Hello

Am a person with responsibility which have had in my career for the last 10 years.

I do a job which can take ones liberty away and affect their life for ever.

I used to be a naive happy go lucky people pleaser, trying hard to keep everyone I met happy and went the extra mile to do so. Although in this period over 10 years ago, I still had the clammy hands and felt faint when in a large circle of people, as if I was fearing being judged, criticised or publicly humiliated. I would clam up and then make silly comments not at flow with the group conversation, usual S.A. traits etc.

Grew up in an Alcoholic single parent home, with its usual challenges. No father figure around to show me the way to be a man. A bit effeminate in my concerns and feelings having grown up around women. Cant be a "lad" about town, which I feel inferior about, can show too much emotion, and cant brush things off like most blokes can.
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Lately, bigest concerns are that with my position of power at work, (historically as a bullied child with low self esteem), with a bit of power given to me, now, I can in intense situations over react and have the potential to act unprofessional, and could hurt someone. I get angry, and feel a strong sense of justice for the citizen as my duty to uphold, and can get too "pushy and assertive" verbally and sometimes physically on the person being contained. I then make a fool of myself, have to do a fair bit of writing, and feel the opinions and daggers flying at me in the staff canteen.
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Once I have overreacted and done something silly again, I will then have a strong sense of embarassment and get the social anxiety attacks and inferiority complex in front of my colleagues again, having that out of body feeling along with the dizziness as if I am being looked at by everyone, and feeling like everyone else is perfect (however they in reality will have made mistakes at some point too). My back goes up and i become extremelly defensive, tight chested, and try to act normal that I will catch a chair in the canteen or something walking by as I am so clammed up and dizzy, sweaty palms, racing heart, tight chest.
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I know im taking work too seriously.

Thats me.

ConfusedMrAngry,

It sounds a little bit like me (except the anger part). For that, I go run. Since you have an important position, you do not have to put up with the [email protected] your team does. They are supposed to be helping you do your job, though. Really, there isn't anything they can do directly to you without consequence. Even behind the scenes, they can't do anything. They are supposed to keep their stuff to themselves and do their work.

On the other hand, they most likely do not understand what you go through or have been through. That may never happen, so the best thing to do is release them from their shortcomings. They may have had a better upbringing, but I can tell you that you will likely take having a family FAR more seriously than they would. It is all in turning your disadvantage into an advantage.

Coming here will help you out for sure. Since you seem to be in a management position (which is pretty cool for someone your age), there are other people here who do that as well. For me, I am not a manager, but given my work role in the past four years, I do about 95% of what a manager used to do. I know the wildness and the multitasking . I sounds like I am interviewing for a job. heh heh

Anyway, I just want you to know that you are not alone.
Welcome to the site.

, Mac! Seems like you've been through a lot. I'm glad you found this forum and hope you find it beneficial!

Welcome to the forum, Mac! I hope you find it helpful here.

I'm sorry to hear that various things have make work difficult.
However, by the sounds of it, some of your traits (emotional, unable to "brush things up") sounds like a certain personality type. I wrote this article about it and how it relates to social anxiety, you may or may not find it interesting: http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Anxiet ... &id=967654
(I could of course, misinterpreted what you wrote though and nothing I'm saying may have anything to do with what you wrote :P )

John's already said it all, so again, welcome!