Knocked Down But Not Out -
Laid Off and Lost after 9-11
g. m. johnson, phd
Laid Off
Being laid off is a frightening, emotionally painful experience. Your well-being is threatened, Your self-worth can seem questioned, your emotional equilibrium can be seriously thrown off. You may experience feelings of sadness, loss and guilt. No one around you is left unaffected. Family and friends can also experience anxiety, anger and stress. Colleagues not laid off can experience anger, anxiety and a sense of loss of stability as well as guilt feelings (termed "survivor guilt") about still having their jobs. Managers can experience anxiousness about their job performance and job stability and intense feelings of guilt because of their sense of responsibility to subordinates. Acquaintances and even strangers can react to reductions in force with emotional upset and anxiousness.
It is common to experience a great deal of anxiety about the stability of your entire life style, your ability to keep your possessions and even your home. It is common to experience periods of intensely disturbing anxiety about your ability to even live or keep your loved ones alive. It is common to catastrophize about your situation, making your sense of a terrible situation into a monstrously frightening situation that can feel completely overwhelming to the extent that you may feel suicide is your only alternative.
At any time that anyone has a lot on their mind, it is common to become easily irritated and easily defeated. You may find yourself snapping angrily at loved ones and giving up on things far more easily than you characteristically do.
Lost and Confused
A very common reaction to reduction in force is to feel lost -- especially in the context of war, a serious down-turn in the economy or a significant shift of the economy away from industries in your area of experience, training and expertise. Norms are not normal. The "usual" stuff is not usual. You may experience a feeling of mild to intense confusion.
Anxiety intensifies these feelings because the body and brain are hard-wired to react to threat by readying the body and mind for running or fighting at the expense of all else. The more complicated thinking areas of the brain reduce function so that the parts of the brain responsible for running or physically fighting can do more. Digestion is partially shut down, leaving that queezy, almost sick feeling. But there is no clear danger to physically fight or run from.
In the initial days and sometimes weeks after you find out you are to be laid off -- in spite of what seems like obsessive thinking -- you may experience a feeling that you can't effectively mentally grasp and hold on to any clear perspective or understanding of your situation or your prospects. This can add to your sense of anxiousness and stress.
Knocked Down
Feeling "depressed" in the common sense of the word is not the same as being "depressed" in the psychiatric sense of the word (often referred to as "clinically depressed). Garden-variety, kicked-in-the-teeth-by-life depressed is just a temporary state of not feeling hopeful and not feeling like doing much, being with others or having fun. Clinical depression is all that plus physical changes in brain chemistry that can cause thinking to become increasingly negative and disordered.
Feeling depressed can result in clinical depression if it goes on for more than two weeks. It is important not to let yourself give in to the temptation to engulf your mind in negativity and bury yourself in your bed. It is important not to let yourself give in to the temptation to snap at and be angry with those closest to you. It is important not to give up on previously enjoyable activities that don't seem satisfying any more.
If you feel depressed for more than two weeks, get professional help. Depression is not to be indulged. It is a dangerous disorder that can muddle and mess with thinking to the extent that ideas that would usually seem crazy, seem sane. Everyone is vulnerable to extremely disordered thinking when depressed.
Not Knocked Out
Though you may be knocked down, you are not yet knocked out. It is important to remind yourself of this fact. Though you may be out of a job, and may even be out of a life-style (either temporarily or permanently), you are not out of a life. There are all manner of alternatives for the human spirit and the human tenacity. We are not our jobs -- in spite of short-cuts in language. An accountant is really a person who happens to work as an accountant. A travel agent is not just a travel agent, he or she is a person with prospects and abilities beyond the set of skills that afforded the monthly paycheck for putting people together with airlines and hotels.
Reality Massage
How you look at things is important to how much stress and anxiety you carry around in the aftermath of layoff. How you look at things can influence energy levels, sleep, self-care, motivation, patience, irritability and problem solving.
Reality can be massaged. You can look at being laid off as being a direct reflection of your value as an employee or you can look at being laid off as one of the painful consequences of war and/or economic upheavals. Both are painful realities but one is much harder on self-esteem. You can look at being laid off as a frightening part of being a little, insignificant cog in the machinery of commerce or you can look at being laid off as a frightening part of being in a world at war. You can think of yourself as going out into the job market with your tail between your legs as a displaced person not needed elsewhere -- or you can think of yourself as going out into the job market as one of the many citizens needing to revise his or her role in the war-shifted economy of your nation. You can look at the sudden changes in your situation as evidence that God (by whatever name) and/or whatever cosmic or celestial forces there are have you on their hurt-list -- or you can look at the sudden changes as some part of a Greater Plan that God, the cosmos or whatever you believe in have for you that you're supposed to have Faith in and not necessarily understand. You can look at layoff as a disaster that is going to bring doom and destruction to plans, hopes and dreams -- or you can look at layoff as an opportunity to re-evaluate your life, your goals, your activities and your values.
Close Support
Support from family and friends is very important to sustaining efforts at re-evaluating and re-establishing your place in the job market. Though for some stupid reason we all tend to take out our irritability, frustrations and fears on those closest to us, it is important to try to avoid such behaviors and do your best to sustain a mutually supportive relationship with loved ones and friends.
Talking about things is important for us human types to keep our thinking optimized and important to our sense of security, hope and motivation. The expression, "two heads are better than one," is very true. Without discussing thinking and logic with someone else -- some trusted other -- thinking is vulnerable to subtle flaws in logic that can become, over time, quite twisted and distorted in ugly, self-defeating, damaging and even dangerous ways if not "tested and fine-tuned" by discussion.
Other Support
When it seems that discussing fears or problem solving with those closest to you might cause your loved ones to be fearful or hurt, reach out to professional help. Whatever your situation, whatever your country, there are emotional counseling resources available somewhere. You need only ask around. In the US, because of national and local efforts to assure the availability of such services, counseling or assistance in finding counseling is available at local mental health centers, hospitals and social services offices and in the phone book. There are public and private counseling services available within driving distance of every community. If you are uncertain how to find these services, the mental health association in most states and often other institutions offer "crisis hotlines" for people looking for some sort of guidance and help or for referrals to counseling and other services. Job service and vocational rehabilitation services offices can also be a starting place to find some sort of counseling and guidance and possibly begin the search for a new vocational direction.
Again, if you don't have someone to discuss your thinking with, your thinking can get very strange. This is a simple fact of life for everyone -- no matter how smart -- and is not reflective of weak-mindedness or weakness of will. Not talking to others -- not checking your thinking -- is indicative of being more afraid of finding out if your thinking is stinking than of harming your life and the lives of those who rely on you.
Take responsibility
Take responsibility for your reactions to being laid off. Take responsibility for the way you look at your reality. Take responsibility to remain as flexible and open to ideas as is possible for you. Take responsibility for keeping your sense of humor and your Faith in whatever higher power you believe in.
Take responsibility for your well-being -- practice good stress management techniques, eat right, sleep right, avoid excessive spending or reliance on drugs or alcohol. Be prepared for being extra irritable and stressed, talk with others about your feelings and thoughts and make a point of having some quality fun as often as is possible without depleting financial resources or missing opportunities for other employment.
War
Talk of war is frightening to the extreme but can be a rallying cry that helps everyone pull together. As noted above about the massaging of reality, one can look at war's ugliness and chaos and feel drowned in the fearfulness of it. However, if you are laid off because of war, your circumstance is such that you can expect to find much more support than if simply laid off by the whims and subtle turnings of the world's economy. Presenting one's self to potential new employers as someone laid off because of war is very different than presenting one's self as someone laid off because of a reduction in force because their former company wasn't apparently making enough profit from one's efforts.
Warning Signs - Danger Signals
Be watchful for the following signs that you may need to change how you are handling things -- and the possibility that you may need to reach out for professional assistance via counseling or psychotherapy. Clinical depression can complicate things but denial will only complicate things further. As noted above, anyone will tend to be "depressed" about being laid off. If this becomes clinical depression, thinking and problem solving can be seriously impaired and very disordered, distorted thinking can devastate your situation even further -- psychotherapy and medications and possible psychiatric hospitalization will increase the hurdles between you and return to work. The sooner depression is caught and dealt with, the quicker it is treated and behind you.
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Feeling very "depressed" for two weeks can mean depressive feelings may be of sufficient severity to require psychiatric and psychological treatment. Two weeks is generally the marker at which it is believed brain chemistry may be altered to the extent that depression will not remit without treatment.
Losing interest in formerly enjoyable activities is a danger signal that should not be ignored. Though you may not feel like going partying in the hours just after being laid off, if you allow yourself to brush off opportunities to do things you have enjoyed you may be contributing to your own depression. It is important to maintain enjoyable activities -- with the exception of the expensive ones. If you find you cannot enjoy usually enjoyable activities -- especially if this has gone on for over two weeks -- this is a warning sign of clinical depression and the need for professional help.
Getting sick more often or feeling tired all the time are indications of depression and inadequate coping strategies for the problems at hand. This should be addressed responsibly when recognized. Simply attending to each illness with pills and visit to a general practitioner MD may not be sufficient. This is a warning sign of depression. Clearly, returning to the job force will be very difficult if illness interferes with job interviewing and other job hunting activities.
Using more alcohol or drugs is a common response that carries a strong potential for increased stress, depression and problems. Drugs and alcohol tend to cause an increase in financial problems and conflicts with others. Use can increase illnesses, reduce energy levels and diminish your ability to problem solve and react responsibly to job search opportunities. Alcohol and drugs have a strong potential to increase the likelihood that you will be further disabled by clinical depression.
Increased tendency towards procrastination on tasks related to job hunting or activities of daily living can be a danger sign of oncoming depression. If you find yourself being increasingly given to putting things off and find yourself increasingly not ever getting around to doing them in a reasonable manner, get some help.
Fights and hurtful snapishness with family, friends and co-workers will ultimately result in diminished supports, diminished coping options and increasing guilt and other negative feelings. Either knock it off or get help knocking it off by visiting with a professional who can help.
Increasing isolation is both a common tendency to hurt and a very counter-productive coping strategy. Humans need human contact -- maybe not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- but if you are isolating yourself, you are moving into depression. Either get yourself up and back into socializing with friends and family or get yourself into counseling to find out why you can't bring yourself to do so.
If suddenly you can't "be responsible" by bringing in a steady pay check, you can at least "be responsible" by making sure you're maximizing the likelihood of finding a new job by making sure you are living as mentally and as physically healthy a life style as you can.
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Get enough sleep. If you are having trouble sleeping, exercise more or see a doctor.
Get some exercise. Nothing counters the negative effects of stress and anxiousness on the body like some good exercise. Exercise will use up and dissipate mental and muscle tension, will keep you generally more healthy and will help you get sleep.
Keep drugs and alcohol at a minimum. In most cases this means none.
Don't try to do it alone. If you are from a social species, you need others. Homo sapiens is a social species. Thus, if you are homo sapient (e.g., human), you will not function well if you isolate yourself or push others away.
Don't deny yourself activities and socialization just because you don't feel like doing anything. This becomes a viscous cycle if you deny yourself fun things -- you feel less and less like doing something fun. On the other hand, if you push yourself to engage in things that were feeling fun before, they'll start feeling fun again and you'll stay mentally and physically healthier.
Eat right. Your mind and body need good nutrition to work right and to keep functioning at optimal levels. Being laid off and fearful about finances is not a good reason to decide to save money by going without eating and is a poor excuse for turning to the refrigerator for comfort and support. Eating right for as little money as possible is okay as long as this feels like a fun challenge and not like you're wallowing in poverty.
Work on spirituality, faith and a positive philosophy for your life. Having a "larger view" of things is very helpful in keeping spirits up. Recognizing that in 100 years, it probably won't matter that you got laid off -- but that it might matter how you handled getting laid off -- can help. Working to have faith that there is a Plan and hard ship is part of it is good. Buying into the belief that if you are good nothing bad happens and if something bad happens God is punishing you is counter productive, illogical and down-right simple-minded and silly.
Be honest and open with your spouse. Keeping lines of communication between partners open and honest is important to the well-being of your partner and you. Do not give in to impulsive urges to push your partner away because of feelings of guilt or anxiousness. You may want to think through the exact timing for talking about things that are on your mind, but do not postpone talking indefinitely. And don't let yourself become upset if the things you need to talk about are upsetting to those you talk to -- be empathic and patient.
Be carefully honest with your kids. It's important to understand that kids will pick up on stresses. And they'll become afraid and confused and their responses may be intense but very limited by kid-level abilities and limitations in understanding.
It's a good idea to tell kids what's going on within the limits of their understandings. Littlest kids should be assured that everything is going to be okay, older kids should be assured that though things might be tough for a little bit, everything is going to be okay. Teens should be reassured that things are tough and with a lot of effort things can work out okay. Avoid taking it personally if they get upset. If nightmares, bedwetting, depression, acting out or fearfulness begins or significantly increases, consult a doctor or mental health center.
If married or partnered, avoid rat urges. If two rats are put into a box with no escape and the floor of the box is electrified so that it hurts their feet, their reaction is to attack each other. Does that make any sense? It is true, though, sensible or not. Rats aren't generally studied to understand rats (few people really care). Rats are studied because of their similarities to people. Locked into the tough and painfully worrisome situation of being laid off can seem like you are in a painful box without any apparent escape. If you are in it with someone -- and if you are married or otherwise partnered with someone, you are in it together whether they have a job or not -- try to avoid giving in to your rat urges to attack each other.
Biting the Bullet - Getting Some Help
If you need to see a counselor, you need to see a counselor. Many people will try to deny, rationalize and blatantly lie to themselves and others to avoid going to a counselor. Most are afraid to open up about feelings and secrets, feeling they will lose control or be overwhelmed by emotion and look foolish. Some people don't want to go to a counselor because they want to feel bad -- they don't want someone taking away their feelings and fears or they feel they deserve to feel bad because of some sense of guilt. Almost nobody actually admits that to themselves or anyone else. Most say something like, "Why bother going to a shrink? What can a shrink do for me? He's not going to put the World Trade Center back up -- he can't stop the fact of terrorism."
True. A counselor won't change the basic facts of history or present day life. What a shrink can do, and does do, however, is help you find ways to get back to level-headed, optimal thinking. Shrinks don't zap your head and make you happy with disaster or stupidly relaxed when you should be careful. They do help you remember or discover ways to set aside panic so you can be optimally alert. A shrink can help you get out of or not fall into the many viscous cycles and pits of despair that any normal human being can find themselves in because of accidents of circumstances. A shrink can help you find a way to relax once in awhile so you can work harder, be more alert in general and have maximum levels of mental and physical resources. Going to a shrink doesn't mean you are weak-willed, dependent or dumb. Going to a shrink is almost identical to going to an optometrist -- you get your vision sharpened or fixed. Not going to a shrink when you really know you should is far more evidence of either being or fearing you are weak-willed, dependent and/or dumb than going to one is.
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