I'm sure you read this title and thought to yourself: Oh God, another one of those people who try to be 100% productive and overly optimistic all the time, toxic positivity, blablabla....
If that is you, sorry to click-bait you into thinking that, that is not the case at all.
Hear me out, as I'm writing this post, I've been unemployed for over 5 months. It has been extremely stressful and anxiety-inducing. I had periods where I consulted with a psychiatrist to watch for any symptoms of resurfacing depression and I still have to take sleeping meds from time to time. I'm far from saying I'm ok with my unemployment or that this is a period of my life I'm fully enjoying. I'm not and I wanted to make it very clear from the get-go.
But it did force me to grow skills and work on issues I would not have grown or worked on otherwise. Firstly:
It forced me to face the overwhelming guilt I felt whenever I needed rest
As I'm not formally employed, I don't have any set schedule I need to follow in order to deliver some report, work on some company project, manage a team, etc... Of course, I still have a new house and a dog to tend to and a boyfriend I live with who wants my company and I want to care for. I still have things to do during the day and I'm actively looking for my next job, that being researching something to start on my own or a job position somewhere. I'm still trying to take freelance hosting gigs on the weekends, you get the gist, right?
But I also have more time to simply rest. I can wake up late and have popcorn for lunch if I want to. I can go for a run during the sunset or in the middle of the afternoon. I can watch Bridgerton while taking 2 hours to make the most delicious tomato sauce for us to have for dinner with some homemade pasta. I can have skincare sessions at 10 am. Doesn't it all sounds delightful?
Well, I'm still trying to start enjoying it. Why? Because it felt like I was not putting enough effort to not be unemployed. As if resting was me not showing the people around me that I was trying hard. As if I was ...lazy...
Laziness has always been something that scared the crap out of me because of all the guilt attached to the activities I had been told were part of it. Having time for yourself? Taking time to do nothing and sleep in? Lord forbid. I had to put in the work!
But what does putting in the work even means? In other words, what did it mean for past workaholic me and what does it mean now?
For past me, I think putting in the work meant actually showing everyone that I was overworking myself. It was working to fulfill a crazy high standard set by what common sense (or society, I don't know) dictated as being more than enough. It was trying to reach the above and beyond that I was told was going to make me perform very well in the eyes of others. I was trying to be the perfect worker for everyone else.
That also meant respecting everyone else's timing but my own, overwriting my interests and learning processes to prioritize theirs, literally copying the work style of the people I thought worked the most and the list goes on. So here is the second issue I found:
I was forced to think about what working hard meant to me
To present me, it means valuing my own thoughts and agendas. It means allowing myself to be proud of my efforts and labor before getting anyone else's opinion on it or asking how they would have done it. It means validating how much energy and focus I put into making something. My boundaries are only mine and only I know how and when to be flexible with them. It's realizing my learning processes are normal to me, they work for me and things don't need to be harder for the results to be considered good.
In other words, I needed to create my own standards, and here is where I'm at right now.
Feeling drained and exhausted is not a good sign of productivity anymore
Overworking needs to be very well justified
My results are important to me first, before anyone else
I'm allowed to stop when I need rest as I'm allowed to continue when something excites and energizes me
I'm allowed to have preferences and do things differently
If the next income stream I have does not respect or encompass those new standards, it is not for me.
Now I want to talk a little bit about what this train of thought has brought to me in terms of psychological skills:
Being a lot less afraid of making mistakes or asking questions
Growing my self-esteem enough to respect my limits and processes while also allowing space for me to be shamelessly proud of myself
Having enough self-confidence to advocate for my needs and set the standards I needed
When people say soft skills are becoming increasingly important, I think this is what it means. It's learning skills and coping mechanisms to navigate this crazy work world we spend many years in in the healthiest way possible and for me, those 3 skills I gained will bring me a step closer to my professional fulfillment.
It's impossible to touch on unemployment without discussing the financial toll it can have and most certainly had on me. As I said in the beginning and on multiple posts, I've been formally unemployed for 5 months and that means 5 months without a stream of income. Both this and this posts talk a little bit about what I've been up to, but here I wanted to bring up the toll it took on my mental health.
I should disclaim here that I'm incredibly fortunate to have a family that supports me no matter where I am. I'm currently living out of my hometown and have been for the past 4 years. That support comes in the form of actual financial help every month, although not very much (enough for my part of the rent and to pay for our internet), and in the form of visits, crying sessions over the phone, and getting to be with them every month when one of them or my boyfriend offers to take me to my mom's house for the week or weekend. My boyfriend is also the one currently paying for all of our groceries and pet supplies.
Does that mean that I'm not struggling to keep my head above the water? Absolutely not. I hardly go anywhere in the city I'm living in, my credit card payments are mostly late and I've had times where I couldn't have dinner until my boyfriend came home from work because I couldn't afford to go to the supermarket on my own. Money shortage is no joke, but I'm lucky enough to have my bare necessities met and I don't have children to feed or clothe.
I think it's important to state all of that, not to brag about how wonderful my family is or to have you pity me, but essentially to be realistic with my readers. I wouldn't have been able to even have this blog if it weren't for them and they deserve this recognition.
Also, do not compare my experience with your own. I'm here to tell you are not alone, and hopefully, explain my story well enough to be relatable, but not to share my magic recipe to get out of it or even to say you need a context like mine. We all have different problems we face and the solutions do come in many forms.
So back to what unemployment brought me in the form of mental health concerns. As I've been in this spot for the last 5 months, most of my problems and things I tend to vent about with friends stayed mostly the same. I worry about money a lot, I worry about how much it will be before I secure a decent income stream, and I worry about what would happen to me and my dog if I were to break up with my boyfriend for some reason. Every so often, I tend to retract myself from social groups because I don't want to seem whiny or bother them again with the same problems I can't seem to solve.
I also, from time to time, have these periods of crazy insomnia where I tend to sleep every other day and spend the whole night in my head thinking of all the terrible scenarios that could happen to me.
I have paralyzing anxiety when I'm deep into a recruitment process and don't land the job in the end.
All of those things are recorded here to show you that no matter your previous financial situation, the future is never certain, and that is ok. It is something I'm wrapping my head around bit by bit and learning to better prepare myself for.
I'm not one to leave on a down note, but I think that respecting the difficulties of this period is healthier than masking it. So until the next post!
X.O.
IAS
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