Mental health in the electrical industry

[Buzz1980]

Hi all
Just wanted to put this out there to see if there is any other sparks that struggle with this. I have suffered from OCD/anxiety for many years now since I was really young. Over the years it has got worse and worse it can jump from anything that I worry about . I don’t have OCD where I go around cleaning everything. But I have OCD where I can’t leave things without checking all the time that I have done it correctly, but the more times I check the less blurry and less sure I am that I have done it correctly. I can come away from a job and worry that I have left switches off, cables exposed and worry that someone is going to get hurt from my work. I then go over and over in my head yeah you did screw everything back and you did check before you left. But can’t convince myself that I have. Now through out my time as a spark, I studied more done more courses etc etc and this has made me become more knowledgeable but with the more knowledge and experience I get the worse my Anxiety gets as I think back to jobs I down years ago and think oh I’ve done that wrong, oh I should have done that, oh how did I do that instead of that. Now this is when I was in my final years of apprenticeship and when I just came out of my time. This is sometimes down to bad advice from other sparks and not really looking into things myself but when I do find out the advice is wrong and should be doing things the other way. Or just not knowing any better but over the years I have gained more knowledge which is making my anxiety worse as I go over every job I’ve done scrutinise it and start worrying that someone is going to get hurt or fire break out due to the works I have done. This worry will keep with me for a while until my anxiety starts to ease off. Until the next flare up. I just wish I could start my time over again and do things the way I want to do them but this is a OCD trait wanting everything to be perfect. Just wanted to see if there are any other sparks that suffer this way. Thanks in advance ?

 

[telectrix]

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday.

He said "What's the problem?"

" I keep thinking I'm a dog". I replied.

"OK, just lie on the couch"

"I;m not allowed on the couch".

 

[Lister1987]

The more you learn the more you are likely to stress about things and it can knock your confidence the Dunning Kruger curve is a good visual explanation of this. Hopefully as you keep working at it your confidence will rise and you will become less stressed. I do have similar issues as you mention but not too extreme, checking things several times, worrying if I've forgotten something and so on.
View attachment 64545

Like the 4 levels of competence

Unconsciously Incompetent - I don't know that I don't know

Conscioisly Incompetent - I know that I don't know, and I want to do something about it

Unconsciously Competent -i don't know that I know that I know what I'm doing.

Consciously Competent - I know that I know what I'm doing

 

[Mike Johnson]

And there is also the Peter principle.

 

[Deleted account]

View attachment 64551
And there is also the Peter principle.

True

 

[Doomed]

Hi all
Just wanted to put this out there to see if there is any other sparks that struggle with this. I have suffered from OCD/anxiety for many years now since I was really young. Over the years it has got worse and worse it can jump from anything that I worry about . I don’t have OCD where I go around cleaning everything. But I have OCD where I can’t leave things without checking all the time that I have done it correctly, but the more times I check the less blurry and less sure I am that I have done it correctly. I can come away from a job and worry that I have left switches off, cables exposed and worry that someone is going to get hurt from my work. I then go over and over in my head yeah you did screw everything back and you did check before you left. But can’t convince myself that I have. Now through out my time as a spark, I studied more done more courses etc etc and this has made me become more knowledgeable but with the more knowledge and experience I get the worse my Anxiety gets as I think back to jobs I down years ago and think oh I’ve done that wrong, oh I should have done that, oh how did I do that instead of that. Now this is when I was in my final years of apprenticeship and when I just came out of my time. This is sometimes down to bad advice from other sparks and not really looking into things myself but when I do find out the advice is wrong and should be doing things the other way. Or just not knowing any better but over the years I have gained more knowledge which is making my anxiety worse as I go over every job I’ve done scrutinise it and start worrying that someone is going to get hurt or fire break out due to the works I have done. This worry will keep with me for a while until my anxiety starts to ease off. Until the next flare up. I just wish I could start my time over again and do things the way I want to do them but this is a OCD trait wanting everything to be perfect. Just wanted to see if there are any other sparks that suffer this way. Thanks in advance ?

We have a chap in our team just like you. He used to have his own business, but as he got older he worried more to a point where he couldn't function. He is an old school friend, so we took him on as effectively a electricians mate - he has no responsibility and he knows we will check and test everything for him.
He is now a lot happier and we have someone we know is 100% reliable and who is most excellent at marking out the spacings for downlights etc. (although some plasterers recently thought he was spying on them because he popped back to a site multiple times to check that they were not moving his cables etc)

 

[pc1966]

The problem with OCD is it has nothing to do with competence or risk, it is an illness just like any other.

 

[Pkots10]

Hi all
Just wanted to put this out there to see if there is any other sparks that struggle with this. I have suffered from OCD/anxiety for many years now since I was really young. Over the years it has got worse and worse it can jump from anything that I worry about . I don’t have OCD where I go around cleaning everything. But I have OCD where I can’t leave things without checking all the time that I have done it correctly, but the more times I check the less blurry and less sure I am that I have done it correctly. I can come away from a job and worry that I have left switches off, cables exposed and worry that someone is going to get hurt from my work. I then go over and over in my head yeah you did screw everything back and you did check before you left. But can’t convince myself that I have. Now through out my time as a spark, I studied more done more courses etc etc and this has made me become more knowledgeable but with the more knowledge and experience I get the worse my Anxiety gets as I think back to jobs I down years ago and think oh I’ve done that wrong, oh I should have done that, oh how did I do that instead of that. Now this is when I was in my final years of apprenticeship and when I just came out of my time. This is sometimes down to bad advice from other sparks and not really looking into things myself but when I do find out the advice is wrong and should be doing things the other way. Or just not knowing any better but over the years I have gained more knowledge which is making my anxiety worse as I go over every job I’ve done scrutinise it and start worrying that someone is going to get hurt or fire break out due to the works I have done. This worry will keep with me for a while until my anxiety starts to ease off. Until the next flare up. I just wish I could start my time over again and do things the way I want to do them but this is a OCD trait wanting everything to be perfect. Just wanted to see if there are any other sparks that suffer this way. Thanks in advance ?

Hey mate, I’m new to the self employed industry and am pretty much going through exactly what you have stated. It’s becoming a bit of a struggle from me and I’m wondering if you found any ways to relieve this pressure always out on yourself

 

[e-spark]

I suffer with depression, anxiety and complex PTSD so I get you and sympathise. can be very debilitating and make you doubt yourself at times but I try to step back and rationalise things. Only thing i suffer at work is anxiety about chasing invoices etc with the responsibility of a family and wages etc to pay out luckily my work is an escape.
Seen a few posts on here tbh where its a bit of a pile on when someone is genuinely seeking pointers, be mindful id say of what context you post; that's just me though.

 

[e-spark]

Hey mate, I’m new to the self employed industry and am pretty much going through exactly what you have stated. It’s becoming a bit of a struggle from me and I’m wondering if you found any ways to relieve this pressure always out on yourself

Everyone has this id say especially if you are on your jack, you can be the best spark in the world when its a company you work for that's on end of the phone etc but when your on the lonesome and things go pear shaped its different story especially if a bad day turns to bad week or month.
I was in your situation bit ago and in my situation I carried on sticking to the basics when things do go wrong, its all experience and gets easier if it was easy every gobshite super spark would do it pal.
give yourself a day off with no phone on is the best tonic for me

 

[UNG]

I think the same approach has been successfully trialled in operating theatres as well, greatly reducing the rate of mistakes that are made.

In operating theatre's there is an inventory taken of all the equipment and any disposables like swabs and at the end of the op it is all accounted for

I never thought too much about mental health issues until I was pushed to the edge and came extremely close to suicide a few times. It all started when my business partner at the time went to see his doctor who thought his stress problem was bad enough to put him on suicide watch a few months later he was close to a nervous breakdown and the two companies we had were put into liquidation due to HMRC screwing up our tax payments to the tune of £20,000 a few months earlier and effectively taking another £20,000 out of our cashflow as we had to pay the tax again to avoid court proceedings and costs and that is when my problems started as the insolvency service started trying to push me into bankruptcy. I ended up seeing a psychiatrist as they wanted to know if I was mentally fit enough to go to court, during that visit I was told by the psychiatrist that I had never intended to commit suicide as I hadn't written a note and those people who are actually going to do it leave a note which I have since found out is not true. That was 15 - 17 years ago I still have the occasional "dark" day even now but I have learnt how change my mind set when I feel it happening
What I find a problem with are the mental health "experts" and "professionals" their experience and understanding is taken from books by other "experts" and "professionals" with no real world first hand understanding of what they are dealing with and in a lot of cases make the situation even worse than what it was
I applaud the OP for his openness on here because the hardest part is talking about it for fear of embarrassment, being seen as a bit loopy, then there is how it effects your esteem, in my case I had become a failure and let a lot of employees down
At times it is good to unload, we all have our little traits that we don't think twice about being a mental health issue but are in some cases now seen as the possible onset of Dementia or Alzheimer's

 

[Tart83]

Brother, I know EXACTLY what you mean

 

[OnlQQker]

Things happening in the past and not dealt with at the time can have a nasty habit of catching back up with you, I always referred to it like a snowball rolling down hill, getting bigger and bigger.
This in turn can lead to depression, and the severity of it depends on the traumas. Yet 'depression' doesn't really operate at it's best until it brings in its mate 'Anxiety' and that's the moment it turns into a real rollercoaster ride!
As a lot of people know Depression is looping over something in the past kind of hoping it can be magically fixed, I sat Days/Months/Years going over and over the past, talking to therapists and swallowing pills like they had gone out of fashion, ended up in hospital and then 'Anxiety' introduced itself.
Anxiety is the other side of Depression, it's worrying about the future, and more so trying to have control of the future. This run its course until one day I said to myself no more.

Well with all of my study of certain methods it should of been a dead cert. But it failed and 10 years on I'm still here.

But the major turning point after all of this was

1/ The only time that exists is the one you are in now, yesterday has gone and tomorrow isn't here yet.
2/ How ever hard things get it's not forever anyway. Things can change but you have to put the work in, I mean like take a walk in the woods, connect with the nature of the world, buy a telescope and map the stars, or a camera and take photos, anything that can keep you in the time you're in.

I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods by far, I'm still homeless and wandering around like a fart in a trance, but every time I feel myself dipping, I write some music, go into the woods with my camera, and just remind myself that this is the time right now, not back then, and not tomorrow.

I also write quite regularly on the Suicide forum, trying to help people out of the very same pit that I fell into. I'm no expert in the field but I am familiar with the bottom of the pit, or the bottomless pit I should say.
This all crept up on me over a period of years, I didn't see it coming and beforehand I wouldn't of believed it possible. But it is a real thing, and boy can it bite you in the arse!

Years ago I read a book, I don't know what it was called and who it was by, but some words come back to me a couple of years ago, it went something like this.
It does get better in the end, and if it doesn't get better, then it's not the end...

 

[Electrics]

It's diet and lifestyle related. Sugars (of all kinds, including those contained in vegetables) do very strange things to your body and mind.)

Key is slimming down, getting enough saturated fat and eating very little sugar, combined with not eating all the time (skipping breakfast and lunch is a very good idea.)

This is just a suggestion - i'm not interested in debating this with anyone, since i know it flies in the face of the conventional medical wisdom that tells us to eat 5 portions of veg a day and eat every 2 hours to keep up our energy levels. But from a personal perspective, i used to be weighty, ate from waking up to going to bed and had poor mental health. I now don't eat until i get home from work (nothing but water at work) and when i do eat i don't eat carbs because they are essentially pure sugar as far as your metabolism is concerned.

If OP wants to look further i'd suggest looking into the benefits of intermittent fasting and severely low carb diets that work miracles for so many.

 

[Midwest]

Suppose what works & is good for you.

I've been working almost every weekend, for well over a year now, doing stuff at home. Generally, I also only eat in the evening at weekends. I lost over a stone. If I could only cut out the booze, I'd lose more. But then with only about 20 years left, why the hell should I. ?

 

[Electrics]

Suppose what works & is good for you.

I've been working almost every weekend, for well over a year now, doing stuff at home. Generally, I also only eat in the evening at weekends. I lost over a stone. If I could only cut out the booze, I'd lose more. But then with only about 20 years left, why the hell should I. ?

Yep, it works like magic for both hormones and weight loss which are inextricably linked (insulin resistance is the biggest problem in the west and it goes away when you cut carbs and constant eating).

It's also magical for mental health. Sadly too many people won't even try it because it goes against the 'conventional' wisdom of 'eat plants like a ruminant even though you're not designed for it and make sure you eat every few hours otherwise you'll have no energy'.

If i do sometimes have something to eat at work at lunch i'm always really sluggish in the afternoon. If i eat nothing until i get home my energy is amazing.