Upon getting fired, Olivia, her head down, feet shuffling, sweaty hands carrying her bankers box full of personal belongings, made her way through the busy office. Eyes downcast, focusing only on the floor, and avoiding all contact with any other living thing, she shuffled out the nearest exit towards the parking lot feeling all the shame, embarrassment, and humiliation that this experience brought  her.

“Have a nice day.”

A rather sad, but a rather common occurrence just the same.

Just a short time ago, Olivia was regarded as a productive member of society, a “really good person.” She was someone who could always be counted on. Someone who mattered. Now, because she finds herself jobless, she may not be held in such high esteem. And that’s just part of what unemployment means to her.

It also means a lot of unwanted emotions are now Olivia’s best friends who may never, ever leave her side. Emotions like emptiness, the feeling of failure, desperation, and the fear of just about everyone and everything will now govern her life.

And it brings the one searing question that will occupy most of her thoughts: “How in the hell am I going to make it through until tomorrow?”   

And honestly, how many times do we get to sit down with anyone, and I mean anyone, and really talk about that part of being unemployed? Rarely, if ever.

We simply just never get it out.

A long time ago I remember reading an article about soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. After serving his 12-month duty in the war zone, the typical combat soldier was airlifted out by helicopter, taken to the nearest air force base, where he then jumped on a plane headed back to the U.S.A. In other words, if he left on Monday, he’d be home (“back in the world,” as they called it) by about Tuesday.

In contrast, the soldiers coming home from World War Two after their service was over were put on a big boat with all the other soldiers that took weeks to bring them home.

Well, someone in the Defense Department took a look at the incidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) between the Vietnam Vet and the World War Two Vet, and among all the many reasons for this disorder, he concluded that one of the reasons PTSD was higher during Vietnam than World War Two, was that those returning from World War Two had time, important time, to decompress. They had time to sort some of the madness out. Time to speak with other soldiers on that big slow boat about shared experiences. Time to at least face down some of the demons and begin to heal.

For those serving in Vietnam, there was no time. On Monday, the fighting man was somewhere in the dense, water logged jungles being shot at by an enemy he couldn’t see, and existing somewhere on the seventh circle (the outer ring) of Dante’s Inferno. On Wednesday, he was back in the world, shopping for cake mix and trying to act normal.

I tell you this because, well, it’s something I know, and now it’s something you know. I also tell you this because even though I am not comparing combat in Vietnam to you getting fired, you are at least a little bit, like the Vietnam Vet. You are not given any or enough time to even begin to heal.

Let’s try and not forget about Olivia.

My advice? Let’s talk about it.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

Read this carefully: No matter where you live, big city or small, you cannot look for a job 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Similarly, no matter what important job skill you are proud to have, not a lot of employers may find it as attractive as you would want to believe.

There are just going to be days when (1) Nothing is going on. (2) You just can’t face any more rejection today. (3) The job(s) that is/are available, are not jobs you would qualify for anyway. If you’re not a plumber, you’re not going to get a plumber job. If you’re not a junior account executive, you are not going to get that job either. (4) The NCIS marathon is on today from nine in the morning until eleven o’clock at night. Just promise yourself, “I’ll give it hell tomorrow.”

So what to do? Again, going on fear, we’re afraid that when the husband/wife comes home he or she will magically just know you have wasted another day of job hunting. It’s uncanny, and rather spooky, but they know.

My Advice? Do one of two things. One of these includes lying about what a tough day you had looking for a job (which is wrong), but remember, you’re not doing so well, and you just can’t emotionally afford one more argument.

But first, you can try telling the truth. “I looked in the want ads in three different papers, got on the computer and hooked back up with Monster.com and Findmeafrigginjob.com and nothing. Checked with my Facebook page. Made some callbacks. Not a Goddamn thing. But look. I’ve got some nice pumpkin pie filling all warmed up for you. MMMMM.”

I can’t seem to find this key on my computer. Damn.

That will work for a while. Funny thing is, your life partner, your sweetie pie, your number 1 guy or gal knows the unemployment rate is high, and everybody is scrambling around trying to save themselves. But as the saying goes, “All politics are local.” In the end your significant other doesn’t really give a shit what is happening nationwide or even down the block. He or she only cares about what’s happening under his/her roof.

And all there is not so good.

Now I don’t recommend this next little thing, but what the hell, how can it get worse? On those days that you know there is nothing for you out there that day, make the bed. Go to your closet and get out your suit and tie and a clean white shirt. Put on the clean white shirt and tie and prance around the house for a while. After you have wrinkled everything up a bit, go back to the bedroom, take off your shirt and tie and place them sort of haphazardly on the bed. Throw your suit pants over the bedpost. When your spouse gets home, she will see the clothes and have what she believes is physical proof that you at least tried to find work today. “Bless his little heart.”

Sorry, but this is my idea of prancing.

Ladies, this works for you as well. (Besides, you prance better than we do.) Except do this with a dress or a pants suit.

Now look me in the eye and tell me honestly that many of you reading this haven’t already performed this little trick. You have, haven’t you? It’s pathetic, isn’t it?

It’s wrong, and you hate yourself, but you’ve already had 25 knock down drag out fights about how the hell you’re going to make it through all of this, and you really don’t have the energy for number 26. Acting out this little lie simply gets you a reprieve and through another day. And remember (I am truly speaking from my heart, here) there just isn’t always a potential job out there every day. There just isn’t.

One last thing before we leave this post. I wasn’t sure where to put this section, but since we’re talking about job hunting, this is about as good a place as any. It’s your personal hygiene.

I know, I know, the way you look, dress, and smell is ultimately pretty much up to you. But I’ve got to tell you, you’re looking like shit lately.

There are, I’m sure, lots of reasons for this: depression, anxiety, the feeling of worthlessness, emptiness.

Well, you get the idea.

Again, there’s a whole bunch of psychology pertaining to this, but in a nutshell, add up all those depressing thoughts and it all boils down to how much energy it’s going to take you to get yourself cleaned up every day, and how complicated it all is. Unless you have an interview for a job that day, what is the point of it all?

Regardless, keep up with your damn hygiene. Why? In a word, well, actually two: “self respect.” Don’t lose your self respect. You can be poor and jobless and out of money and feeling lonely and desperate and at some points during the day utterly uninvolved with the entire universe.

It’s all right. It’s OK. Remember, you’re human, and emotions filled with “bad humors” will often times get the better of you. I realize how hard it can be, but a shave and a hot shower every damn day actually is good therapy.

My Advice? Stay clean, people.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

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Why You Hate Yourself

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Being unemployed, your days and nights will take on whole new dimensions, many of which may not be too beneficial.

If you have habits (good or bad), chances are, they will be magnified. One example is smoking (this represents one of your “crazy” friends). If you are a smoker, you will smoke more. Really a big revelation, right? Well, maybe not, but you need to realize you’re not smoking more just because you have more free time to do so.

You’re probably smoking more because while you do have more free time, it’s also because (even though smoking constricts all those little blood vessels that are also clogged with pork rinds and all that goo from Taco Bell), the act of smoking brings an emotional calmness down upon us like nothing else. It’s a fact, smokers smoke more when they are under stress. In its own mysterious and charming way, smoking is soothing, calming, and refreshing. Where you’re going to get the $10.00 a day for these things, I don’t know, but going against all medical advice, I do not advise you to quit right now. Too many changes all at once never works out.

The truth is you will smoke more because it gives you something to do. I admit, sitting on your couch (until Gary’s truck pulls up and whisks it away) and watching Ziva pistol whip one of the bad guys into submission, is mesmerizing and somehow sexually stimulating, but it’s getting on to noon, and you really haven’t done anything else all day. Go have a smoke.

Face it, you are not used to sitting around doing nothing. At least smoking gives you something to do besides aimlessly wandering around the house. You have to get up off your lazy, unemployed, no-account, fat ass and go outside and light up (outside, because nobody is allowed to smoke inside anymore. God, how I sometimes hate the 21st century.).

The signal your brain is really sending that prompts you to smoke another is, “Hey, shouldn’t you be working on the Digby Account? What the hell are you doing sitting down? Get off your lazy ass and do some work!”

Well, you still ain’t got no work to do. But you feel anxious all of the time, and your brain is asking you to physically move around a bit. Smoking gives you something to do with your spare time. So, you get up and go outside and light up. Time after time after time after time.

Same thing with drinking. Yes, it dulls the pain, and yes, it’s fun. But most importantly, it fills up those empty hours that used to be productive for you. You get up and go to the kitchen. Find a glass in the cupboard and fill it with ice. Pour in the whiskey, and go back to whatever inactive thing you were doing. Sip it. Focus on it. Savor it. Taste it. It’s the same thing you were supposed to do with that expensive chocolate or imported cheese but can’t afford. Before you know it, 10 minutes have passed. Rinse and repeat. It’s now two o’clock in the afternoon, and my, time sure does fly, doesn’t it?

The sad reality is that it’s not the emptiness of the days, or weeks, or even months that affect you while you remain jobless. It’s the minutes and the hours that pass by oh so slowly. Every minute, every hour, of every day will often pass by slowly and agonizingly. Those minutes and hours need to be filled with something. So more drinking. More smoking. More eating.

Ahh, yes, eating. Let’s not forget the eating. Again, it’s really odd that there is almost a direct, inverse relationship between having money and eating and having no money and eating.

When you were employed and came home after a long day as a productive member of society, many times you dragged your sorry ass in the door and threw something down your throat that was dinner like, then grabbed the remote and planted your tired ass down on the couch and watched Monday Night Football.

Now that you have no job, are seeing your finances dwindle away, and the simple fact that you did nothing productive between nine and five today, you seem to concentrate a bit more about what and when you eat.

There’s a whole lot of psychological mumbo jumbo mixed up in all of this, but don’t discount it. Eating a lot has the same tranquilizing effect that smoking and drinking has. It soothes us. It calms us. It fills up those unproductive minutes and hours for us. Up to a point.

These days you are not as physically active as you once were. Your physical activity has dwindled down to, well, nothing. It has been replaced by worry and doubt and all those other “bad humors.” But you’re anxious. So to take the edge off, you eat. Then as you pass by the living room mirror on your way back to the TV, you catch a reflection of yourself. Your fat self. Your disgusting, unshaven, Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze T-shirt wearing, fat pig of a self. And do you know what you do?

You eat that big ass sandwich anyway. And the chips. And then find a piece of that leftover pie hiding behind the milk. And you eat that too.

Why? Because, “Ijustdontgiveashitanymore.” And you cry. You cry because you know you are turning into someone even you can’t stand.

My Advice? Stay tuned. We will try and figure this out together.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

When you are jobless and broke, one very important thing you need to do is tell everyone including the wife/husband, the kids, the dog (or replacement dog), and anyone else who lives with you, that until further notice, protocols when calling the house have now changed.

“If anyone of you is out and needs to call the house phone. Let it ring twice. Hang up, then call again. That will be our new, special family signal. Won’t that be cool? Now, if you’re home and the phone rings, listen to the rings. It should ring twice, then stop. There needs to be a pause. Then you will hear the phone begin to ring again. At this point you may answer it. Everybody got that? Listen for the pause. No pause, no answer.”

Gee whiz, you ask. Why on earth would I want to do that? Again, we do this to temporarily (remember the “Pause” button) avoid all of the potential worrisome calls from shall we say, “certain types of undesirables” who do not have a “Pause” button for you.

If you do not do this, you will actually crouch down behind the kitchen counter every time you hear the phone ring, because you just know it’s a bill collector and they can actually see you and know you’re home, and why aren’t you answering?

If you engage this system, but for some stupid reason, pick up the receiver before you you make sure it’s your “special signal,” you will hear a voice on the other end of the phone say, “Mr/Mrs. (insert your name here) this is Gary, (probably that guy from New Dehli your former boss told you about. You know, the one who could do your job for one tenth the salary) from (insert the name of the finance company here). Where the hell is my money?”

At this juncture I can only advise you to try and work out some sort of restructuring of whatever debt he is talking about. If you are unable to do so, tell him to send his boys over and take your couch. It’s a real nice one and quite comfortable. Tell him to sell it. That will at least help pay off some of your debt.

Gary will not find this funny. In reality it’s not, but it’s kind of funny to you. Anyway, what the hell, Gary is in New Delhi, and it will take his moving truck weeks to get to your place to pick up that couch.

My Advice? Hold it together.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

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In case you’re wondering about the title of this entry, these are the final words spoken in the movies Apocalypse Now, Failsafe, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Things don’t always turn out the way we would like, but we go through them only because we have to.

When you’re unemployed and broke, there will be lots and lots of emotions that will often invade your serenity. You’ve got a bunch to pick from: embarrassment, humiliation, frustration, and on and on and on. But there’s one that will pretty much represent your theme song as you go through your daily routines. In fact, it will represent the strongest emotion of them all. See how much you have to look forward to?

It’s fear.

Good old fashioned, “What was that?” “Who’s there?” “I owe how much?”

I know this isn’t totally on point, but I dig the picture.

Remember when you were a kid and how frightened you were to open your closet door at night when the lights were out? Access that memory right now. It’s just like that.

The phone rings, your heart races. You hear a knock on the door and you find a convenient place to hide. The daily walk to the mailbox fills you with nothing but dread.

Phone calls go unanswered. Letters do not get opened. Knocks on the door are ignored. You sweat a lot more, your hands shake a bit, your mouth gets dry. You pace around the house with anxiety. You pull down the window shades. You can’t carry on a normal conversation with anyone. Even if you have caller ID on your cell phone and you know the incoming call is from a friend, you won’t answer it. You don’t sleep very well, and when you do, your dreams take on a real psychotic texture.

To top it all off, your mate is due home soon. And you are afraid. Why? Because you know the first thing he or she is going to ask. Yep, “How was your day? Have any luck?” How many days in a row are you going to have to answer, “Not so good. No luck today.” before you just pop and answer, “JesusChristAlmighty. Stop asking me the same Goddamn thing every day. I swear to God, I swear to God, if anything important happens, I will tell you. Now come over here and give me a big kiss, cuz I love you so much.”

If you are an Unemployed – American man reading this, the “Now come over here and give me a big kiss, cuz I love you so much.” ending is a nice touch. But don’t expect any real intimacy, because honestly, unemployed guys, unless they are like, 18, just don’t get laid. No woman in her right mind is going to have sex with you.

If you are an Unemployed – American woman reading this, that last line will get you laid. That’s because, well, he’s a guy, and he’s a pig boy. He is the dog and you are the pork chop. It’s really pretty simple when you stop and think about it.

For those of you who remember Ray Milland. (And for those that remember when it was still okay to  smoke indoors.)

Get used to the fear that will be your constant companion until this unemployment issue is resolved. You are a human being, full of human emotions. And many of them, especially fear, will come out. It’s natural. You are not going crazy. You are going through what any other human being would go through.

I’m not telling you to “embrace the horror,” but I am telling you that while there is no magical formula for getting past these emotions, don’t let them begin to dominate your thinking process.

Accept them as part of the situation you are in. Right now, you’re supposed to be afraid. With time, I swear to God, you can work through all of this (refer back to chapter 2). Do not jump off the cliff.

My Advice? Realize that what you want is on the other side of fear.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

Spoke with a friend of mine the other day. She had just broken up with her boyfriend recently, and was telling me that she was anxious to put it all behind her and move on. But something in her words and the look in her eyes told me that she was not ready. It reminded me of a passage I wrote in my RealAdviceForTheUnemployed book:

Immediately after you get fired, you  just experienced one of the most significant, emotionally devastating experiences you will ever face.

The worst and the most futile thing I or anyone else can do in trying to help you out of this mess is to calmly (and, pretending that I/we are experts in your particular situation) tell you to sit down and make a list of 10 things concerning this or that, create an inventory of household items you don’t require, so you can sell them at the garage sale you are now going to need to have, and add up all of your monthly expenditures in order to take stock of where you are financially to see if there’s anything you can cut back on right away. 

Now, make a list of 10 businesses you can call on to see what exciting new jobs they have waiting just for you.

ThankyouverymuchIllgetonthatrightaway.

The truth is, lists are nice. They help us organize our thoughts. They give us a visual representation of all the things we need to do, all the prioritization of things that need to be done. And lists provide us with that “map” so we don’t get lost.

Lists are important, but they’re important for those who actually don’t need to make a list. They are important for those who already lead orderly lives and have set schedules that gives them the time to make lists.They are important for those who are thinking rationally and are not (like you are) slowly but surely going quite insane. At this point, your logical functioning is probably on par with a marmoset, and your hands are shaking so much that your penmanship rivals that of your 88 year old grandfather. Make a list? Right now? In the middle of all this?

Bite me.

And as far as those 10 businesses you’re asked to list so you can give them a call concerning new employment opportunities? Not only have your writing skills abandoned you, but your verbal skills have deserted you as well, seeking much much greener pastures with someone who can form a sentence or two that actually makes sense.

Your vocabulary now mainly consists of “Wha?” “Huh?” “I dunno”, and “^#$%&^&@#^*!” This is because without a job to keep your mind functioning at it’s highest level, your I.Q. has, at warp speed, gone from 130 to just below 80. You are now not only unemployed, you are now talking and probably acting like an idiot.

And idiots don’t get jobs.

Is list making what you did when your dog died? Sorry to bring up a sad memory in your life, but it fits. After the passing of your beloved pet, did you think about replacing Rover right away? Did you immediately sit down and list 5 attributes you wanted in a new, replacement dog? Did you create a list of cute dog names to pick from right after he closed his eyes for the last time?

No you did not.

You sat down and had a good cry. I don’t care how tough or studly you think you are, you probably sobbed like a baby, and you didn’t give a shit who knew it.

You then grabbed your shovel and dug a deep hole in your yard (probably in the spot where your beloved friend spent a great deal of his/her time), lovingly wrapped it in a nice white shroud, and cradling it in your arms, carried it to it’s final resting place. Standing at the gravesite with your wife and children by your side, and reading excerpts from Rudyard Kipling’s “A Dog For Jesus,” you cried some more. And you were not ashamed.

When all in attendance at this funeral said their goodbyes, you all hugged one another. Sending the wife and children away, you gently placed the poem into the grave (so Jesus could read it when he received your pet), and you began the final task of covering up the grave alone with your private thoughts and cherished memories, because you needed to finish the last scene by yourself.

You grieved. You say goodbye. You’re still sad, but you went through the proper steps that helped you put some closure on your loss. You healed a bit.

By the way, look up that poem and see if you can get through it without weeping like a little girl. I’m not kidding. Stop reading this book right now and Google that poem. Read it. I’ll wait.

Better yet, watch the video.

See? I told you. You cried, didn’t you. It’s alright. We all need a good cry every so often.

Especially you.

This is just one of the things you need to do when you lose your job. Cry, say your goodbyes, bury it, and move on.

I say “one of the things,” you need to do because we all react to personal losses in our own way. A way that is personal to us. A way that helps us exorcise our hurt and sense of tragic loss. Do not feel guilty about how you do it to manage your pain. This is your way – nobody elses. And you need to heal yourself regarding your loss the best way you can, because before this is all over, before you regain your balance, you’re going to go through some really crazy stuff and you need to be clear headed and strong.

Real strong.

It might not be the best time to sit down and make a list right now. Especially on your computer. Because somewhere in the top 5 things to do, you will write, “Burn down my ex boss’s house.” This could become public at some point and paint you in a bad light, especially if your ex boss’s house actually does catch on fire someday.

My Advice? Stay strong!

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

Well, the President came out with some decent stuff during his State of the Union address the other day (January 20), and offered a great deal of assurances to the American working (and non working class) that things are at least moving in the right direction.

In fact, his speech was so rousing and well received that a full 81% of the voters polled by CNN, rated it as very positive or somewhat positive. Not too bad for a sitting President that has been under constant fire from the other side of the aisle for the past 6 years.

Among all of the things he covered during his just 3 seconds shy of one hour long speech, the economy and the employment rate figures took up an appropriate amount of time. 

But before I get to all of that, let me just say two things here and now:

First, I am an unabashed Obama supporter. Always have been. Always will be. 

Second, My blog tries not to be political. I concentrate on unemployment from a personal standpoint – how it affects you and your personal life. But it’s sometimes difficult to ignore what happens center stage. After all, what happens in Washington as well as state capitals around the country could have (and probably did) affect your current joblessness condition. For that matter, what happens regarding national, state and local issues could affect the future of your joblessness condition.

Now that I have given you the disclaimers, let’s get back to what happened the other night.

At worst, all Presidents lie. At best, all Presidents stretch the truth. And on Tuesday evening, regarding the current employment figures, the truth was, as Bob Uecker used to say, “Juuuust a bit outside.” 

Among the claims President Obama made in reference to the employment/unemployment statistics was, “Over the past 5 years, our businesses have created more than 11 million jobs.” 

Nice.

But the usual caveats are appropriate here. While it is true that so many jobs have been created during the past 5 years, over half a million federal, state and local government jobs have been lost (many in the teaching field). Add to that, the fact that since his time in office, the U.S. lost millions of jobs in both the private and public sector. Boil it all down, and what you get in a net increase of about 6.4 million jobs that have been added during this time.

Not bad, but not the 11 million plus he spoke of. Better than the Bush or Reagan administrations, and far below the Clinton era’s 18 million. A long way to go. But encouraging nonetheless.

One last thing, before I am done here for the day, The president also stated that wages for those that have jobs are finally going up. 

Yay.

True, but between 2013 and 2014, the average rise in hourly wages went up a whopping 40 cents. Average weekly incomes rose about 2.5 percent during that same time period.

Look, I get it. State of the Union addresses are very political, and represent the arguments for an administrations policies. This means that actual context is often missing in them.

What do I mean by “context?” Ummm…. you. I mean you. You are here reading up on advice for the unemployed. The talk about joblessness in this country is all fine and well, but right now, you aren’t in the overall conversation. And you need to be.

It’s really pretty simple: Let us all help each other stay better acquainted with support and advice on helping everyone who enters this forum in the quest for finding a job, as well as help in dealing with the day to day personal problems unemployment brings.

My Advice? Stay with me.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed

“Unemployment.”

It’s the word Sergeant Munch writes in the center of the whiteboard, strategically placed in the middle of the squad room. All the other detectives stand around staring at it in rapt attention, notebooks at the ready. He then circles the word, and draws lines that radiate out in all directions. At the end of each line, he writes the words “depression,” “anxiety,” “fear,” “loneliness,” “failure” and “broke.” He circles those words also.

The camera now focuses in tightly on Detective Benson, sporting her 16th different hairdo of the season. With one raised brow and staring that thousand yard stare, our Detective Benson, speaking to no one in particular in that whispery, mannish voice of hers says, “We’ve got a serial killer on our hands.” Then, Detective Stabler (showing us his entire range of emotions) crosses both eyes and purses his lips. “Let’s just go kill the sonofabitch. You know I need to kill someone,” he responds in his stoic yet ever so slightly psychotic manner. In the end, Fin mutters something unintelligible, because (finally acknowledging the elephant in the room) Ice-T simply cannot act, and Captain Cragen, still refusing to accept his failures as a Captain and a man, shouts, “Fine. Just do it by the book or we’ll have I.A.B. up all our asses!”

Class dismissed.

Sorry for the T.V. reference, but if you think about it, it’s apt.

If you are, or have been unemployed for a week, a month, or, God forbid, a year, that word occupies the center of your galaxy and everything in your life revolves around it. Decisions on where to go, what to do, how to do it, and why to do it, are all predicated on that one word. It is Patient Zero from which all things flow.

Damn.

That is way too much pressure for one person to handle. But I believe there is some hope, and evidently you feel it too, and that is why you are visiting these pages

This blog is designed to help you navigate through what can be the horror show of unemployment, assist you with overcoming a variety of financial obstacles, and guide you through the inevitable relationship meltdowns unemployment brings. If you stay with me you will find that I give some pretty sound advice to (at the very least) mitigate what is unquestionably a truly stressful time in your life.All that being said, let us press on with what this blog is about.

To much of the planet, you are a number on a page. You’re part of the 7.6%, or 7.7%, or whatever number they’re using at the end of each month to explain the unemployment percentages. You’re one of the 13,000,000, no, wait, you have to add in the underemployed, so now you’re part of the 17,000,000, no, wait, you have to add in the numbers of folks that have completely stopped looking for work altogether, so now you’re part of the 20,000,000 unemployed. And on and on and on.

Numbers on a page.

Look at it for yourself. Whether it’s Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN. Turn them on, and when the time comes for them to talk about America’s unemployed, you are simply reduced to numbers. Rarely does anyone, in detail, ever truly focus on what unemployment means.

“Yes,” you say to your TV. “I know you know what unemployment is, Mr. Hannity, but do you really know what it means? Because I sure as hell do.” He, of course, doesn’t. He, like so many others, twirls his little pen, admires his perfectly coiffed hair, and looks completely dumbfounded that anyone would be so naive, so silly, so wasteful, so un-American, as to extend the unemployment benefits for another year.

So what is unemployment, anyway?

• It is the fact that almost 25,000,000 families have had their homes foreclosed upon since 2007.
• Over 2,000,000 families were foreclosed on in 2012 alone.
• Many of the 18,000,000 displaced families are living in cheap motels, with family, or in their cars.
• Recent studies have indicated that there is a strong correlation between significant increases in child abuse and local mortgage foreclosures.
• Just a 1% rise in unemployment was accompanied by a roughly 1% increase in suicide in the U.S. This also true in Greece, Spain, and Italy.
• The rates of suicides between 2008 and 2010 rose 4 times faster than it did in the 8 years before the recession.
• In a recent survey of law enforcement agencies across the country that polled 700 agencies, 56% of them said that in 2011 the bad economy had caused an increase in domestic conflict. A similar survey found that that number was at 40% in 2010.

Now, those facts, as interesting as they may be, explain only what unemployment is, not what it means.

Let’s not confuse the two.  

Just a short time ago, you may have been regarded as a productive member of society, a “really good person.” You were someone who could always be counted on. Someone who mattered. Now, because you find yourself jobless, you may not be held in such high esteem. That’s part of what unemployment means.

It also means a lot of unwanted emotions are now your best friends (like teenage acne) who

never, ever leave your side. Emotions like humiliation, loneliness, emptiness, the feeling of failure, desperation, and the fear of just about everyone and everything.

And it brings the one searing question that is always in the back of your head: “How in the hell am I going to make it through until tomorrow?”   

Those emotions, and so many others are included in what unemployment means. And honestly, how many times do we get to sit down with anyone, and I mean anyone, and really talk about that part of being unemployed? Rarely, if ever.

We simply just never get it out.

And all you want, all you need is to get back to that place you once were and leave all this nonsense behind. I often wonder why most of us don’t completely just jump out of our skins. After all, no matter how busy, or how much pressure you were under when you used to be down at the office, it can’t compare to the pressures of being unemployed.

But there is hope. There are solutions. You can survive this. 

My advice? Stay with me.

RealAdviceForTheUnemployed