The author reflects on their experience of being laid off during the Great Recession, a moment marked by emotional struggles as they navigated the challenges of parenting a young child. Despite facing financial pressure from a newly purchased home and high mortgage rates, they found support through their husband's steady job. Following their first layoff when their son was an infant, the author learned valuable life lessons about resilience, coping with shame, and the ephemeral nature of job insecurity, ultimately framing these challenges within a broader life perspective.
The experience taught me to let go of shame and that job losses are a blip in our life.
I walked away with a year's Cadillac-plan health insurance, a lump sum, and bonuses I had saved.
Before my layoff, I had been struggling with post-partum depression. When I got home from my layoff meeting, I lay on the couch and barely got up for three months.
Still, that was not my career's worst day, far from it.
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