brain refuses to go! ...... so read my posts using anti-bias spectacles.

kilt



Maybe there is an alternative??

there is an important thing to ask yourself here, are the feelings you are having related to the work stresses you feel you are under.

It is quite a big decision to take drugs (prescription or otherwise) to alter your mind to allow you to meet expectations set by others.

If one tries to hammer a square peg into a round hole it may appear to fit but damage will have occurred...usually to the peg....and once in the hole extraction often requires use of the hammer and yet more damage.....to the peg depending on how much force was originally used and for how long.

Seeking drugs to allow one to continue in what would appear to the outsider to be an unnaturally stressfull environment is really hammering yourself deep into that hole.

I have high anxiety lavels....as my post last night will indicate. I have a patchwork employment history across many jobs and careers. I have/had roughly the same issues regardless of the career or job I was in.....thus I can safely say that my issues are not related to one job or career. Thus the issues I have are more likely to be ADHD or similar.

My strong view wold be to seek counselling and be wary of people who would be willing to chemically alter your mind to allow you to fit a very particular set of environmental factors.

If on the other hand after talking with a counsellor you still feel that hedge fund accounting is the passion of your life then maybe drugs are the way forward.

Sorry but I just can't get the idea of someone being passionate about hedge fund accounting and this comes out in my posts in this thread.....one of the places my normally empathetic brain refuses to go! ...... so read my posts using anti-bias spectacles.

kilt

Maybe there is an alternative??There really isn't an alternative. I have been out of college for 10 years, and in this 'industry' for 5.5 years. It is too late. How does one 'change' careers unless they can go into business themselves or can spend 3 years in a school for a career centered profession like law school??

Yes, the 'pills' are necessary to hang on especially if you have these issues that I have talked about. At least when I was taking high levels of Prozac, my anxiety was greately diminished. The side affects were bad at first, -- significant weight loss, blurry vision, insomnia, achy joints, itching, & this manic feeling but those side effects subsided.

I was just sick of constantly feeling depressed, irritable, stressed out & aggravated.

Or I could do what most of my coworkers do, go out drinking after work or sit in front of the TV all night drinking a few six packs.

EVERY job wants related experience, exact experience. Not working for any period of time is looked upon poorly upon even you have a legitamite reason like grad school.

Changing careers is not difficult.....a bit like jumping in the sea......looks cold nasty and deep....there's quite a shock on entry and a bit of thrashing around but after a while it gets invigorating.....if you've learned to swim beforehand, and/or have a lifebelt on. Getting pushed in unexpectedly without a lifebelt.....well people often drown.

Learning to swim is having a plan, a good positive mental attitude, self awareness, and solid confidence in yourself as a person. Having a lifebelt is really about saving up enough cash to cover yourself and hopefully having a fallback position.

I get the impression you are single and without kids. If this is the case think about what would happen if you were 10 years older, married with kids and you felt like this? ...because thats where you're going. If you get pushed into the cold sea unexpectedly at 50 then the shock could kill.

I have had 3 careers in 30 years of working life (left school at 16). without my ADHD behaviours I would have been successful in all of them. My ADHD behaviour patterns mean that I have to take drugs and/or undergo fairly continual therapy to survive in ANY career.

However this is the UK and you are in the US. Here we have free universal healthcare and a (sort of) social security system. University grade retraining is subsidised (occasionally fully funded) and currently there is a skilled worker shortage. The presence of these means that taking the risk to retrain/change career path is lessened.

There is a state of mind a friend of mind refers to as catastrasising.....always looking at the problems, difficulties and downsides of an option. Yes it is important to assess the issues but assessing the upsides of change and risk is extremely difficult when depressed.

When you take drugs it may seem that everythings OK again so the option assessment is never done and the "bad feelings" are forgotten.......until the underlying problem pops out when the situation changes.....marital problems, birth of child, loss of job, promotion to more stressful post, alzheimers in parent, transfer of job to new location, injury/illness....the list is long.

In my opinion there are two worlds,
1) the tie wearing world of HR departments where any deviance from the straight line of career progression is a sign of weakness and delinquency.

2)the open necked world where people hire on the basis of intelligence and emotional experience.

The two worlds are like oil and water...they never mix and there's a preceptual gulf between them that seems impossible for either side to bridge. In my opinion ADHD types generally belong on the open necked side of the fence where heirarchy and ties are rarer. It sounds to me like you've never looked over the fence.....and I suspect that those drinking 6 packs haven't either.

The issue with taking drugs in the situation you describe is it may well make you feel better in the short term but unless it is done as part of a bigger strategy of increasing self and environmental awareness progress towards a fulfilling life is not made.

I so feel for you and your situation because so much of it resonates with both me and my husband. We both have ADD/ADHD, Depression & Anxiety and are both Bipolar.

Like you, I've been out of college for 10 yrs. I have exorbitant healthcare bills and insurance premiums. I am seriously considering moving to Europe where the lifestyle is more laid back. There's universal healthcare and people aren't so uptight in the job world--both of which I think would be more condusive to us. My husband has been battling undiagnosed ADD up until last year and he's 29. As a result he never was able to go to college or trade school and has no skills to rely on. So with ADD playing such a part if many of our lives--affecting our careers--it's no wonder we feel so discouraged, worried, and no wonder it makes us that much more anxious.

I work now in an accounts payable division for a city gov't. It's probably one of the worst jobs for me to be in with ADD. But now I'm on new medication. I also listen to music on my Ipod while I work because it helps drown out distraction. I also double and sometimes triple-check my work. I have post-it notes up everywhere. I'm trying really hard to do what I can to do a good job. I'm still making mistakes but it's helped and my boss sees how hard I'm trying.

I don't know what your cost of living is, but my advice is to definitely look into doing a less stressful job just for awhile until you can get on some good meds and reevaluate things. I personally found that the SSRI group of antidepressants didn't help my ADD and my anxiety/depression. Now I'm on a cocktail of meds: Effexor, Provigil, and Klonopin. I may also end up on Lemictal which is used for Bipolar.