Customer Facing Jobs || With Anxiety || Thoughts?

As many of you know, my last two jobs (previous and current), I work with and around customers. My last job was at a convenience store / gas station. I have plenty of "fun" stories about working there; like the one time someone had a bad "pass" of meth in the bathroom, in the words of my coworker who once had a bad "pass" or whatever.

But that's not what this blog post is about. Even though I could dedicate a blog about that. Maybe at a later date.

Anyway, I have severe anxiety around people I don't know. Like when my friends invite me over, and there's someone I don't know, I can't seem to function.

I'm no longer at the gas station, but I found that going to work there and seeing new people every single day was really hard to do for me. I would get through two hours of a shift and then suddenly this sense of dread would collapse over me.

I didn't know what caused it, but just being out and about got really hard.

And the assistant manager, with whom I worked frequently, kind of understood the face I made when I was all of a sudden gone. He described it as a blank look, eyes far off in La-La Land, but my eyebrows would be knitted together harshly.

And he understood that I had to suddenly stop working and take frequent breaks to keep myself under control.

Now, at my current job, I'm getting that intense dread, the anxiety that crawls up my neck and makes my blood run cold. I don't know what's going on with me.

Waking up to go to work this morning, I just couldn't seem to get started. I got up about a hour late, my insomnia not helping me fall asleep last night.

Overall, I wonder why I work at a job that causes me so much dread.

Currently, I work at a bank and it's a slow branch. I see 98% of the same customers every day. But just a moment ago, I helped someone from out of town and I just lost it. I'm literally freaking out over nothing right now, and I can't seem to get myself back into the right mindset to be here. .

So I guess my whole point to writing this blog is to see how many people work jobs that make them dread getting out of bed in the morning.

I love my job, don't get me wrong, I just don't understand how I go to work, do my job every day, all with anxiety.

TL;DR: If you have anxiety and a job, what's your job-to-anxiety percentage like? How to you cope with it?