The reality of impending layoffs has set in. We are now in an agonizing game of musical chairs. We know there are not enough chairs for all of us but we do not know how many will be chair-less. We have been told the music will stop in mid-August. Some must reapply for their own jobs. Some will apply for new ones. It doesn’t matter how many years you have been with the company. Those are the rules.

By the time it is over we will have been trudging and interviewing for 8 weeks. Two months of occupational purgatory. We played a similar game last summer, which lasted about three months. Our summer, the carefree season of vacations, beaches, golf and tennis, is already over.

The office is toxic. The stress is visceral. I had my melt-down a few weeks ago. Waves of anxiety and fear – it’s like being on an emotional roller-coaster, wondering if you are going to hurl. But the last couple of weeks have been good. My therapist and the head of Human Resources offered the same advice: This is a loss. Grieve it.

If there is one thing I know how to do it is grieve a loss. I don’t always do it well, but I know how to do it. Not grieving my losses hurled me into a major depression three years ago. In the space of two years I lost my parents, dog and long-term relationship. I trudged on believing that grieving ended with the last shovel of dirt thrown on a grave.

When I finally climbed up and out my black hole, I practically begged to learn how to grieve. Anger. Sadness. Bargaining. Denial. Acceptance – and not necessarily in that order. And not just once. A few weeks ago I waffled between anger and sadness. Then denial. Back to anger. Then bargaining and more anger. I dabbled in denial but the anger kept taking over. My feelings ping-ponged furiously. I talked to my therapist and some friends. I wrote. I talked. I let myself be sad, angry and oblivious. I wore out the Serenity Prayer.

Today – right now – I have acceptance. That could change but I know I have done everything I can do – except figure out where I am going on vacation.

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    Last reviewed: 14 Jul 2009