Another Meeting

I had to attend a customer meeting today in the flesh. Real people, shirt and tie and at a different location. Not that I haven’t met these people before and they are all lovely, but I knew I was going to feel anxious, like the last time I had to meet with the “real people”. The meeting wasn’t even that important or critical, just a time to get together to explain a few points and clear up some confusions.

I prepped myself a little better for this meeting, avoiding the morning coffee and not eating too much. I also took a full bottle of water with me as I knew that my mouth was going to be dry and I might have issues swallowing. The metallic feelings inside my chest were there all day, hours before we left for the location and it didn’t seem to want to leave. It just hung out there all day, constantly reminding me of what was to come.

As I stood in the reception waiting for our contact to come and collect us, I started to feel the sweeps of adrenaline wash through me. I imagined an external image of myself and my colleagues, apart from that I was just a silhouette filled with static. I felt a little like I might faint, or that I was losing the ability to absorb any benefit from the breaths I was taking. The dark fuzziness around the edges of my vision started to close in and I felt like I wanted to run away, or lay down in a dark room rather than sit and talk. So this is what fight or flight feels like, I thought as I pretended to be as normal as possible.

I fought the urge to leave and tried to concentrate on looking as sane as possible whilst my insides were a screaming lunatic. As we sat around the table and did our introductions, I pinched my leg hard, squeezed tight on my arm muscles and secretly picked at the edge of the label on my bottle of water with my thumbnail. I was trying anything to take me out of myself and the situation and perhaps to stop myself throwing up. There were times when I felt the fear wave rising in the pit of my stomach again, and there were several moments when I thought I was on the edge of having to excuse myself from the meeting and go and sit outside. My mind was racing with what reason I could give if I had to get up. I was also worrying that they might call an ambulance to make sure I was definitely OK. I just pinched myself harder.

My legs and feet felt numb anyway, so even if I did have to bolt out and escape, I worried I might just fall on the floor. But I guess people get ill, or come over all “funny” from time to time in meetings. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first person to have had to excuse themselves. I might just become the butt of their jokes when they talk about our company.

Luckily, I didn’t have to speak much during the meeting and after the main topics were covered, I was able to speak freely and even joke with the other participants. I guess I knew at that point that the nightmare was over and I was on my way out of there. I had got through nearly a litre of water in 30 minutes.

As I left and waited for a colleague, I checked the app attached to my running watch, thinking I would see a really high heart rate spiking over the last half-hour, but it didn’t go above 90. Still too high for just sitting, but not as bad as it felt. I wonder if an Apple Watch would have pinged an alert for an unnatural heart rate detection.

The problem is that these meetings may become more frequent in the future, also getting more difficult if there are issues I need to talk about or explain. They won’t all be in person and I know that if I had joined via Teams I would have been fine, so perhaps I will have to opt for that in the future whenever possible.

Surely that will be easier than just getting treatment for anxiety?

God knows what I would be like if I ever had to go for a job interview again.