Layoffitis

How does it feel to be laid off?  Let me tell you (since I’ve broken that cherry twice).

Some days you’ll be okay; other days, depressed, despairing and angry. No, you are not bipolar. You’re just suffering from layoffitis, a condition brought on by a permanently droopy economy and duplicitous bosses and co-workers.

Here are the other symptoms:

• You alternate between periods of optimism (“I can get a job!”) and pessimism (I’m a loser!).
• Occasional crying jags.
• An uncontrollable urge to smack rich white people (but you don’t, of course. I’m speaking figuratively). 
• A loss of confidence in your abilities, believing your career is over. 
• Sleeplessness, or waking up in the early dawn, when the sky is a charcoal grey, worrying over whether you will end up penniless and homeless.
• Frequent stomachaches.
• Weird dreams. I mean, really, really weird dreams.
• Being in a constant state of anxiety.
• Lethargy. (“What’s the point of even trying?”)
• You feel sad and lonely at times.
• A loss of hope.

It’s doubtful the American Psychiatric Association will ever endorse a diagnosis of layoffitis. The symptoms are too much like general depression and/or anxiety disorder to make it its own separate ailment.

However, unless the economy improves and employers deign to hire the long-term unemployed, more people will begin to suffer form layoffitis. There will be too many of us to ignore.

Long-term (or repeated periods of) unemployment has a real psychological effect on individuals.

I should know.