Truth About Unemployment and the Grieving Process

I find that I’m a bit confused as to what to do with myself these days.  This unemployment has lasted way too long and while I’ve diligently at sending resumes out every single blessed day, the struggle has been a soul-destroying one.  You think I’m being dramatic?  Actually, and for a change, I am not. 

I do believe that being laid off is akin to any sort of major loss one goes through.  You also move through the 7 stages of grief that is akin to the death of someone close.  I know those words are ruffling a few feathers out there even as you read them.  Of course I understand that losing a loved one is so very final while unemployment does not need to be (often it isn’t unless you’re just straight up lazy or have the worst luck ever).  Naturally a life is far more precious than something as almost trivial as a job, I know this and I am not attempting to be a jerk by comparing the two in that sense but rather my aim is to establish a close parallel.  Stop calling me an insensitive jackass in your head.  Just indulge me and read on, okay?  I swear you’ll come out of this read not hating me.

For those who do not remember where this started, 2 years and some change months ago I was called into HR and basically given my walking papers with the label of “layoff” attached to it, including a small compensation package.  Sounds really so much nicer than being fired though – “layoff”, right?  Feels no different, rather almost a bit more insulting because in order to get fired you had to participate in the eventuality in some way but with a layoff you have zero responsibility and often zero clue. 

It was exactly at 3pm.  Why does everything funky have to happen around 3 pm (or am doesn’t seem to matter much)?  And that day this news hit me like a full on Mack truck totally out of control and coming at me 150 mph.  The appropriate description of what it left behind would be ‘flattened”.  I’ve written another blog about what precisely that day had been like for me so I’m not going to be redundant and rewrite the whole thing but if you require appropriate reference to the event then you can find the direct link -> here.

I thought the bounce back surely wouldn’t be so difficult.  I was wrong.  Oh, so wrong.  The fact that I was grieving wasn’t completely evident immediately.  People got fired/laid off all the time, big deal?  I was tough as nails and unemployment wouldn’t fell me.  Again, so wrong and so arrogant a mindset, almost as if I were better than others in dealing with something that was relatively common. 

In retrospect I can say that I turned out to be as delicate and as human as just about anyone else in the world.  Go figure.  And in the interim realized that those prior referenced 7 stages of grief aptly reflected the emotions I was suffering.  In researching the grief stages I found that, naturally, different organizations defined them also differently or had some of these categories mushed together and added a few new ones.  Generally speaking the one I’m referencing is simplistic and best describes my journey. 

Stage 1 – Shock

I never saw it coming.  I honestly didn’t.  One minute I was happily employed secure in the knowledge that I was doing a kickass job and the next second I sat in that HR office with my mouth dropped open just inviting flies to enter.  In fact, so great was my shock that the HR dudette gazed at me for a second and said in a slightly bemused voice, “you had no clue, did you?”

No lady, no I didn’t. 

That first second left me truly breathless.  And I remained thus for longer than I probably am willing to admit.

Stage 2 – Denial

During those first moments in the office as I was being axed with assurances of how quickly I would get right back into the saddle, my brain was screaming its disbelief and more importantly – denial.  My brain simply shut down as I went through the process of gathering together personal items and being ‘escorted’ out of the offices like a damn thief to jail clutching my purse, a vase and weirdly enough a collapsible mouse that I treasured.  Once home, I sat on the sofa and refusing to let my brain turn itself back on.  I didn’t want to think.  Thinking would be a bad, bad thing or so I told myself.  The following weeks I kept the news to myself for the most part.  Sure, closest family members had been told in shocked whispers (not by me, rather amongst themselves; I believe I sounded like a zombie when I finally told my mom) but the vast majority of friends/acquaintances had no clue.  As word got around, I started to receive sympathetic texts which were promptly ignored and if I did bother to answer them the response was, ‘no worries, I’m good’.  This became a standard response.  I wasn’t good at all. 

That very first Monday after the layoff I got up for ‘work’, accomplished the rituals of my morning, went down stairs to gather keys to head out and stopped dead.  I had nowhere to go.  The tears wanted to flow but I refused.  Surely I wasn’t without employment, not I.  And not from a place I had loved so much.  If I denied it, it didn’t happen, right? 

Stage 3 – Anger

My mother’s side of the family was/is famous for their quick tempers and flaring anger.  Having been witness to it far too many times, and not liking the fall-out one bit, from an early age I had trained myself to not give into any initial feelings of anger nor react in anger.  This conditioning had thus saved me many a horrid moment to live through and very few regrets.  I’m not saying I’ve mastered the art, not by a long shot.  I often give into annoyance, irritation, aggravation, fury…but they are few and far in-between events.   

And while this probably is a good skill to hone generally speaking, the downside was/is also that often you fail to identify the emotion totally.  For days/weeks/months after the total cut, there was a bizarre barely contained energy within me that went ignored but it was channeled and revealed in other ways such as aggressively chopping onions, snapping at folks over the smallest comments, positive or negative, and the ever present perm-scowl that seemed to have taken residence upon my lips.  Oh, then there was also a constant shimmer of tears - so lovely. 

When friends would dare to ask me directly whether I was angry or not, I would adamantly deny it, rather lauding the company that had so heartlessly let me go, all the while knowing that they had done dirty to me.  While everyone praised me for being so ‘mature’ I seethed inside.  I wanted to break something.  I wanted to scream out the venom like a howler monkey.  I didn’t.  Instead I chose to internalize all that rage while terrorizing those who were concerned for me.  I was also definitely not doing anything good for my mental health either.  Nonetheless the fear was that I would give into all the emotions boiling inside of me and I would just come apart at the seams, never being able to get it back together ever again.  I couldn’t afford to do that.

Eventually though, the dam broke in the worst way possible one fine day, the experience completely dramatic and movie-like, I admit.  I was taking one of the long drives that helped me clear my brain when some douchebag cut me off on the interstate.  I swerved sharply, almost going into a medium but luckily enough, and thanks to mad cat-like driving skills, I came back straight without any incident other than a rise in internal body temperature.  The asshole in the offending car drove off without a thought to the havoc his move had almost caused but I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.  I took off after him, hitting ridiculously high speeds in an area that was sure to reward me with a fine or a court date for the effort, no matter how justified I thought I was.  Should I have slowed the hell down?  Of course.  No one has any business to drive like that anywhere other than a race track but the smoke that was coming out of both ears wouldn’t allow rational thought.  A red haze had dropped directly in front of my eyes, which were narrowed and glared solely at the Beamer (of course) as my car ate the distance between the two vehicles.  The speedometer was steadily climbing.  I weaved in and out of traffic like a maniac until I almost reached the offender and then without warning the car was gone, having taken the exit that I hadn’t noted in my fury.  And that was it.  The moment.

Anger, fury…all poured out of me.  I pulled over in a truck stop and screamed it all out, leaving my throat to ache and be hoarse for days.  What about that event had broken me so?  I guess it was that once again I had been subjected to a thoughtless action that (in this case) could have ruined my life.  The other person had walked away unscathed, uncaring of the fall-out.  It so mirrored, I suppose, what had happened with the job but thanks to my denial I hadn’t allowed myself to really be angry.  Yes, I embraced the betrayal at that moment and after that, since then, I’ve let this emotion color my words a bit more, just not viciously. 

Anger = check.

Step 4 – Bargaining

I don’t think I had much to bargain with because during life crisis situations of the past, when I promised this, that and the other in exchange for what my heart so desired, even if I got it I failed to see through my portion of the agreement.  I mean I knew I wasn’t going to give up some major essential thing in my life just so I could get accepted into a program that I really, really wanted to attend.  I failed all on my own plenty of times, I didn’t need to add to it by just purely setting myself up like that.  Still I did go through this to some degree during the last 2 years, however, I just made sure whatever I promised, it would be something I could do or a promise I could keep.  Thus far nothing has worked out which is fine because I really, really don’t want to cut back on coffee. 

Stage 5 – Depression

Probably the longest lasting stage, definitely the hardest to deal with by far as well.  One doesn’t always identify depression right away.  It can manifest in so many ways and for those like me who are stubborn to the core, even accepting that you could be suffering from it is a fairly tough thing to do.  Mine showed in various forms from becoming quiet and never speaking about what was happening inside my brain but needing to escape the house hence long, long drives in any direction for hours to clear my head.  It never worked, the head never cleared.  Rather it was all shut out (yet again) as the eyes took in everything, the brain functioned on autopilot but feelings were all ignored, reality was rejected. 

Depression was, and still is, inevitable.  I do not disregard it any longer though.  I figured it out, that it existed within while I tried terribly hard to fight it although I also succumb to it nevertheless.  The ugly truth is that It weighs you down, your limbs become heavy, your mind sluggish and everything, I mean absolutely everything, that you look at is blurred around the edges. Well-meaning words of encouragement and comfort mean less than zero, the fallout often a retreat even further into that dark box that somehow lends more comfort because you can control what is in that dark space.  Light reveals way too much of your failure and you become paralyzed to know how to move forward, how to actually succeed because all you know is your own perceived failures.

This is depression for me to this day while for others it is different.  In fact, there is no standard way of behaving, no pattern to follow which makes it so much harder to even deal with it.  It’s an intensely lonely place of your own making that you walk through and while some seek comfort in similarity with another human being who could be moving through the same head space, some have no wish to think, much less talk. 

Yes, depression still very much lingers with me to-date even as I go through all the other emotions as well.  I think this is the one that has impacted me the hardest and will be my companion for the foreseeable future until that day I walk into a new job that gives me back my identify and purpose of waking up.  Not a fun fact, but a fact nonetheless.

Stage 6 – Testing

This one confused my delicate little cranium when I first read it.  Testing what?  Life?  The waters?  A hot cup of soup?  Coffee temperature?  Well of course none of that made sense so I had to look at the definition associated with it carefully.  “Seeking realistic solutions”.  Hmmm…okay I get it.

I certainly did a lot of this.  I ran the gamut of possibilities which included *bleh* going back to what I was doing.  Now here’s a thing, I hated what I used to do, not for the job itself, rather because there was little to no appreciation for the profession nor the person who is often an integral part of a team that most likely couldn’t function without this particular skill set, well at least not with ease.   To go back to that would have ultimately meant taking a gigantic step back in time.  For one who doesn’t dwell in history other than learning from it, I had and have no wish to do such a thing.  I will however consider it when things are just that bad, I’m not totally stupid either.

For the record, I did eventually find a path that I’m currently on.  Hoping that it would lead me to quick employment, I’ve been yet again mistaken as well as a healthy dose of frustration that’s accompanied even this new adventure because I have not been able to snag anything.  *sigh* I’m grappling, not well, not always, but grappling.

Stage 7 – Finding a Way Forward

This is where I am currently, well this and depression.  I’ve found one but I have yet to get there totally.

Here are some final thoughts: You know, folks, I’m standing on a bizarre precipice which is a sort of in-between holding a breath and expelling said breath.  That may make little to no sense but for those who get it, will get it.  Inevitably I have withdrawn from a lot of the things I would have done, did do, yet some part of my brain tells me that I don’t have the right to indulge in the little happiness of life when I am not a contributing member of society. 

You know what it is?  A strong sense of guilt.  I shouldn’t be like this.  I have no right.  I had everything given to me, the tools, to be successful.  I have education.  I have experience.  I have connections and a rep, so…so why me?  Why did this happen to me when I did what I had to do and did it damn well to boot?  I know I’m not a bad person, nor did I deserve it nor that I was targeted for any specific reason (that I know).  I know this, even intellectualize it but convincing my heart is a totally different story.  Real talk is that this unemployment has defined me as the very person I am somehow in my head and it’s not a good person at all.  I have no anchor, no purpose, no reason for being.  I cannot make eye contact when talking about the state of things, I am ashamed, I feel worse than useless.  I can’t stop thinking this way even if you try to yell at me to stop it (incidentally, totally the wrong approach to be honest).  It’s not true, of course but I can’t stop the demons that whispers this to me at the oddest most unwelcome moments.  And no matter how much I try to muffle those voices, gag them and shove them into the darkest recesses of the minds closet, they are so wily, finding ways of escaping only to taunt me.  Now they too are a part of my every day, like sending out resumes and waking up with a stone upon my heart, trying to find reason to draw courage and just take a step, any sort of step ahead.

Well there you go, that’s my explanation that I had promised to give you as to losing someone close vs losing a job and the accompanying grief.  Again, I submit that they are not the same thing by virtue of nature that one involves another life and one a job, but yet in the world we live in today, isn’t our job our lives?  Sure it shouldn’t be but I do not live in Utopia.  The emotions can be comparable, I believe, maybe to a lesser extent on some level and greater in another.  I’ve suffered some deep losses in my life so I am no stranger to it at all but this is my personal struggle that I feel, every single blessed agony filled day. 

What I suggest though to you, my dearest reader, are a few ‘do’s and don’ts’ if you happen to know someone who is moving through extended unemployment like I am and wish to help.  Do be sensitive to their plight.  It is real.  Don’t treat it as if it is not a big deal and they’ll get something tomorrow, everyone does!  No, they don’t.  If they could, they would have.  Don’t spew facts at them, they know them.  Don’t also start to throw random ideas about what they could be doing instead.  That so doesn’t help at all because anything you could have thought about, they probably already considered.  If there is something unique that you would like to propose, then do see if they are open to hear it, don’t just go blabbering and do make sure it’s relevant to what they want to do and not to what you think they should be doing.  Do talk to them if they are open to it about how it’s okay to mourn the loss of their job/career.  Do let them know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and do try to draw them back into life if they should wish as well.  Don’t auto-assume that ignoring it is better, it’s not but don’t constantly linger on it because they will feel the pity.  Don’t go on and on about your own adventures into a 3-week or 3-month unemployment because that also doesn’t do anything other than them feeling even crappier about themselves.  Do give them space when required but more importantly do understand that they are worth something, whether they believe it or not.