Depression After Job Loss: Reclaiming Achievement & Self-Worth

This article is part of my broader reflections on emotional resilience and personal growth after job loss.

When I was retrenched by my employer, the shock was immediate and overwhelming. I had never imagined that something like this could ever happen in my career. I had completed two MBAs and multiple certifications, believing that continuous learning would strengthen my knowledge base and help my career shine. Despite all of that, I lost my job. What followed was far more insidious-I didn’t just lose my work and income; I lost my sense of self.

What surprised me most was not the financial uncertainty, but how deeply my body and mind reacted. I felt exhausted all the time. Even when I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep through the night.   Sleep became elusive, Nights stretched endlessly and my body ached, and illness became frequent. This fatigue was not just physical - it was also emotional and mental.During that phase, something subtle yet more dangerous was happening. My mind slowly erased my awareness of who I had been and what I had achieved. I stopped loving and respecting myself. I began to see myself as a complete failure. I felt deeply depressed about my current state of being.

Depression has a quiet way of repressing achievement. It doesn’t announce itself loudly. Instead, it whispers doubt. It convinces us that our past efforts no longer matter, that our skills are irrelevant, and that our earlier successes no longer belong to us.

For about six months, I lived in this fog. I couldn’t imagine how I would survive the crisis I was facing, let alone resolve it. Then one day, I closed my bedroom door, looked at myself in the mirror, and spoke to myself with complete honesty:

“Swati, you don’t have the luxury of staying depressed. You have to believe in yourself. You have to find the courage to give your best time and effort to resolve the crisis you’re going through.”

That conversation with myself didn’t magically fix everything. But it gave me directions. I began to discipline myself gently-not harshly. I realized that the loss of money had also resulted in the loss of respect and affection from people around me. And if I didn’t love and respect myself, I would never be able to get my life back on track. With that realization, I began by focusing on restoring my health. I listened to my body. I rebuilt small routines. As my energy slowly returned, so did my clarity. And with clarity came productivity.

Most importantly, my achievements stopped feeling distant and irrelevant. I began to recognize that the same person who had built a career before still existed. I was wounded-but I was not erased.

By changing my mindset, I enabled myself to invest time and consistent effort into rebuilding my career. With that psychological transformation, I started earning again. Although the income was much lower initially, it encouraged me to keep trying and gave me renewed hope about my future.

This experience taught me something profound:

Depression doesn’t mean we lack capability. It means we’ve temporarily lost access to our inner record of strength.

If you’re navigating job loss or emotional burnout and feel disconnected from your own achievements, please know this-your achievements haven’t disappeared. Those are waiting for you to be reclaimed, at your own pace, with compassion, confidence, and courage.

If this reflection resonated with you, you’re warmly invited to stay connected. You don’t have to walk this path alone.