Any jobs out there for me?

As someone with a solid record of emotional resilience, I did not anticipate how much the job hunting process would bruise my mental health.

by Georgia Tendall

Although the national rate of unemployment has been on a fairly steady downward trajectory since late 2011, it remains a crippling issue for the 1.38 million Brits who have not yet escaped its grasp. When I returned from a seven month-long backpacking trip through Asia and Australia, I quickly became part of this statistic. The last remnants of my savings now existed in the form of a loosely rolled up selection of foreign currency, amounting to a grand total of five pounds and thirty-two pence. Aimless and in debt, I settled in for the job hunt.

As someone with a solid record of emotional resilience, I did not anticipate the extent to which this process would bruise my mental health. Naivety spawned optimism, which served me well, for a while.

Optimism soon turned to frustration, however, as the countless hours I had dedicated to tailoring my CV and rewriting cover letters led me nowhere.

Frustration became guilt, which became frustration once more, and so on, and so forth. At home with my father, a simmering tension slowly hit boiling point, exacerbated by our newfound proximity to one another: the result of his retirement and my unemployment falling into alignment. One by one, the friends that had never been more than a twenty minute walk away began to pack up and move out. They belong to Brighton, Bristol, and London now.

I was incredibly fortunate to be able to return to my childhood home after graduating from university, but I cannot deny the sense of isolation that ensued as I realised that all fondness I felt for my hometown was rooted in the friendships that had existed there. Loneliness gradually emerged as my only companion, and loneliness is fundamentally unkind to the mind.

It took a little while for me to fully recognise that I was experiencing loneliness.

As an introvert, I have always found contentment in my own company. I have no doubt that social media helped to fabricate a distorted sense of togetherness; a comfort blanket of sorts, which blurred the lines between inclusivity and detachment. Navigating reality in the digital age has also proved burdensome, owing largely to the rise of influencer culture that permeates the online sphere.

In an article recently published by Forbes, it is claimed that the top ten highest earning YouTube stars raked in a joint total of $180.5 million in the past year alone. The platform’s top earner, with an income of $22 million, is a seven-year-old boy. In second place sits one of YouTube’s most controversial content creators, Jake Paul, who, at the tender age of twenty-one, earned a staggering $21.5 million.

Success suddenly appears so accessible, as an ever-increasing torrent of attractive young men and women sporting expensive jewellery and Gucci loafers inundate our timelines and subscription feeds. Although I try to remain acutely aware of the deception and idealism at play on social media, the subconscious is woefully absorbent, and somewhere, buried deep, is the inescapable feeling that, at twenty-three, I too should be attaining that level of success.

As the months passed, I felt myself sink into hopelessness. My failure to secure a graduate job coupled with this strange seclusion and the looming shadow of my unpaid overdraft had become a plague on my mental health, culminating in a somewhat public breakdown in the middle of a pub on a busy Friday evening. What began as a pragmatic conversation about my circumstances ended in a stream of tears as the frustration, despondency, and fatalism that I felt so tightly shackled to suddenly overwhelmed my senses. Four months of inner turmoil now manifested itself in this outpour, and the catharsis that followed was a welcome surprise. It provided the clarity I needed to make some active changes to my lifestyle and reinstated a level of control over an otherwise turbulent situation.

Somehow, in the immediate aftermath of this moment at the pub, I gripped my burgeoning depression by the hand and marched it to the door.

One of the simplest yet most significant additions to my daily routine, or lack thereof, has been walking. Exercise as therapy is a concept so frequently thrust upon anyone suffering with mental health issues that it can often feel perfunctory and insincere, but I found it unexpectedly effective not only for the subtle release of endorphins, but for its contribution to breaking down the barriers that I had created for myself while job hunting. The comfort of solitude that I so ordinarily enjoyed was, by this point, self sabotage. I was confining myself to my bedroom, churning out job applications and wallowing in self-pity.

Forcing myself to get dressed and leave the house was pivotal in re-establishing a connection to the world beyond my window, and, above all, it offered me respite.

For the thirty minutes or hour that I was out walking, I allowed myself to rekindle my natural curiosity and fully digest my surroundings whilst a suitably emotive Spotify playlist provided the perfect soundtrack to my reawakening.

Music is compelling. Its healing powers are well documented. In recent months, however, I have also heavily gravitated towards podcasts. It has been almost a year since I was introduced to the world of podcasts, and in retrospect it’s hard to comprehend how I went so long without them. It seems that I am not alone in this revolutionary discovery, as the arena is progressively becoming condensed with new series. In general, I relish podcasts that examine current affairs and pop culture, explore the arts, or discuss the speaker’s personal narrative. These shows are not only educational and entertaining, but also typically present a glimpse into a stranger’s reality—their vulnerabilities, triumphs, and quirks included.

In the midst of my dejection, I thoroughly appreciated the extent to which these thought-provoking conversations bridged the gap between myself and others, and allowed for reflection.

Where music fades into the periphery, podcasts keep the mind stimulated. For me, their impact cannot be understated. They rescued me from tedium and injected a healthy dose of inspiration.

Almost five months have passed since this regrettable chapter of my life began, and while I still haven’t landed the graduate job that I had hoped for, I am now working part-time in a local café and am finally beginning to repay my debts. This in itself has alleviated an immense amount of pressure and has silenced my most urgent concerns. In a magnificent display of sheer luck, I have also secured a placement on a work experience programme in London, and am somewhat sheepishly pursuing my passion for writing. Objectively, my experience with unemployment has not been disastrous. Many people, through no fault of their own, are less fortunate. It can be catastrophic if you have families to provide for and bills to pay. Nevertheless, unemployment retains a universal toxicity and the ensuing depression does not discriminate. Perseverance may seem an impossible venture, but it is your closest ally. In the meantime, it is imperative that we identify our own remedies and summon the energy to implement them, or seek help if all else fails. We can do this. ■