Joblessness

I considered myself unemployed from October 2008 to August 2010.

I worked a fair amount during that time with different temporary jobs, but they varied in reliability and pay so nothing felt very stable. Not a single one of the jobs was expected to last.

It was very hard emotionally, but I didn't go into an actual depression again. Looking back, I think that was because I was still working a lot, and because my church was being very supportive. It did strike at my identity in a way similar to the 2003 depression.

I had always been a pretty cheerful person, facing things that brought me down, but bouncing back pretty quickly. To have such a long unmitigated gloom made me feel that I was not even myself anymore; who was I without my cheerfulness?

Prior to 2008, I had always been able to get the job I wanted: I had something in mind, I applied, and I got it.

There were little blips. I remember some panic in 1990 when the job I was sure was going to hire me delayed calling but still did call. When a different job ended in 1996, I decided to take a few days to paint the bathroom, and I answered a phone call offering me work while I was painting. 

In general, I had always been able to do work I was interested in and make enough money to meet my needs.

Well, maybe it was more about meeting other people's wants than my needs. I also tended to be pretty generous, and especially to make sure that my family had nice things.

2008 really messed with that.

2010 did not fix it, because I had lost ground financially and I never made it back up. 

I had sort of noticed that the cost of living was going up before I was unemployed, but it happened gradually and it wasn't too big of a concern. 

Once I was unemployed, that was a lot more noticeable. Once I was employed again, but at only about 80% of what I was making, and with some debt exacerbated over the past two years, well, the increased cost of living was much more in my face.

I felt it for myself, but also, relatives who were used to me paying for more things and not charging rent had a really hard time adjusting to it. There were some stormy battles, and they only get worse six years later when I found myself unemployed again.

I remember that I had been working so hard to catch up. It wasn't just money but also time, where I let myself get behind on medical appointments and things that were taking care of me.

I had just successfully made it to the regular doctor, eye doctor, and dentist, and had an appointment with my hairdresser that I hadn't been to yet when I got the news.

That next round of unemployment was associated with some depression. It was more complicated than that, but isn't it always?

And it required some fundamental rethinking.