People keep saying "it'll be nice to see everyone." But the thought of going back fills you with dread, not excitement. Return to office anxiety isn't about laziness or missing your pajamas. Something shifted while you were remote — what you need, how you work, who you became — and going back feels like losing all of it.
Dreading the Office Door
RTO anxiety shows up in ways that can surprise you.
The night before an office day, sleep won't come. You're running through logistics, social interactions, the energy it will take. The anticipation is worse than the day itself, but knowing that doesn't make it easier. You wake up already tired.
The noise, the people, the lights, the interruptions. Your home office was quiet and controlled. The open floor plan feels like sensory overload. Concentrating takes twice the effort. By lunch you're drained. By end of day you're empty.
Small talk. Lunch invitations. Being "on" for eight hours. Remote work let you control when and how you interacted. Now it's constant and unavoidable. The social muscle that worked fine three years ago feels atrophied.
You proved you could do the job remotely. The work got done. And now someone decided you need to be in a building anyway. The resentment sits underneath the anxiety, making both harder to manage. It feels like a step backward.
If the dread is building and you can't quite name what's driving it, it might help to sort through what you're actually losing.
Why RTO Anxiety Runs Deep
Return to office anxiety isn't weakness — it's a response to real loss and real change.
When the anxiety extends beyond RTO and becomes a daily tension at work, it might be part of a broader pattern — like work feeling unsafe in general.
When Work Feels Unsafe"Just give it time" is valid but unhelpful when you're in the thick of it. Sometimes it helps to make sense of what changed before trying to adjust.
Ease the Office Transition
RTO anxiety eases when you stop trying to go back to who you were and start working with who you are now.
Create Control Islands
Headphones, quiet corners, personal rituals. Control what you can.
Lower Expectations
First weeks will be tiring. Productivity might dip. That's normal.
Protect Recovery Time
Office days need decompression after. Build it in.
Acknowledge the Loss
Something real was lost. Grieving it doesn't mean you can't adapt.
If the dread shows up most intensely at the start of each week, it might connect to a pattern of Monday feeling like a threat every time.
When Monday Feels Like a ThreatPack for Tomorrow
If you're facing an office day soon and the anxiety is building, start here.
RTO anxiety is often layered — loss, identity, control, exhaustion all tangled together. thisOne is a thinking partner that helps you untangle those layers. What you're really afraid of, what you actually need, and what you can do about it. A space to process the transition honestly.
The Bigger Picture
You're not the same person who went remote. Remote work may have shown you what you actually need to do good work and live well. That knowledge is valuable, even when circumstances force compromise. The anxiety isn't weakness — it's your system saying something important changed, and it mattered.