Keeping Your Head After Losing Your Job (2 page)

You need to turn your self-criticism into self-correction

Many people who are unemployed complain about a sense of failure, they believe that they are to blame for losing their job. Even though businesses have their ups and downs, and even though many lay-offs are part of national trends in the economy, it’s not unusual to blame yourself. Your self-critical thinking only adds to your risk of depression and robs you of the possibility of living your life today. We will look at what you are saying to yourself and how to be more constructive and compassionate. But you might also say, “I actually lost my job because of my own behavior.” That does happen; you are not the only one who “got herself fired”—if that is what really happened. If that is true, you have a choice now: either to spend your time blaming yourself or to work out what you have learned to make things better in the future. You have a choice between self-criticism or self-correction.

You need to stop hiding from the world

Some people feel ashamed of their position, often avoiding other people and embarrassed to tell others that they no longer have their job. They believe that other people look down on them and consider them inferior, and they believe that they need to avoid contact with anyone who might think less of them. Some “hide” from the reality of not having a job—one man got dressed in his suit every day, left his home, sat in a park, and came back later in the day, to make others think that he was still working.

You are more than a job

In our society, many people equate their sense of identity with their job and feel that without the job they have no sense of who they are—they have no role in the world in which they live. “Who am I if I don’t have a job?” one man said to himself. Others worry about how they will take care of themselves. One woman thought that she would not be able to survive, even though she had savings and had skills that the marketplace demanded.

Being unemployed is often a lonely experience; you feel that the entire world is going to work today—except for you. Hidden in your home, embarrassed to tell friends, the unemployed person often believes that she is an outcast. Afraid to connect with friends and colleagues, embarrassed to contact people, your social support is cut off—often because you are cutting the ties. You may feel, “Who wants to hear me complain? Who wants to deal with someone like me with no job?” Not realizing that almost everyone that you know has either been out of work at some time or has a family member or friend who has been out of work, you often believe that no one could understand, much less have any compassion for you. You think of yourself as a burden to others, “If I call my friend, she won’t want to hear about my plight.” You think, “How can I take care of my family,” as if the only thing that your family ever needed from you was your salary.

Your hopelessness may be temporary

You project into the future, “I will never get a job.” Your predictions, for you, have become “facts.” Because you repeat these negative predictions over and over you now believe that they must be true. You have been unemployed for some time—weeks, months, perhaps even years—and you are now convinced that you will never get a job. It seems hopeless. You are cursed, stuck, trapped and helpless. You may ask yourself, “Why go on?”

You find yourself arguing with your partner, embarrassed around your children, wanting to withdraw into yourself. You may feel blamed for losing your job or blamed for not trying hard enough to get a new one. You withdraw, thinking that your partner must feel that you are a burden. You become defensive and your partner begins to withdraw from you. You think, “I not only lost my job, but I am losing my marriage and my kids.” You get more depressed and angrier. It all seems so hopeless to you.

You are not alone.

How thinking differently can help you

Even though there are always millions of people who are unemployed—and even though millions of others will eventually experience some period of unemployment—the unemployed individual often thinks that he or she is alone, a solitary figure who has failed, that no one could understand and no one could help.

During the economic crisis after October 2008 I was approached by people in the media to discuss how to cope with unemployment. Because I had written popular books on worry (
The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You
) and depression (
Beat the Blues before they Beat You: How to Overcome Depression
), and because I was writing regular blogs on the
Huffington Post
and
Psychology Today
, there was a sense that a therapist like myself could be helpful. People from the
New York Times
,
Wall Street Journal
,
The Early Show
on CBS, National Public Radio and many others wanted to hear what a psychologist had to say. As explained in the Introduction, in CBT we focus on what is going on today, not what happened to you when you were a child. It’s not that your childhood isn’t important, it’s just that moving on to make your life better today means thinking, acting and relating in more productive ways.

Your negative thoughts can be transformed

In CBT we help people identify their negative thoughts, we identify short-term and long-term goals and we help you develop powerful tools to challenge and change these negative thoughts into realistic thoughts; we ask you to consider experimenting with changing your behavior and we give you self-help assignments to take what you learn in a session and practice it outside of the sessions. There is more research supporting CBT as an effective treatment for depression and anxiety than there is for all other forms of psychotherapy combined. It works, it’s practical, and you can learn some of it by reading this book, and by doing things that I am going to recommend.

Taking care of yourself now

This book is about how you take care of yourself during the time between the last job and the next. I am going to lay out a plan of action for you that you can use every single day that you are unemployed. It will be a plan of setting goals every day, following habits that build on your strengths, helping you turn away from passive rumination on the negative to positive action and problem solving. I will urge you to rethink your self-criticism and your shame, try to treat yourself more compassionately, and learn to communicate more effectively with the people in your life that you need. It will be important for you to treat this period as one of self-care, rather than one of passivity, isolation and self-criticism. Since unemployment is often associated with increased health risks, as previously mentioned—often due to increased smoking or drinking, or to over-eating or lack of exercise, and increased physical stress—I am going to urge you to take this time “in-between” to get into much better physical condition. Self-care includes working on your health every day. You no longer have the excuse that you don’t have time to exercise.

Expand your definition of yourself

We are also going to look at how you have defined yourself in terms of your job. One man said that he realized after being unemployed he wasn’t really defined by his job; he was also the father of his children, the husband to his wife, and the brother to his brother. Your self-definition may need to be expanded. You are more than a job title, more than an employee. This time can be one of rediscovery of those other roles—the many ways that you fit into the world. I am going to ask you to think about volunteer work, as a way of turning around the isolation that has added to your depression and shame, and to think about helping others. Yes, you have something to offer other people—people who may be worse off than you. By joining a larger community you expand your sense of belonging to the world. And, who knows, you may develop contacts, skills or ideas that can lead to the next job.

I will also want you to think about the role of material things in your life. Many people complain that they will not have enough money to provide for the kind of life that they want. Certainly, financial limitations are real and important. But I have found that we can often re-evaluate what these material things mean to you. I truly believe that most of the “things” that we have—and things that we think we need—are just that: “things.” They get their excess meaning because we actually believe that we “need” them. This time between jobs can be an opportunity to examine your drive for things—your “need” for things.

Rediscover time

Like many people going through this time, you and your family may find it difficult occasionally to cope with one another. But what I have found quite interesting is that some people actually find it can be an opportunity to find that their partner is really their best friend and that their kids are a source of joy and meaning. We will look at how you and your family can pull together, rather than pulling apart, and, if possible, become stronger in the process. It all depends on how you handle it. There are better ways to express your frustrations and better ways to solve problems together.

Finally, I want you to think about time. If you are like most people I know who are unemployed, you have a sense that you need the answer right now: “When will I get a job?” This urgent need for THE ANSWER may drive your repeated negative thoughts and your constant rumination (I’ll be explaining rumination in detail in Chapter Five). If possible, perhaps you might consider stretching time, to give yourself more space to breathe, and learn how to get the very best out of the present moment. If you have time between jobs you can use it—or lose it.

It’s up to you: you can choose how you cope with unemployment

Let’s look at the problematic ways of responding to the reality of being unemployed. The illustration below depicts how you might be responding and how all these feelings generate from “The Reality” of unemployment.

Problematic responses to being unemployed

These feelings are:

•
You feel overwhelmed with emotions and you think that no one really understands.

•
You criticize yourself and feel ashamed.

•
You spend hours dwelling on repetitive negative thoughts.

•
You are passive and inactive, doing less and less that is productive or rewarding.

•
You are worried about money.

•
You have a sense of urgency that you need the answer now.

•
You have poor health habits—poor nutrition, overdrinking, not getting into better shape.

•
You have more arguments with your family members.

•
You have less contact with people and isolate yourself. Sometimes you feel that you are hiding from reality.

In the illustration below I suggest ways to change these problematic ways of coping, creating a different “Reality” at its core. You can see that each one of them addresses a problem in how you might be living your life right now. Perhaps you don’t have all the problems in the first illustration, but I am willing to bet that you have a lot of them. The good news is that each of these problems can be addressed with the powerful techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy. These are techniques that you can begin learning and practicing today.

Adaptive strategies for coping with unemployment

What does this have to do with getting that job that you want? Well, as I said, this is not a book on how to “find that job.” It’s a book on how to cope better so that you will be the best
you
that you can be while you are looking for that job. And it will also give you tools to use once you have that next job.

As disturbing as the facts are about the human costs of unemployment, these dire outcomes do not have to be your destiny. It’s important to take this time—in-between your last job and your next job—to take charge of your life. This is a transition period; it does not have to be a time of depression, worry, physical deterioration or relationship problems. In fact, I hope that if you use the ideas, techniques and strategies that I outline in this book, your life will be better over the coming weeks or months, and that you will continue to practice your program of self-help once you get that new job.