Post #4440936

Some years ago I set myself "office hours" to help with my anxiety. So I have a totally separate email for all the bureaucracy, and I only have access to it on my computer, and I have to go and check it, I don't get notifications for new mails on it anywhere. And I'd only go and check it during my "taking care of stuff" slots, and for example never check it on weekends, so I had some reprieve built-in in case there was some crap going on. That system broke now with the latest crap, and my brain is now obsessively latched on checking that email. Which is an especially delicious catch-22, as if I don't check it, I'm anxious, and if I do check it, there's two possible outcomes, either there's nothing there, in which case I'm OK for like five minutes, and then start getting anxious again. Or if there is something there, I'll crash for the rest of the day. Layer on top of that my existing fear of having to deal with authorities (and getting those dreaded "you have a message in YourAccount" messages)... How the heck do I break this and get back to my office hours? I know I can't force myself to do so, that'd make it much worse. Distractions don't work on me right now too well either, so can't go and just play a game or something. I'm pretty much at my wits end with all this stuff.