How to cope with depression due to problems finding a job

Fatal day

I remember very well the day I was fired. I even shed a stingy man’s tear and had no idea what to do next. However, the pity was not for myself. I needed to take care of my family, and there was no place to get money from. Walking farther and farther from my former office building, I had no idea what would happen next.

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The acute feeling of powerlessness changed my entire future life. Many of the lessons that were subsequently learned would never have arisen in that former, comfortable life of an office clerk. I was thrown into the mud and had to climb out on my own.

Work revival

To support the population, the authorities of many countries - for example, the USA, Denmark, Japan, Spain and Germany - began to distribute money to citizens. In Russia, the idea of ​​“helicopter money” was abandoned, but a large-scale package of rescue measures worth 4 trillion rubles was introduced. In particular, 13.5 billion rubles were allocated to pay unemployment benefits, and all oil revenues - 555 billion rubles - were spent on helping families with children.

4

trillion rubles

allowed to fight the pandemic

With the lifting of restrictions, the situation begins to gradually improve. The Russian Ministry of Labor believes that the crisis in the labor market has been overcome. The Kremlin acknowledges the increase in unemployment: “In our country as a whole, the unemployment rate has increased slightly,” the head of state stated, “but in Arkhangelsk it has grown a little more than the national average.” According to President Putin, until new jobs are created, attention needs to be paid to those who are temporarily left without work.

Photo: Gleb Shchelkunov / Kommersant

The government is going to help citizens who find themselves unemployed due to coronavirus by allocating three billion rubles for their retraining. It is not specified where the money will be taken from - from the budget or from savings in the National Welfare Fund. Also, a list of possible new professions for citizens has not yet been published. “I am confident that new skills will open up additional opportunities in the labor market for those who suffered and will help overcome difficulties,” says Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The government hopes that Russians will be able to acquire new skills and master in-demand specialties. These now include, for example, e-commerce, logistics and distribution.

Strategies for success

Many people associate the crisis not only with job loss, depression and financial collapse. This economic phenomenon helps people find new ways and solutions. Active, goal-oriented people are not afraid of a crisis, they simply adapt to it.

There are two categories of behavior of people who have lost their place of employment. They have two behavioral strategies - successful and unsuccessful. A person is able to make his own choice: which one he chooses.

Unemployed people with a successful behavioral strategy have in their arsenal a great initiative potential, a desire to get out of a state of temporary financial lull as soon as possible. They do not make it a priority to find exactly the job they were doing before the crisis. They are able to retrain under any conditions. This category of people has a huge optimistic charge and a willingness to move forward towards the future.

An unsuccessful behavior strategy is characteristic of people who expect someone else to do everything for them. They are able to passively wait for help, refuse to take responsibility for decisions, and are constantly looking for a reason to refuse the employer.

Their complexes about their professional unsuitability do not give them the opportunity to present their skills in a way that is favorable to them. Even financial instability does not stimulate them to new searches for self-realization. These people are not ready for changes in life and the crisis eliminates them from the labor market.

World sadness

The coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions imposed because of it have hit the global labor market hard. According to a recent study by the consulting company Boston Consulting Group (BCG), up to a third of the world's population - almost two billion people - are at risk of losing their jobs.

The world's largest economy, the United States, at the peak of the pandemic suffered from record unemployment since the Great Depression; in April, more than 20.5 million people lost their jobs there. By late summer the rate had dropped to 10.2 percent.

Photo: Scott Heins/Getty Images

The eurozone is also experiencing a historic decline: GDP fell by 14.4 percent. Among the countries, Spain is facing the most difficult situation right now, where new outbreaks of COVID-19 are emerging. Against the backdrop of a disastrous tourist season and the need to reintroduce quarantine restrictions, the country's economy lost 18.5 percent.

Over the past three months, almost all sectors of the Spanish economy have contracted, but COVID-19 restrictions have hit retail trade, transport, tourism and the restaurant business the hardest, with combined losses of up to 40 percent. Restrictive measures accelerated unemployment: in three months it increased by 15 percent. Analysts believe that tens of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises could go bankrupt by the end of the year.

How to help yourself

In the social sphere, there are certain categories of people who fall into the so-called risk group when looking for a new place of employment. These are young mothers, disabled people, students without professional experience. Unemployment has its own growth trends, but it is not fatal. You just have to follow some simple rules and everything will work out:

• You must always have a neat appearance and maintain your physical shape;
• take the initiative, show activity, enthusiasm;
• do not hesitate to seek help from psychologists, social services, and recruitment agencies;
• you should look for a new use for yourself;
• You always need to stay up to date with developments related to finding your business.

Advanced training, training in a new specialty, the opportunity to temporarily switch to seasonal work - this is what can be allowed in a modern rule-of-law state. Employment centers are a social service that can open up such prospects for those who wish. But the main thing is to do something for this, not to give up and not to be lazy.

By improving one’s qualifications and retraining, a person can find himself in something new. Even if it doesn’t immediately bring in a lot of income, it doesn’t matter. Things don't always start out quickly and smoothly.

Life is structured in such a way that all crises occur in the same way:

• recession - depression, fear of the new unknown, fear of losses;
• rise - search for other sources of income, gaining new knowledge, self-improvement;
• reaching new levels of well-being.

“There is a lot of bullying, especially from the older generation”

Andrey (23)

decorative plasterer

– Depression is like diving into a pool. It starts smoothly. You deny the existence of this very absent-minded state, when there is no way to fully function. You lose motivation, you lose the strength to work. And then a moment comes when it becomes impossible to deny that you feel bad.

My depression started when I was sixteen. At first I convinced myself that it was laziness. It's not bad for me - it's just so boring for me. For some time I simply ignored that I had some problems.

When I was studying, it was easier to deny difficulties. Yes, everything went wrong during my studies. But the feeling that you are in some kind of system where you need to perform specific tasks brought me together internally.

By the age of eighteen, my functionality had dropped so much that the place where I live turned into a garbage dump. I felt like I needed to do a Fort Boyard-level action to get out of bed.

I have a tense relationship with my parents and I couldn't turn to them for help. There were (and are) a couple of close friends to whom I told something. But I tried to limit the amount of negativity that I leak. Everyone has their own problems. In addition, depression is a condition in which simply talking does not particularly help.

Most of the time I felt dissatisfied. I didn't like where I was or what I was doing. But I didn't have the strength to change anything. I felt helpless and depressed.

When I tried to think about what made me happy, I found that my brain twisted it in such a way that it became even worse. It was difficult to talk about my condition, because my thoughts resembled porridge.

In addition, my performance has dropped greatly. Previously, I could work for two hours, but now, at best, I worked for half an hour. A lot of useless advice around only increased the irritation. People advised me to take a walk, watch a comedy, listen to funny music.

Therefore, I myself began to look for the reasons for what was happening to me. I came across a center for borderline conditions, from where I was redirected for medication.

At nineteen, through the military registration and enlistment office, I was diagnosed with recurrent depressive disorder. The psychiatrist from the military registration and enlistment office, when I was hospitalized, told me: “You are a man! How can you, as a girl, suffer over all sorts of nonsense!”

After this, it’s difficult to trust doctors. But I still walked on them. They had to be changed periodically. We, especially in public hospitals, have a rather primitive attitude towards depression and depressive disorders. Sometimes a doctor may say to you: “Who has it easy now?”

Psychology and unemployment

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind when we are not working is the loss of money we suffer and how economic problems can significantly change our lives. The truth is that unemployment not only affects our pockets, but it causes serious problems on a psychological level. Experts even talk about a phenomenon called “unemployment depression.”

The psychological consequences of unemployment are suffered not only by the unemployed person, but also by his family. You can check this out in the article “Parental Unemployment Causes Depression and Anxiety in Children, According to Study”, where psychologist Jonathan Garcia-Allen goes deeper into these consequences and how they affect a person's life without work.

“I had hallucinations and tantrums for a while after that.”

Zhenya

musician and journalist

– Now, after therapy, I understand that I have always been depressed. As a child, I was sensitive, melancholic, and had a hard time dealing with bad events. But it seemed to me that it was like that for everyone.

By the time I was sixteen, my family was in crisis. At the peak of the conflict, my uncle beat me. We called the police and filmed the beatings. For some time after this I had hallucinations and hysterics. But then it seemed to let go.

I felt really bad after breaking up with my girlfriend. Even now I feel like it sounds primitive. But all my motivation to live was built around her, and then she left. And I didn’t have time to simply cry. It was my first time in a foreign country where martial law had been introduced, and I had to somehow get home.

After arriving home, within a couple of months, my health was in ruins and I cut off almost all social ties. I developed substance abuse.

I severely skipped university because I couldn’t bring myself to go there. Everything has lost its meaning. Need breakfast? Go to the toilet? Wash? What for? There is no point in this because I am already dirty, pathetic and disgusting.

All this feels like constant fatigue and pain. You don't know what hurts you because everything seems to hurt. You can only lie and think: when will all this end?

My close friend, who observed all this, said that I needed psychotherapy. I thought I'd go to counseling. It won't make me any worse. That's how I found out that I was depressed.

I was lucky to have a close circle. Most of them are sensitive enough not to laugh at depression and not advise going to the factory. With strangers everything is much more complicated. From one psychiatrist I heard that you need to pull yourself together, start actively doing something with your life, so that you have a “real masculine character”

My depression hasn't gone away yet. I take antidepressants, go to therapy, try to be more involved in my health. I also do psychoactivism. I write about mental disorders and participate in events to help people better understand how it all works.

Depression has been dealt with for years. I definitely feel better now than before I started treatment.

Stages of getting out of depression

If depression has already taken root, it will not be possible to cope with the illness in two days. It will take a long and difficult process, which involves several stages:

You need to sort out your thoughts, fill the frightening unknown of the future with a clear awareness of the prospects. Reorganize your thinking in a positive way. A person needs to think that millions of people are facing this situation. It is possible to survive it. Sooner or later there will be a way out. The main thing in this situation is to act, no matter how difficult it is. When a person constantly thinks that he cannot find a job, depression will develop rapidly. This is an objective process

Therefore, it is important to gradually rebuild your thinking. Every day I say in my thoughts that everything will be fine, nothing is unattainable, I will definitely be hired. Think over an action plan

The goal is to get a job. Actions – daily viewing of vacancies, sending resumes, calls, interviews, online monitoring, reading useful articles about employment. It is important to stick to the plan, constantly do something, and not pay attention to numerous failures and difficulties. Ask for support from family and friends. You can't be alone. Excellent support - playing sports, regular walks, visiting interesting places. Seize every opportunity. If there is a problem with money, accept any offers. It’s better to find a simple job and earn the minimum wage, while looking at more suitable options, than to sit at home depressed.

At risk

The crisis will slow down the country’s development for at least two years, and four more will be needed to cope with the losses. At the same time, the authorities are confident that Russia suffered minimal losses.

According to official data, 3.39 million people are considered unemployed in Russia. Another approximately 0.4 percent of employees may be laid off in the near future. Considering that 54.3 million people are employed in the country, approximately 217 thousand workers are at risk of losing their jobs.

Photo: Maria Sivokhina / Kommersant

However, the scale of the problem may be underestimated, since official statistics only include those who have registered with the labor exchange, and not everyone does so. According to estimates by the Russian Confederation of Labor, the real numbers could be many times higher—up to eight million people. Moreover, the most vulnerable sectors are trade, consumer services, administrative and support work, as well as the service sector and the transport industry. The industries least affected by the pandemic are logistics, consulting, chemical and fuel industries, and metallurgy: there will be minimal cuts or no cuts at all.

At the same time, the number of vacancies for which Russians who have become unemployed can apply has decreased several times. According to estimates by FinExpertiza analysts, in June there were almost two officially unemployed people per vacancy (1.8), while in March (before the introduction of restrictions due to COVID-19) this ratio was the opposite: there were two vacancies per one unemployed person.

General characteristics of depression

To understand the problem of the influence of the disease on the employment process and develop effective ways to counteract it, you must first understand the causes and nature of the state of depression.

Depression is a mental disorder that manifests itself in a decrease in mood and a person’s loss of the ability to enjoy life. In psychology, the disease is called an affective disorder. It is progressive but reversible. There are several stages of depression:

• light,
• average,
• heavy,
• chronic.

Signs

The main manifestations of depression are the following:

1. Bad mood without objective reasons for a long time (more than 14 days).
2. Decreased self-esteem.
3. Negative attitude towards yourself, others, your future.
4. Inappropriate feelings of guilt, fear, pessimism.
5. Loss of interest in life, habitual activities that no longer bring pleasure.
6. Decreased concentration.
7. Sleep and appetite disorders.
8. Oils about the meaninglessness of life, suicide, hopelessness.
9. Loss of strength over a long period of time (from one month).

The severe stage of depression is characterized by a “triad” of manifestations:

• decadent mood
• slowing down of mental reactions and processes,
• motor retardation.

Development mechanism

The development of depressive disorders can be caused by a variety of dramatic experiences and negative events:

• death of a loved one,
• a sharp change in the usual way of life, loss of the usual social status,
• development of certain physical diseases,
• side effects of medications,
• excessive loads of stressful situations on the brain,
• severe psychological trauma in childhood,
• alcohol or drug addiction,
• lack of heat and light.

The main reason for the development of affective disorder also includes the problem of job loss.

Treatment options

Depression is a global problem. In the modern world, this disorder is the most common. Mental depression seriously affects your ability to work and your health.

Treatment of depression is carried out in several ways:

1. Medication. Prescribing a course of antidepressants - drugs that affect the intensity of hormone production that improve mood and well-being.
2. Psychotherapy is a treatment system based on the impact on the psyche.
3. Social therapy – integration of a person into social relationships, restoration of connections, inclusion in full interaction.
4. Physical exercise. Loads allow you to activate physiological processes, including the production of “positive” hormones.
5. Music therapy, art therapy, dance therapy.
6. Occupational therapy.
7. Aromatherapy.
8. Light therapy.

The success of treatment depends on accurate diagnosis of the causes of the disease. The use of specific treatments depends on the severity of the depression. The most common way to counteract the disease is by taking medications. This method is used at all stages.

For mild and moderate disorders, psychotherapy and social therapy are effective. In severe stages, other methods are tried. To increase effectiveness, mixed courses of treatment are used - medications plus psychotherapy.

How to avoid depression while looking for a job

Simple, even banal things that we are told about in childhood help to avoid apathy. As doctors say, “rare diseases are rare, common diseases are common and are treated the same.” Finding a job is a common story.

1. Increase your physical activity. Swimming pool, jogging - any activity will do. It would be good to exercise in the morning.
2. Take a break. It’s good if you have a hobby that will help you temporarily abstract from your job search. For example, start learning foreign languages ​​or programming. When the brain is focused on an emotionally neutral task, it rests. The idea is to reduce the amount of time you spend thinking about looking for a job and lift your spirits.
3. Eat right, regularly and in silence. It is better to eat in silence or during a neutral conversation. The main thing is that you feel the taste and texture of food, and do not get lost in anxious thoughts about work.
4. Monitor your sleep patterns. Give yourself permission to... stay awake or wake up at night. Sleep is an assistant that lets you know how well you lived your day. Worried too much - get the call you need
5. Take a cool shower before bed. There is enough research to prove that it has a good effect on your mental state. Don't you know how? Listen to classical music or sounds of nature. However, you can choose any other relaxing ritual you like.
6. Get out into nature more often.
7. Communicate more. The more informal communications, the greater the chances for positive changes. Pay more attention to those who we like and who like us. Communicate less with those who criticize.

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Fighting depression

Stress-resistant and self-confident people perceive dismissal as temporary obstacles and hidden opportunities. Correct perception of the fact of dismissal will allow you to get rid of internal tension.

To combat depression it is used:

• auto-training;
• refresher courses;
• cognitive behavioral therapy (in case of prolonged depression);
• new interests and hobbies;
• meditation.

Working on your thinking and body allows you to change circumstances that the former employee is not happy with. The more control he gains, the faster he will dismiss difficulties as an impossible obstacle.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is used in extreme cases when a person is unable to independently break out of the vicious circle. This technique is based on the work of a psychoanalyst with a person experiencing a crisis. During the classes, the reasons for beliefs and attitudes that prevent a person from correctly perceiving difficulties are determined. Gradually, incorrect attitudes are replaced by new conclusions, which the person comes to independently.

Working on thoughts

Without working on your thoughts, it will not be possible to achieve a positive long-term result. Thoughts are the basis of a person’s actions. They determine her behavior, her actions and reactions. Work on thinking can be carried out in conditions that are comfortable for the unemployed. Auto-training is based on the daily repetition of certain motivating phrases. Such phrases are called affirmations, they promote the development of positive thinking. Over time, the unemployed person gets used to the phrases, begins to believe them, changing his own thinking.

Think positively for quick results

Meditation is used to clear thoughts of negativity. The relaxation technique allows you to disconnect from the outside world and concentrate only on the main tasks. Buddhists believe that daily meditation for an hour helps to put life in order and find harmony. Choose a comfortable, quiet place for meditation. You can also use special relaxing music.

Body work

Constant physical work on yourself to maintain harmony

Work on the mind will be more effective if you do not forget about the body: harmony consists of two equal parts. It has been scientifically proven that exercise can help cope with depression and inner feelings. Group classes are also useful. New acquaintances will help a fixated person open up and let go of some of the anxiety.

Yoga classes combine relaxation techniques and physical activity. Exercises put the body in order, increase its tone and relieve excess tension in the muscles. Such activities are useful for people who do not like running or working out in the gym.

Daily walks in the fresh air help improve the mood of a man or woman. It is useful to leave the walls of the house, where disturbing thoughts haunt you. Field trips will help restore relationships with your family and begin a frank dialogue. Such activities are also good for the body of an unemployed person.

Partial eclipse. How to Cope with Depression at Work

There were 40 minutes left before the planning meeting when, as in Brodsky’s poem, I realized that I simply could not leave the room. Okay, from the apartment. There was no strength left at all, my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Outside the door a hostile and chaotic world began, and the prospect of navigating the subway seemed like an impossible task. And what useful thing could I squeeze out of myself at a meeting? I sat down on the floor in the middle of the kitchen and, looking at the blurry screen, typed another unconvincing text message to my boss about my sudden illness. Just six months earlier, I had started a new job on a dream team, with a promotion and big plans for the future. Around the same time, the doctor prescribed me the first antidepressants.

If you add up all the man-hours that the World Health Organization says the world's population lost due to the Depression in 2012 and convert them into years, you get 75.6 million years. Some patients completely lose their ability to work, others continue to work, but much less effectively: with the disorder comes not only a decline in mood, but also increased fatigue, problems with concentration, memory deterioration and a general decline in cognitive functions. Solving a problem that would previously have taken an hour can take three, and failure to switch the language layout on the keyboard the first time can sometimes destroy self-confidence for the whole day. Problems arise with organizing processes and making decisions: a depressed person may become confused and “freeze,” even if he needs to perform a simple sequence of actions, for example, boil a kettle and make a sandwich. The body also experiences stress: sleep is disrupted, appetite deteriorates, immunity is weakened and blood pressure rises. Therefore, the frequent feeling of fatigue is not just a perception distorted by depression, but a very real physical condition.

The advice so beloved by narrow-minded well-wishers is “get it together, you wimp!” it doesn’t work here: this problem cannot be solved using purely forceful methods, but using a whip is very easy to drive yourself even further into a dead end. But at the same time, indulging in frustration is also not an option. For people with any ambitions, the “vegetable regime” quickly ruins their self-esteem, which is already vulnerable to depression, and they find themselves in a vicious circle: “All I do is lie on the couch, so I’m not capable of anything, so I can only and all that remains is to lie on the sofa.” Simple routine operations help you feel busy, but not overtired: wash the dishes, answer letters, make a couple of calls according to a prepared script, check a text for speech errors, write a formal report. But for creative workers, this is not a solution: they are expected to be involved and creative.

During three years of treatment for depression, I tried different ways to engage in creative tasks and maintain an acceptable pace of work, no matter what. As a result, I managed to do without major fakaps, participate in several interesting media projects and write a book. Below I offer a list of techniques that ended up being the most useful. Of course, depression can occur differently in different people (some do not lose their ability to work at all, and the disease manifests itself only through psychosomatics - this is called masked depression), so my advice may not be suitable for everyone. Nevertheless, they help to build a life schedule as a whole and are good at counteracting the popular symptoms of the disorder.

Time management and organization

Estimate how long you can complete the project if nothing interferes with you, and multiply it by one and a half. This is the minimum that the customer should be told.

The method of “first try to do the job somehow, even poorly, and then bring it to standard” reduces the level of anxiety and perfectionism. If you start doing anything, there is a high probability of “warming up” in the process. It’s the same with brainstorming: if you come up with and write down 10–20 idiotic ideas without self-criticism, things usually get off the ground.

For those who have problems with structuring, a flipchart may be useful. It is convenient to draw umbrella diagrams on it: place the topic/main idea in the center, and at the tips of the rays there are sub-chapters, theses or associations associated with it.

It's useful to make a list of simple, routine, non-creative tasks in advance in case you sit down at the computer and realize that your brain has turned into a pumpkin. And keep it on your desktop or in your browser bookmarks. Since depression makes it difficult to make decisions, ready-made algorithms provide relief. They can be planned in advance with the help of someone close to you.

Most depressed people feel groggy in the morning and then improve in the evening. If your emotional schedule does not differ from the typical case, it makes sense to schedule things for the second half of the day.

Evaluation of results

If, while working, you have the feeling that the project is catastrophically failing, try to make it as specific as possible: what exactly is wrong? Don’t be satisfied with vague answers from your inner critic like “it’s just complete crap.” Is the design annoying? Boring and unclear? Are you clearly too stupid not to mess up such a complex topic? All this can and should be tested on people who are able to objectively evaluate these parameters.

If you are feeling depressed or anxious, it is important to temporarily give up trying to objectively evaluate the quality of your work. You are not capable of this now. It’s good to have rationally thinking people around you whom you trust and who will promptly point out logical inconsistencies in your catastrophic picture of the world. Important! Precisely on logical inconsistencies. Not “everything will be fine,” not “you’re great and I believe in you,” but “your text can’t be too boring and too frivolous at the same time.”

It's also good to have verifiable and relevant measures of success and resist the temptation to discount them along the way. For example, the approval of people whom you yourself consider to be cool specialists. And if they approve, believe it.

It doesn't matter how much you beat yourself up if it doesn't help your productivity. If you haven't done anything today, it really doesn't matter whether you've been shamelessly hooked on a new series or spent the entire day crying over a file and trying to pull yourself together. If you begin to notice the uselessness of your own feelings of guilt, this helps to abolish it as an ineffective tool.

Motivation

It is important to learn to separate abilities and skills, and if something doesn’t work out, ask yourself: “Maybe it’s not that I don’t have enough brains/talent/will, but that I don’t have the necessary skill.” ? And if so, how to master it?

Discussing the topic of the project with those who are interested in it helps to cope with anxious thoughts about “no one will need this.” There is no need to retell all your ambitious plans - just tell a funny detail and see someone else's animation.

One of the worst thoughts when you're depressed is “this will never end.” Here you need to constantly keep in mind that the current situation is temporary, even if now it seems hopeless. Your uplifting reading is the stories of bright people who successfully overcame depression and, having recovered, created something beautiful and useful.

Renowned psychiatrist and depression and bipolar disorder researcher Kay Redfield Jamieson believes that periods of depression are conducive to deep thinking and can in some ways be productive for creativity and mental work. Those patients whose cognitive functions are less dull during periods of low mood (but still lack the strength to work intensively) can devote this time to analyzing what has already been done or planning future steps.

Relationships with people

In the eyes of the customer/employer, it is important to remain, if not super efficient, but at least as predictable and consistent as possible. If something goes wrong, it is more beneficial to communicate it in advance and prevent an even bigger disaster than to sit in a stupor or hope that despair will give you strength three hours before the deadline.

If you clearly won’t be useful at work today, it’s better to plead ill health and take a day off (and it won’t even be cheating!). But it would be good to invest the freed time in something useful: for example, take a walk in the park, do light exercises or do yoga, and then try to solve the simplest of current work tasks or write down all the upcoming tasks in the organizer.

It is better to answer calls and letters immediately - at least something, let people see that you are alive and you care. At worst, you can come up with a universal phrase like “Hi, of course, I remember about this task, now I’m under time pressure, I’ll write the details soon.”

There's no need to try to do everything alone if you clearly can't handle it. Many depressed patients suffer from impostor syndrome (a persistent feeling that you have achieved success undeservedly and this is about to be revealed): it often seems that when you ask for advice or help from colleagues, you are giving yourself away and you will be exposed as a pathetic and incompetent layman, but in fact this is a common work situation.

People who have come a long way from beating themselves up about their worthlessness to accepting that they have a disorder may be tempted to build a new self-identity around their struggle with depression. But it’s strange to think that depression defines your personality more than, for example, gastritis or scoliosis. This is a completely prosaic breakdown in the functioning of the brain, unpleasant, but common. With this approach, it will be easier for those around you to treat the situation with understanding: at least they will no longer suspect you of trying to wrap yourself in a Byronic cloak.

It is worth thinking carefully about with whom to share feelings associated with depression, and how to avoid an overdose. If you just want to be held in your arms, you can ask a loved one to hug you without a detailed description of recent symptoms. If you are concerned about a problem, you can reformulate it into a task: requests for practical advice are usually received better than complaints. This does not mean that you need to completely abandon frankness, but it is important to ensure that you do not tire anyone too much with it (except for the psychotherapist - he is used to it).

These tips, based on personal experience, will help you better cope with internal chaos, but they will not replace going to a psychotherapist, much less treatment with antidepressants.

Remember that your life is not just about finding a job

When the last 500 rubles are left in your pocket, when all your friends on social networks consider it their moral duty to constantly ask you: “Well, did you find a job?”, when you visit sites with vacancies every hour, it’s very easy to have a nervous breakdown.

Yes, finding a job is your top priority right now. But don’t forget that your life is passing. And in the cases described above, it passes in agony. Yes, you are looking for a job, but this does not mean that you should give up training, hobbies, friends - everything that brings you joy. And it’s unlikely that your future employer will want to see on his team a nervous, exhausted, gloomy person, which you will very soon turn into if you live with only one thought - to find a job.

Don't console yourself with the idea that you will live life to the fullest once you find a job. If you do not know how to be happy every minute of your life, even if these minutes fall during difficult times, you do not know how to be happy in principle. And as soon as you get the long-awaited job, you will immediately find many other reasons for suffering.