I always tried to be honest on my blog. Like some greater blog god was going to judge me and strike me down with spam for not being brutally honest. I won’t lie there were times when I’m like this story would be so much better if I didn’t have to admit that I was feeling like an episode of My So Called Life which wouldn’t be so bad if I was sixteen, but for the fact that I was twenty-seven nearing twenty-eight; adulthood was calling and I had to answer.
Since I’ve been employed now via contract work I’ve been playing in pseudo-employed world. Having a job and feeling self-sufficient has been euphoric, but honestly there’s a post-traumatic unemployment disorder (PTUD) that’s become a part of me. I’ve talked to friends who’ve felt similarly after being laid off. It’s this late-night-in-your-head-never-leaving-nagging-voice that waits for the floor to disappear. When is it going to happen again. When I’m going to be left with nothing. It has nothing to do with the present and all with the past and while I struggle to regain fiscal confidence, I also struggle to regain personal confidence as well.
Today is about my lessons in responsibility in the fiscal sense. When I first became unemployed I took to the phones and called all my creditors. I was on top it. I had to be. The second time I was laid off I was less on top of things. I was moving to a new apartment, looking for new jobs and lost track of a lot of things. Fast forward to the present and having to make a payment so I don’t have a block on my credit report. It’s not a fun feeling. It’s my fault in all senses of the world. It’s my fault for being in debt to begin with. I lived beyond my means and I learned that. Did I need to learn it again and again? No, but that’s life. Should I have paid better attention to the junk mail I received? Yes. Maybe that’s wasn’t junk mail but a credit bill. Lesson learned? Yep. I was able to set-up payments for the next five years. In five years I’ll be thirty-three. That’s a)scary b)intimidating c)hopefully will have less debt and d)learned my lesson from my twenties — I’m hoping for all over the above and for it to be paid in less than five years, but I’m not holding my breath.
My biggest lesson from my latest fiscal crisis was learning that there are lot of stories out there from people like me. I started this blog when I needed an outlet. I need to work on my writing, I needed to keep my family up-to-date and I needed something for me. How does this all fit together? My credit card helper yesterday asked me the normal questions. How did this happen? What’s your situation? The usually why haven’t you been paying you credit card bills. I answered truthfully and looked for help on getting payments lowered. It was after that conversation that he shared his story with me.
He had been laid off for nine months. A former police officer, his wife was pregnant when he was laid off. This job was paying 1/3 the amount he used to make, but there was opportunity for growth. He just had to start at the bottom. We shared our stories and talked about our own survivals. It was brief conversation, but it was empowering. There are so many of us out there whose lives have changed. Some minimal, some in extraordinary measures and while there are a lot of stories being told, I’d like to continue to hear them. If anyone wants to share their story with me. I’d love to start interviewing people. This is something I’m not sure where it will go or what it will turn into, but it’s something I’d like to understand better. This kind of work has been done before. On my own quest for the meaning of my life and what life is, I’m reading US: Americans Talk About Love. John Bowe’s writing about relationships. I am writing about relationships with jobs, unemployment and the personal attempts at growth that one can never turn away.
I’m not sure what will happen or where this could go, but I do want to hear you stories. I want to know if you are employed now if you struggle with PTUD, and if I’m the only a quest to find out if there is a greater meaning or if I should just shut that part of my brain off and become a robot. 2009 was the year of the unemployed/funemployed and it seems to have passed. Where have all the unemployed blogs gone; there are stories are out there. Share yours. Have we learned anything?
