How long does it take to recover from losing your job?

It has been a while since I posted to my blog. For many of you who may not have known, about 2 years ago, I was laid off. Since my last post, I had many interviews and gained employment. I am one of the lucky ones and am grateful for it. However, I left that position after a year, which made me wonder about it all and leads me to this post.

How long does it take to recover from losing your job? How long does it take to feel 'normal', again? For me, I am just starting to feel like myself, again. The past few years, I felt like I was on a heighten stage of self-preservation. My actions might have been purely to retain my job and secure my future. I worked like crazy, cutting back on time with my family to work. The rationale was that if I should lose my job, how would I support my family? So, for their sakes, I worked. Sorry, kids, no vacation this year, 'cause what if I lose my job and we have no income coming in? Yes, I had emergency funds, but what if...

I often wonder if my reason for choosing the last position was due to the shock of losing my job, that I went for a 'safe' position, with a steady company, rather than risking it on a smaller company. Would I have taken on that other position if I was not laid-off? Would I have gone a different route, taken a little more risk? Perhaps... Coming back to my initial question, for me, the answer is around 2 years. I finally am able to breathe some sighs of relief. I am able to regain back that confidence that I once had, that I am an employable individual, that I had some marketability left in me. We now take that vacation. More important, I make time for my family. In fact, I made a decision after the first year of employment post-laid-off. I will always make time for my family. I could die tomorrow and all that my kids would remember is Mom working, not spending time with them.

Sometimes I feel employers don't think about the impact they have on their employees after a lay-off. Well, I can tell you for sure that it is long-lasting and deep. It doesn't go away for quite a while. It makes me think of the song by Sheryl Crow where she sang, "the first cut is the deepest". So true! In fact, I wonder if it would ever go away. I think, in the back of my mind, it will always be there.

How's about you? If you have ever been let go from your job, how long did it take you to feel 'normal', again?