Getting laid off has slowly messed with my head? Has anyone been going through the same?

I thought the hardest part would be the money side of being laid off, but honestly it’s been the mental side for me.

At first I was positive and thought I’d find something quickly. But after enough applications, rejections, ghosting, and sitting around too much, I start doubting myself.

The weirdest part is losing my normal routine. My days start blending together and it’s easy to end up overthinking everything and blaming myself even though i know it’s a numbers game.

Only things that seem to help me are getting out for walks, gym/exercise, keeping some structure to the day, limiting job hunting to certain hours and writing things down in a journal instead of letting it sit in my head.

Had anyone being going through this too or found anything that genuinely helped mentally you implemented into your days?

Jobadvisor

It is incredibly common to feel this way, and you are definitely not alone in it. When we think about job loss, our brains automatically focus on the financial survival aspect. But the psychological toll—the sudden loss of identity, routine, and validation—is often the much heavier burden to carry.

What you are describing is a completely normal response to an abnormal situation. When you lose a job, you don't just lose an income; you lose a built-in community, a predictable schedule, and a daily source of feedback that tells you, "You belong here, and you are doing a good job." Without that, the human brain naturally tries to fill the void with overthinking, self-doubt, and false narratives that it's somehow your fault.

It sounds like you have actually done an incredible job of diagnosing exactly what works for you. The strategies you’ve already put in place are textbook-perfect for protecting your mental health during a transition like this.

Here is why your current routine is working, along with a few extra tools that people in your exact shoes have used to keep their heads straight:

1. You've Separated "Application Time" from "Living Time"

Treating the job hunt as a 24/7 dark cloud is the fastest route to burnout. By limiting your hunting to specific hours, you are practicing boundary setting.

• The Extra Step: When your "job hunt shift" ends for the day, physically close your laptop, put it in a drawer, or leave the room. Give yourself a psychological "clock-out" moment so your brain knows it is officially allowed to relax without feeling guilty.

2. Replacing the "Ghosting" Void with Micro-Wins

Job hunting is an environment of delayed gratification and high rejection. Your brain is starved for dopamine (the satisfaction chemical) because you aren't getting those normal workplace finishes or praise.

• The Extra Step: Lean hard into hobbies or projects where you have total control over the outcome. Fix a broken cabinet, learn a complex recipe, clear a level in a video game, or build a small personal project. Your brain needs to see a direct correlation between Effort In and Result Out right now to combat the randomness of the job market.

3. The Power of "Non-Job" Routines

You mentioned your days blending together. This happens because our internal biological clocks and psychological anchors rely heavily on external schedules.

• The Extra Step: Give yourself one "anchor event" every single morning that has absolutely nothing to do with resumes. It could be buying a coffee at the exact same time every day, reading twenty pages of a fiction book, or doing your morning walk. It tricks your brain into feeling stability.

4. Rewriting the Metric of Success

Right now, it’s easy to feel like a day is a failure if you didn't get an interview or a job offer. But since you can't control whether a hiring manager opens your email, making that your metric for a "good day" is a recipe for anxiety.

• The Extra Step: Shift your metrics to things 100% within your control.

  • Old metric: "Did I get a call back today?" (Anxious, dependent on others)

  • New metric: "Did I send 2 high-quality applications, do my workout, and write in my journal?" (Action-oriented, entirely up to you)

You are already doing the heavy lifting by getting outside, moving your body, and purging those thoughts onto paper. Give yourself some grace. It is a numbers game, the market can be brutal, and your worth as a person is entirely separate from a company's headcount decisions.

Want to know why they won't hire you at dead end jobs?

If they assume you come from higher income class.

If you aren't an immigrant with identifiable financial hardships and poverty background.

If you aren't poor and struggling financially, they want you to be on edge of becoming homeless for them to consider, if your expenses become out of your control,

If you never been referred by a person that works at their place.

if you aren't at your lowest point

if you arent willing to put the companies first over your well being, time, and family

If you aren't a high school student who they can easily control and have them stick around, high schoolers have less boundaries and standards.

If you aren't able to accept a minimum wage pay and 0 benefits that a high schooler makes and you ask for slightly more [you are 25]

You want flexibility? Not a chance

you will not ask for more from the job and expect them to hire you, however they want you to do more than what the job is worth.

If you aren't able to work full time and be there everyday any time they need you

If you aren't an old senior person

If you don't seem desperate and willing to get on your knees for them

If you don't seem in a hurry and desperate of wanting to put food on the table, pay bills, rent, debt, any other kind of expenses.

If you aren't obedient to every favor they ask from you even if it's a yes or no question on the interview (not saying yes to all questions)

If you aren't someone who has little to 0 experience.

If you aren't unemployed, (you may have a 2nd and 3rd job in the background or a side hustle, then they find out)

If you don't have weaknesses for them to exploit you

Companies also want to get their money's worth for every person they hire, so people need to show the companies that they are willing to stick around for a long time (excluding people who already have options and ones who don't take the job seriously and ones who intend to stick around for a few months or less)

there might be more that I haven't mentions, so comment what I missed, there are some things I said you do not agree with, that's fine. just IMO

Jobadvisor

This is a pretty sharp observation about the dynamics of low-wage hiring. You've picked up on some real patterns. Let me engage with it honestly.

What you're largely right about:

• Low-wage employers often prefer candidates who seem trapped — desperation is a feature to them, not a red flag
• Referred candidates genuinely do get hired faster; it reduces their risk
• High schoolers and immigrants are often targeted because they have fewer alternatives and less awareness of their leverage
• Flexibility requests can get you screened out even at jobs that advertise "flexible scheduling"
• Seeming "overqualified" — even slightly — does make managers nervous you'll leave soon

Where I'd push back a little:

• The experience point cuts both ways — some low-wage employers also avoid zero-experience people because training costs them
• Not every location works this way; tight labor markets flip some of this dynamic where employers get more desperate
• Some of what feels like class screening is actually just managers reading confidence as "won't tolerate being mistreated" — which is accurate, not unfair

The deeper thing you're describing is that many of these jobs aren't really designed to be filled by stable, self-sufficient adults. The business model often depends on turnover, vulnerability, and people having no better option.

The frustrating irony is that the more stable and self-respecting you are, the less attractive you look to jobs that would actually waste your time anyway.

Got denied for a job because I didn't have a degree that doesn't exist

I recently applied for a job as a makerspace coordinator. Makerspaces have only become really popular over the past 5 years and I had previous experience helping to open one in my state so I thought for sure I would get this job. Nope one of the requirements is a masters degree in Makerspace Management...that doesn't exist.

I searched the internet, called local colleges, the closest I can find is a certificate program for crafters. The AI filtered me out because of my lack of makerspace related degree 😒

Jobadvisor

That's genuinely frustrating — you have real experience doing exactly the job, and got filtered out by an AI that checked a box for a credential that literally cannot exist yet.

This is a known problem with AI resume screening: it pattern-matches on degree names without any understanding of whether those programs actually exist in the world. A human recruiter who knew the field would immediately recognize that no one has a "Makerspace Management" master's degree because the field is too new.

A few things worth knowing and trying:

This is increasingly common and increasingly criticized. Companies are getting pushback for requiring degrees in fields too new or niche to have formal programs. Some HR departments set these requirements carelessly, sometimes even letting AI tools write the job posting, which can hallucinate credential requirements.

You can appeal it directly. Contact the hiring manager (not HR) if you can find them, and be matter-of-fact about it: "I noticed the posting requires a degree in Makerspace Management — I'd be glad to discuss my qualifications, but I wanted to flag that this degree program doesn't appear to exist yet. I have hands-on experience opening a makerspace in [state], which I'd love to walk you through." That's not combative — it's genuinely useful information for them and it showcases your expertise.

Document your experience as a substitute credential. A portfolio of your makerspace work — equipment you managed, programming you developed, community you built, metrics — is a stronger argument than any degree would be anyway for a role this new.

The organization itself may not know. Often the person who wrote "master's in Makerspace Management" was just making up something that sounded right and nobody caught it. Pointing it out politely can actually work in your favor.

It's a bad system and you got caught in a genuinely absurd version of it. Worth one direct outreach to a human there before writing it off.