Joblessness... the new depression.

Oh, God. It's been SO LONG since I've posted anything. Jeez.  I feel like a jerk.
Readers, if you're out there, show me some forgiveness.
I've been thinking about you. No, really, I have. And I made the executive decision 1, 2, 6, 23 times over the last few weeks that whatever I wanted to write about at that moment wasn't something you'd want to read.  'Cause most of it was bitching. Bitching about winter, bitching about my new workout regime... you get the point.
So now I'm not bitching. I'm just extending the hand of solidarity to so many of you out there who are going through the same thing: joblessness. Unemployment. The new depression.
At times-- like depression-- the shadow of joblessness recedes and you can almost forget that it plagues you at all. Then it crops back up, weighs you down, and rears its ugly head again. Every time you shudder to think of buying something (even if it's something you really need). Every time you think of your long term goals (like getting married or buying a house or travelling to Scotland). Every time you wake up in the morning and stare at the ceiling because you know there's a long day of boredom and frustration ahead of you.
Ontario's youth unemployment is among the worst in the country according to this CBC article. It's not surprising then that I know literally dozens of people in the same boat as me. Thousands of us, being scolded by our parents for "not trying hard enough", competing for crappy-wage positions that we are over-educated for, stuck in the quagmire of anxiety and shame and confusion as we battle with online applications, resumes, cover letters (those infernal beasts) and personality tests. We are the army of the unemployed. Hear us sigh.
What's more, joblessness can play real tricks on your head. Sometimes, I feel a tiny little piece of me that doesn't actually want to get hired. There's still a child in there somewhere petrified of the 9-5, terrified of waking up at 82 and thinking "wow, that's it?", afraid of getting fired for incompetence, scared of waking up in the morning and dreading going to work, put off by the possibility of insomnia and disturbed dreams that I often get when I'm stressed at my workplace (when I'm employed.) There's enough anxiety knock Dwayne The Rock Johnson on his ass.
The sheer boringness of it all doesn't help. There's never anything new or exciting to relate to friends or family. "What have you been up to?" is about the lamest question someone can ask me nowadays. Don't even get me started on the eating for boredom. If there's one thing unemployment has exposed, is that I have a only-slightly-under-control food addiction that encourages me to stuff endless quantities of sweets into my mouth, one after the other, after the other.
But I don't know what anyone is to do about it. It would be great to hop on the Righteous Indignation train and ride it all the way to the EI office (not that I'd qualify). I don't really understand how the government could fix this. People who argue it's all the boomers' fault don't really make a clear argument. I'd love to sling some blame around, but the thing about joblessness is that after seven long months, you stop looking for other people to blame and start thinking: "...is it me?"

Gotta book it for now
xox
JEM