Keywords: unemployment, hopelessness, jobless,unemployment rate, Michael Dixon, Robert L. Leahy, Elizabeth Landau
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
Living at a friend's house without paying rent, he spends all day searching online for job opportunities and more short-term ways to make money, fearing that if he stops to watch TV, he'll miss something.
"It's kind of like a feeling of 'I can't believe this is happening to me,' and a sense of hopelessness," said Dixon, a 38-year-old Seattle resident. "You really, really, truly start to question who you are."
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Michael Dixon hasn't had a job since September, but he's definitely not relaxing at home. |
"It's a really nasty cycle that plays on you psychologically," Michael Dixon says of unemployment.
Dixon, an experienced software test engineer, knows he's not alone in his jobless turmoil. The unemployment rate in the United States is at 8.1%, but that doesn't include people who haven't been looking for a job recently.
Deceptively, the unemployment rate will likely drop this summer, but that's because federal extended unemployment benefits are running out for an additional 115,000 people. That statistic doesn't capture just how many Americans have been desperately wishing for a job for a long time.
Psychologists point out serious mental health consequences of being in Dixon's situation for a long time.
It's common for people who have been unemployed for six months or longer to show signs of depression, says Diane Lang, psychotherapist based in Livingston, New Jersey. Eating habits focus on comfort foods, leading to binging. Stress, anxiety and negative thoughts make it hard to get a good night's sleep, resulting in fatigue and lethargy.
"Being unemployed is actually one of the most difficult, most devastating experiences that people go through," said Robert L. Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy and author of "The Worry Cure."
Research suggests that being unemployed doubles a person's chance of a......Read more
