Job Hunting is Affecting My Mental Health

I’ve been at my current job for two years now and I'm not having a good time, to say the least. I’m someone who believes that anyone who works has the right to complain about their job no matter how much better they may have it than the next person. If you’re not one of those people, I’d navigate away.

I work at a psychiatric facility for children and adolescents that is, all in all, very run down and poorly managed. It eats at me nearly every day that I went into debt for a psychology degree to essentially babysit mentally ill children. I could go into a “If I knew then what I know now” rant, but I won’t.

We’re underpaid, understaffed, and underappreciated. I work 12 shifts mainly with the children’s pod because they’re rowdier and the other staff members refuse to go over there. It’s a mixture of up to 10 children from ages 4-12 with a whole host of diagnoses and behavioral issues. Most of them have poor social skills and will fight and destroy property when they’re upset or don’t know how to express their needs. It gets stressful and with management more worried about the color of the walls or suspending employees for being even 1 minute late rather than the mental health of their employees, it’s very easy to get burnt out. I cried at work yesterday because the patient I was assigned to observe got put on an even tighter observation even though he hadn’t done anything to warrant it. It also didn’t help that I found out three of my coworkers had put in their two week’s notice. I’m 1 of 3 staff members who started back in 2019. The rest couldn’t leave soon enough. I don’t know what they’re doing and I don’t want to assume, but I can’t help but think they’re doing a lot better. I don’t think anyone has ever regretted leaving.

I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to express my job frustrations to anyone. Not even my therapist. All I get back is, “Well, have you tried applying for other jobs?” I want to rip my hair out. No, I hadn’t even thought about applying. I just thought someone would pluck me off the street and give me a job. Of course I have. I’ve spent who knows how many hours applying for hundreds to thousands of jobs and interviewing. They just won’t hire me. It’s beyond embarrassing to admit that I’ve gotten rejected from all the jobs I’ve applied for in the past year and a half. I blame a capitalistic society and how employability is intrinsically connected to the average American adult's sense of self.

I started job hunting in February of 2020 because I had only planned to work in my current position for a year. I was very naive back then. A month after that, the pandemic started and jobs either put a hiring freeze in place or were laying off employees. My mother thought I should’ve been more grateful to have secure employment in such “uncertain times”. I wasn’t. We stayed on strict quarantine measures for months at a time when employee after employee tested positive for Covid-19. Then there was the outbreak amongst the patients in late December. I’d been directly exposed numerous times, but managed to remain healthy somehow. I am grateful for that, but I’d had so many panic attacks and breakdowns that even being vaccinated didn’t do much to ease my anxiety. I eventually became complacent and stopped applying for jobs all together. Now the restlessness is back.

It’s not as if I’m applying for jobs I’m not qualified for. I have the education requirements, the experience. In some cases I’ve applied for jobs I’m overqualified for to give myself a better chance. I research interview tips. I get my sister to look over my resume to make me sound better on paper. Nothing has worked. My mom tells me to pray. I feel like I’ve run out of options. I see my coworkers moving on. Days turn into weeks, then months. I feel like I’m at a standstill which has triggered an ongoing existential crisis. I have no solutions and I’ve spent hours spiraling over my place in this world, what I’m truly meant to do, if this is it for me, if I have to take out more loans to go back to school, if I even want to utilize my psychology degree or take a completely different path. The more I think, the more depressed I get. I struggle to get up when I have to go to work. I spend most of the day feeling irritated. I lash out at people who aren’t even close to the issue. I struggle to motivate myself. All because the rejects I’ve dealt with in the job hunting process have made me feel unemployable, and therefore, useless.

I know how dangerous it is to tie my self worth with how employable I seem to be, but it’s a lot to unlearn. Employment and income are more directly tied to one’s mental health than most are willing to admit. Not being able to afford a certain standard of living can leave many feeling empty. Not acing the interview can make even those who are more confident, wonder what they did wrong. Living paycheck to paycheck without funds to make even one “unnecessary” purchase leaves many without healthy outlets. Being one emergency away from poverty is incredibly stress inducing. Having to work yourself to a pulp getting overtime in order to pay for necessities is enough to want to end your life. And as much as I’d like to tell myself that this isn’t real life, it is.

So what can we do? We live it. We find stupid little things that bring us even the most miniscule flutter of joy. We use escapism to cope sometimes. We create. We call our friends. We cry. And we cry. And we cry. But we keep going. We have to keep going.