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How to make unemployment suck a little less

Losing a job can feel like losing your identity. Here’s how to find yourself again.

When I was laid off from my role as an editor for a magazine in late 2024, logically, I knew what I was supposed to think: Don’t tie your self-worth to a job. After all, it’s just a job.

While I did my best to believe that optimistic mantra, most days — and especially on the ones I scooped up dirty, sweaty towels from rich people at a local gym to make ends meet — I felt hopeless. I had little money coming in for several months, and on more mornings than I’d care to admit, fewer and fewer reasons to wake up. I barely felt human.

As Aja Evans, a New York City-based financial therapist and author of Feel Good Finance, tells Vox, feeling terrible about yourself during a period of unemployment or underemployment is super common. “We really do base a lot of our identity on what we do,” she says, to the point that a career can seem like “the most important aspect of who we are and how we present ourselves.” According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, about 4 in 10 Americans who aren’t self-employed see their careers as a crucial part of their overall identity.

So when you’re out of work, your perception of yourself — and how you’re supposed to present yourself to other people — becomes skewed. There’s obviously a lot more to any human than their job status, but with social structures that value financial success over other attributes (say, how kind or adventurous you are), unemployment can feel painful and confusing.

There’s also a good chance that, as you’re navigating a new budget, you probably don’t have as much extra money to spend on pleasure — perhaps you have to decline dinner and drink invites, or put off long-anticipated trips or concerts. Making the (smart!) decision to pull back on certain expenses can feel extra isolating.

If any of this is resonating with you, know that you’re not alone: Layoffs are incredibly common across all industries, and a lot of people are struggling right now. Here are some tips from people who have gone through it (or who are there right now).

Allow yourself time to grieve the job — and the life — you had

Though Domenica Davis, 47, had an inkling that layoffs were going to affect her role as a national broadcast TV meteorologist almost two years ago, that didn’t make the news any less difficult to digest. “It was shocking,” she tells Vox. “I thought, Oh my god. What am I going to do?”

Felicia Penza was 30 years old, pregnant with twins, and preparing to relocate from........

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