Voices for Voices®

From Panic Attacks to Purpose: My Journey Through Workplace Stress | Ep 268

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 268

Share episode

From Panic Attacks to Purpose: My Journey Through Workplace Stress | Ep 268

MERCHANDISE SHOP: voices-for-voices.org/3QnokLU
SUPPORT VOICES FOR VOICES®:
https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter

Have you ever felt your heart racing during a work meeting for no apparent reason? Or experienced that sinking feeling when rumors of layoffs begin circulating? You're far from alone.

Workplace anxiety is a silent epidemic that affects countless professionals, yet it's rarely discussed in honest terms. This episode delves into the profound mental health impact of corporate America's realities – particularly the trauma of restructurings and layoffs that educational institutions never prepare us for. From watching colleagues being escorted out by security to eventually facing my own termination, these experiences created lasting anxiety that spiraled into panic attacks, excessive drinking, and ultimately a mental health crisis that led me to a psychiatric hospital admission.

The journey through corporate trauma reveals how our bodies hold onto stress long after triggering events occur. When we feel powerless in professional settings, the anxiety doesn't stay contained at work – it follows us home, affecting relationships and self-worth. Most devastatingly, we often judge ourselves harshly for these natural human responses, thinking we should just "power through" instead of acknowledging genuine trauma.

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the recognition that education fails to equip us for these inevitable workplace challenges. We learn technical skills and subject expertise, but nobody teaches us how to cope when our professional identity is suddenly stripped away or when we witness the systematic dismantling of our workplace community. This gap in preparation leaves countless professionals vulnerable when facing career disruptions.

Share this episode with someone who might be struggling silently with workplace anxiety. Remember the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 via phone, text, or chat – because nobody should face these challenges alone.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Voices for Voices

3:09 Experiencing Workplace Anxiety and Panic

8:45 The Trauma of Corporate Restructuring

16:19 Personal Impact of Being Let Go

22:00 Seeking Help and Checking Ego

24:53 Call for Better Mental Health Education

#PanicAttacks #WorkplaceStress #MentalHealthJourney #OvercomingAnxiety #FindingPurpose #StressManagement #SelfCareTips #MindfulnessAtWork #EmotionalWellness #ResilienceBuilding #AnxietyRecovery #PersonalGrowthStory #MentalHealthAwareness #WorkLifeBalance #CopingStrategies #TikTok #Instagram #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion

Support the show

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you so much for joining us, whether this is your first time viewing or listening to our TV show and podcast, or if you've been with us from the beginning. Thank you for being a part of Voices for Voices, both here in the United States and across the world or 50 countries, and I say it all the time, but it's really humbling to know that the little me and our organization, that we're reaching such a wide group of individuals across the world as we are in the United States, in the state of Ohio, northeast Ohio, hudson, ohio, if this is your first time joining us, we talk about topics around mental health, trauma, experiences, and we cover a lot of topics that may not be covered elsewhere, and we feel that having given people a voice, whether they haven't had one before or whether they're stepping out and want to talk about their experiences and all of this is to help inspire you, friends, family, colleagues, any human being that can benefit, and so we thank you for joining us on this particular episode over 240 episodes at this time and probably by the time this one airs. We have a couple of remote out-of-studio episodes that we'll be having, so we may be really close to 250 by the time that this airs and we're on our way to 300 for a total episode count of our catalog by the end of 2025. And that's a combination of in-studio episodes and remote, out-of-studio episodes. We find that it works really good to touch on current events a little easier sometimes when we're remote due to, obviously, scheduling and we record ahead, as you probably have gathered, and so that's how we try to, in my mind and our mind, try to bring all that together in a little bit of a package with, hopefully, a nice bow on that. A little bit of a package with, hopefully, a nice bow on that For our episode today.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

First, I just want to ask how do you handle stress, anxiety? Is that a problem, an issue? Have you ever been stressed? Have you ever been in a situation and had maybe a panic attack, getting the sweats, maybe feeling like you might be passing out and those types of symptoms? Those types of symptoms, or are you able to work through all situations?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I would gather that we all get stressed at just different points and different experiences in our lives, some more than others, and as far as when that stress occurs, that happens maybe sometimes similar to others and maybe sometimes a little bit different, how we react. When, many years ago, when I was in corporate America, I first started to notice panic attacks and ultra high levels of stress, and it was different and it is different than any feeling. It was different and it is different than any feeling, and I think everybody that goes through some type of stress or anxiety, whether it's a short period of time or whether it's a long period of time, that we just go through things, we go through situations differently. And so in corporate America or just about any type of job where you're gathering, maybe in a conference room and having a meeting, discussions, whether you or I have speaking parts, or whether we're just listening to're as we're learning and progressing, and and so that's when I started to realize in meetings when doors weren't closed not that they were locked, but just the doors were closed in a, in a meeting, a lot of times you're talking about sometimes projects that not a lot of people in the organization know that are going on, so I want to try to keep that group together as best, as best as I can. As well as right there's, there's noise or sound that could could come into the meeting as well. That could be a distraction.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so I started to notice myself more and more in these I'd say, stress environments that I didn't know why I was stressed. I didn't know yeah, I mean, I guess the easy way to say it I don't know why I was stressed the way I was. I didn't know why there were several times where I had to actually step out of meetings because I was just so panicked and they said the sweats were coming, I was feeling lightheaded, just not a good feeling. I'm trying to trace it in my mind. Back this anxiety from the work standpoint. Obviously, as a child growing up, you're in different situations. I've played sports, being a pitcher, everybody's watching me pitch and just having that confidence. There was a period of time when that confidence kind of left and I think that around high school, maybe a little bit sooner, I started to feel anxiety and stress. I just didn't know that it was happening.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so, again, getting back into that corporate America story, as you go through and as I've gone through education and different trainings, we learned all about subjects and subject matters. For me it was marketing and management and presentations and the like, and so getting used to that is one thing of giving a presentation or talking in front of a class and an instructor, 20 or 30 people, mind. They're doing their own thing, they're prepping for their presentation. And what wasn't covered and I feel it's a real travesty to a lot of people is how jobs in corporate America really works. So we have the subjects right. So for me, marketing, and so I have had and still have an interest in marketing Topic-wise. But what's not taught in school to my knowledge and I could be be wrong, and I hope things are changing because I think it's a big thing and it's a big cause of stress.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

That added to me was, from time to time companies go through restructurings and they, for whatever reason, they have to terminate or fire individuals. That come in one day and they're doing their job and the next day they're being told that oh sorry, we don't need you anymore for whatever reason. You know there's the whole legal jargon that's given, you know, to safeguard from, hopefully, any lawsuits that could come against the company. And so my first job out of school I was doing marketing, I was doing well, and one day we started to learn that this was when the big crash in the stock market and all that in the 2000s that occurred. And so our organization, like many they they were having orders cancelled from customers and so money was tight. And so the I don't agree with the reason, but some organizations, like the one I was at, is they're a publicly traded company and so that means they're listed on the NASDAQ or the Dow or the Russell 2000. They're a publicly traded company and so the financials are important not just to the people at the organization. But then there's board of directors that help shape really the future and what projects are approved, what aren't, what's happening, and again, the stock market and interest rates and all these things and a lot of them. I don't understand very well, I just know that they play a part.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So, anyways, I came in one day and we were told, so it was an 8 to 5 job. We were told the day before make sure that you're at work, you're by your phone at 8 am, and I, through the grapevine, was learning that something obviously was going to be happening to some employees. There was going to be some terminations, people who were working alongside me were not going to be, and I may be one of the ones that was let go and and so that's exactly what happened. At 8 am, everybody's by their phone and you hear a phone ring here and there and and then word starts to trickle through the organization that if you're being called right now, you're being called to a conference room with HR, human resources and your boss, manager, and being being read the you know the paragraph of legalese that basically saying that your time here working at this organization is is done, and and so they walked out the door and so that was going on.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so when I come back to talking about school and education, and even if it's not a college or university, just a training or you're shadowing somebody, that topic really isn't discussed. I know for sure, for me, with my education never was really mentioned of. You know, how do you manage that? How do you manage going through a situation, a restructuring, where it may be a friend or a colleague or yourself that is out of a job and has to look for a new job? Those things weren't covered and I think it's a real shame that they weren't, because that ties right into the emotions and the anxiety that I talked about at the beginning of this episode, of being told, you know, be by your phone at this time and then, as you're hearing people are you know, you can hear a phone ring here and there and trying to figure out where whose phone's ringing, and I remember that being a huge milestone, not in a good way.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So I wasn't.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I wasn't fired, relieved of my duties. There were others. So luckily I was kept on at that time, but I had a lot of anxiety, a lot of a lot of anxiety, a lot of trauma, and trauma can come in many different forms and so the trauma being okay, here's this event, and it's a life-changing event, because if you're one of the individuals who is let go or fired whatever term you want to use then you have to go home to your wife, your husband, your family, your friends and talk about it, and we all know how gossipy that happens. Just in general, we're curious as human beings. Just in general, we're curious as human beings.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so that day, really, I think, looking back, set a precedent for me in the workforce and coming to work each day not knowing if it's going to be my last at that organization, my cubicle, my office, depending on which organization I was at really was very, very hard and it was very traumatic and even I think to this day I've really talked about it a lot because the fear of being judged and I know there's going to be some listeners and viewers and they're going to judge and that's okay. But for me it feels good to be able to finally talk about this, which is it's huge. And it's one of those things where if you haven't gone through it, then you feel a little bit differently and so significant other can say, well, what's the big deal? And you know you weren't one of the ones that was displaced and let go. You know what. You know why are you getting home? Why are you so anxious and why are you? Why do? Why do you have this panic?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

It caused me to drink more alcohol, not that I had any problem from when I was in college. Going there was a pretty easy transition of abuse for me. It caused me drinking more and just looking at things and going, wow, what happens if that's me someday? And it's hard to think about going through that. And so I think in any education, any training program, how to manage restructurings, because they happen so often, whether you're at a small organization and it's one person, or it's 10, or it's thousands or whatever the number is, just knowing that there are people again that you know they're going to have to. You know they go home and tell their family that here's what happened.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And then the whole judging like, well, did I do something wrong and maybe I said something wrong? Or maybe with this last project I did. I didn't give the presentation in the best light or the best way, and so we start questioning ourselves just as human beings of. Well, I obviously did something wrong. You know they don't like me, it's a popularity contest and and so I transitioned now to a couple now several years years ago. But I was working at a corporate America organization and I was found to be on that side of being let go for a restructuring, and I already had anxiety, panic attacks. I already had all that anyway. So your line of work. And so I had an idea just given my analytical mind, I'm like oh my gosh, because I was already in that mode of oh my gosh, any day can be my last day at work at this organization, and so that ended up happening. So then I found myself having to go home to a family and say, hey, I need to look for a new job. And it's like, well, why? What happened? What did you do? And as if I already didn't feel awful, as as it was.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

But again, we can only impact ourselves. We can't really impact how others are going to feel, and so that's why, you know, we, when we talk about emotions on on their shows, it's big because it might be thought of like, oh, it's the touchy-feely topic, but it's important if we're constantly being put in situations where we are uncomfortable, and whether we know why we're uncomfortable or our bodies just know where, it's like, oh my gosh, why am I getting so panicked, why am I getting so anxious at this particular event? And then things start to domino effect and one meeting of the panic attack leads to another, leads to a panic attack driving, and then for me, that's where things you know, mental health-wise were really coming to a head and spiraling and out of control. And so when I do look back at November of 2017, as I've discussed many times, and having that low point mental health and really health, and you know, really, as a human being, it was both a very hard decision to make to admit yourself into a psych ward and like, oh my gosh, like I'm one of those people and so I'm judging myself already as as that, that that goes. But it was one of the best decisions I made because I was able to put my ego aside, which you uh, which you've seen on a previous episode where we've talked to Jason Simpson and where he talked about the show business. Being an actor, you have to check your ego at the door of that industry. If you have an ego in that industry the entertainment industry it won't fly.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so I had to in November 2017, really check my ego at the door, and the door was in the hospital. I was saying, okay, justin, you don't know everything. You don't know what will happen if you leave the hospital. They say you're not dying, or we can admit you, and it was one of the hardest decisions to make. But at that point I felt kind of my lowest of I almost like I give up, and that's a hard thing for anybody to feel that somebody would get to that point of just like, all right, I give up, everything I'm trying isn't working. Some of the feedback, again coming from some individuals around me wasn't the healthiest. I'll just power through it and, again, I don't know how I would react if I was on the flip side.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So I had to fight through just a lot of things In my mind, my ego and what others were going to think about, what my family and I recently married and I'm a failure, I'm a loser think of whatever term or word that you want to think about but that anxiety that started that first job, that first time that there was a restructuring and seeing, you know, grown adults being escorted out by security, it really carried with me on top of the stress of being an outcast growing up and being a successful athlete. And then that got turned on its head and it no longer was the case and I didn't know who I was. I didn't have what I felt like an identity. And so that's when I turned, you know, to the partying and you know mostly the alcohol abuse and not being a great person in a relationship of you know just being in things for all the wrong reasons. How do you react in stressful situations or when your body kind of gets into that tense moment, for whatever that is, and whether we know why we're tense and why we're anxious I always look back to. Well, what other times did I feel anxious than when I was panicked, and so there's times when I was working and individuals were fired, let go, restructured and then to the point when I was one of the ones impacted and let go.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

It really takes a toll, and so I'm reaching out to the Department of Education, president Trump, melania Trump, anybody who is associated with our administration to help put a curriculum together that will help address some of these issues and problems that I discussed here today, because those things are real. So, whether you're in an office, or whether you're on a ball field, or whether you're with a significant other, whether you're traveling on an airplane or a train for the first time, and whatever that may be, if we're taught at an earlier age, at least given a little bit of an idea of how things we can do, coping mechanisms when we feel these ways, I think that would be a big help for the mental health of our fellow human beings. And so if you or somebody you know is going through a crisis, there is help available. You can speak with someone. Today.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is, in English and Spanish, available 24 hours a day. You can call 988. You can text 988. You can chat on the 988lifelineorg website no judgment zone. And again, so if you or somebody you know is going through a crisis, it would be great if you could share this information with them so that they know that they're not alone, and you're not alone, and I'm not alone. Nobody is alone. So until next time, nobody is alone. So until next time. I am Justin Alan Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, and I just ask that you please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Alan Hayes

Host