Stress can’t begin to describe how it feels to cope with being unemployed.

In today’s economy, with soaring unemployment rates, cut-backs, massive lay-offs and a consumerist culture shouts “buy, buy, buy,” it’s devastating to be jobless.

Furthermore, our cultural values are out of sync – how we value ourselves and our mental and emotional health versus the value of work, money and “stuff.”

(Ironically, volunteer work builds self-esteem more than a huge salary and it’s a great stress-reducing strategy while job-hunting.)

All this hit the headlines last week…

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen belittled Mitt Romney’s wife Ann and her full-time career as a housewife and stay-at-home- mom.

“Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” Rosen said on CNN.”She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.”

That comment rang alarms with everyone across the political spectrum. Especially women.

Maybe there’s hope for me…

In today’s New York Times, the lead article in the Sunday Review is titled Where Have All the Neurotics Gone? by health reporter Benedict Carey.

Where are neurotics today?

It seems they’ve become a thing of the past. An old, dying breed. According to Carey,

“For a generation of postwar middle-class Americans, being neurotic meant something more than being merely anxious, and something other than exhibiting the hysteria or other disabling moods problems for which Freud used the term. It meant being interesting (if sometimes exasperating) at a time when psychoanalysis reigned in intellectual circles and Woody Allen reigned in movie houses.

“That it means little now, to most Americans, is evidence of how strongly language drives the perception of mental struggle, both its sources and its remedies. In recent years psychiatrists have developed a more specialized medical vocabulary to describe anxiety, the core component of neurosis, and as a result the public has gained a greater appreciation of its many dimensions.

“But in the process we’ve lost entirely the romance of neurosis, as well as it’s physical embodiment – a restless, grumbling, needy presence that once functioned in the collective mind as an early warning system, an inner voice that hedged against excessive optimism.”

No. Don’t worry. I’m not getting into self-flagellation or abuse. Quite the contrary.

Here’s the story…

Back in 1977 when I joined the racy, irreverent tabloid Toronto Sun fresh out of broadsheet-biased journalism school (as all journalism schools were and probably still are) I had to learn to “punch up my copy.”

Make it grabby. Make it smart. Make it snappy. Make it sing. In other words capture the reader with the story and the intoxicating way you tell it.

The same is true when you’re looking to reinvent yourself in today’s cramped and constricted job market.

As far as presenting myself as employable, I have to “punch myself up.”

This afternoon, I met with a terrific young fella named James, an employment consultant, who works at a local agency that helps people navigate the job market and find work.

Or in my case, a new direction…

During the last week in February, I took three, three-hour seminars to get my feet wet in this pursuit. One on “Targeted Resume-writing,” another on “Interview Tips,” and a third on “Writing Cover Letters.”

All very exciting and frightening at the same time, especially for me because I have a seven page CV and no idea where I fit in today’s shrinking job market.

In January, whilst in the thick of my Eating Disorders Outpatient Program, I began knitting.

A scarf. I knit it on circular needles in three colours from a design in Alison Hansel’s Charmed Knits, Projects for Fans of  Harry Potter.

I didn’t follow the pattern very closely. Pattern-following isn’t really my style.

I knit a work of wearable art…

I refined the design. Used three colours instead of two and let my mood dictate when I would change those colours.

Thus, my scarf, which I now wear all the time ~ or as long as it’s still chilly here ~ is a bright piece of wearable art, with no pattern.

I wasn’t there.

I cannot attest to the factual accuracy of what I’m about to share with you.

But according to a very close relative with whom I visited this weekend, I was given “everything” ~ all the love and attention in the world ~ but “there was something wrong with me.”

“From birth,” the relative pronounced with profound authority, “you were a very, very, very difficult child in every possible way.”

That is one truth. But is it the only truth?

Take a gun. Aim it at my heart or head. Then pull the trigger. I have heard this from this relative and others in my family more times than I can remember. It is in “the family record.” It IS the family record.

And I am not buying that particular truth anymore. It’s old. It’s out of date. It’s been disproven. It’s no longer valid or real.

Perhaps I was difficult. So?

In 1948, the year of my birth, perhaps I was difficult ~ compared to other children and other “norms” of the period. Who knows? For sure?

Perhaps there were other expectations of me. Was I a bad child? Did I hurt other people purposely? I don’t know and it’s all history now. Ancient history.

I don’t want to think about when I last wrote to you. I feel and look like a different person. Inside and out.

It is overwhelming for me to explain these differences.

They may not even appear to you, but they are shouting loud and clear to me.

Yes, I hear voices, all the time. Perhaps you do, too.

Or you do not to listen to them…

Today, you’re probably different that you were a few months ago, too. We’re changing all the time, if we’re lucky and open to change. I like change. If we’re buoyant, strong, “resilient” ~ that buzziest of psychological words these days.

When I broke my arm on December 14, I cut off all my hair. There was only so much I wanted to impose on my husband Marty who was doing everything there is to do around this place. Cleaning, cooking, caring for our dogs. Chauffeuring me hither and thither, here, there and everywhere.

Since then, and after another haircut, I am utterly shorn. I not only have “wash and wear hair,” I have “get up and go hair.”

It’s liberating…

The hair is but a superficial difference. Inside, where I have lived these 63 years, or made a semblance of living, the landscape is transformed. My ebullient personality, my default mode, is but a cover, I will confess. It’s a great mask behind which the real me lives. A me, no one really wants to know.

I don’t blame them. I’m getting a little tired of her, too.

I have been writing my little fingers to the bone.

Not here, I’m afraid…

Though I’d love to be here with you, instead, I’m writing reams about body image ~ mine.

It’s exhausting and triggering. Working on recovering from my eating disorder with psychologist, Kim Watson, Ph.D involves reading two workbooks ~ on body image and self-esteem.

Every day, for at least one hour ~ usually more ~ I do challenging writing exercises that resonate in places I don’t really like going.

I spent last week in the past…

For me and my body, the past not a pretty place.

You may be wondering where I’ve been since November 30 ~ Day Three ~ of my outpatient eating disorder treatment program.

Read the comments to that last post. You’ll see some of my progress.

Since then a few things happened…

I snapped the picture you see, this morning. It’s a tight shot of my right hand.

Note the discolouration on my thumb. Not dirt. It’s a bruise, black and blue.

Also…

I am very right-handed and not, as I have discovered ~ in the least, whatsoever, in any remote way ~ ambidextrous. The plaster cast you see goes up to my elbow. It weighs “a ton.” Feels like it, anyway.

After a stupid fall on Wednesday, December 14 ~ all falls methinks are stupid, right? ~ and an x-ray revealed that I had indeed broken my right arm above my wrist, the technician in the ER fracture clinic said I would be able to have a yellow fibreglass cast in a week. Mmmmmm. My favourite colour.

This afternoon I met with the service manager of the Canadian National Institute of the Blind ~ the CNIB.

Kids with mental illnesses and visual impairments…

She and a group of teachers, parents and professionals working with blind or visually-impaired kids had asked me to speak at an annual conference ~ about mental health

A New Challenge…

Admittedly, I have never spoken or facilitated any kind of workshop on the subject of mental and emotional health for children and youth who are visually-impaired, had never even thought about this particular demographic

The topic fascinated me, so I was anxious to continue our dialogue.

The other day, I walked 1.7 miles from Toronto General Hospital to Number One Yonge Street.

The offices of The Toronto Star are located there, where I write from time to time as a freelance.

I had a meeting with my longstanding editor Brandie Weikle. It was a quick cup of coffee, more than a meeting. We like to keep in touch.

Walking lifts my spirits…

Best of all, I love walking around Toronto. I’m a passionate walker. With or without my dogs. Walking lifts my spirits. Keeps me in touch with my body, which as you probably know, is not a a source of pleasure for me right now.