TLDR: New job requires travel to large events. I can’t drink or use medication as I am in recovery. First time, all bad. Next trip is with boss and her boss in two weeks. Can’t have it go bad, my social anxiety manifests as almost manic behavior and I am not good at small talk.
A couple of preliminaries: 1) I can’t take any sort of narcotic medication or drink and 2) This is my first “professional” job and I’m almost 40.
So I basically fell into a job that is great, especially for someone like me – I spent ten years in prison for distribution of drugs and several other ancillary charges related to the counts of distribution. The only down side was recently discovered. I had to go to a fundraiser event and it was a disaster. I began to feel manic, I couldn’t follow conversations and was in general awkward as hell. I’ve never been good at small talk, if I don’t know someone and won’t ever see them again I see now purpose in the conversation. The others from our company kept asking if I was ok, and this made it worse.
In two weeks I’ve got to travel again, only this time it is a multi-day convention and I’ll be attending with my boss, her boss and several others from the company. I cannot afford to have this go the way the last thing did. This job pays me a living wage and is allowing me to put my life back together. The pressure and fear of losing such a great opportunity is almost as paralyzing as the awkwardness I feel in public.
Any advice is welcome and appreciated.