the longing for employment
a retrospective look at long-term unemployment through the lens of studio seufz's the longing
disclaimer: this essay mentions suicidal ideation and suicide
from termination letter to offer letter, it took 389 days. the stench of self-loathing and embarrassment has washed off, for the most part. i’m able to pay my important bills with a steady paycheck again. my partner no longer speaks to me with a sadness in her voice that’s only reserved for my most pitiful moments: overly cautious and uncertain. i’ve been invited to happy hours by friends, even acquaintances, who had vague ideas of my situation, but knew i wasn’t available for casual chats. but now, slowly trickling back into my text messages and emails, all with the quiet assumption, “you’re seeming back to normal, so let’s grab a drink.”
besides the world crumbling almost everywhere i turn, my days are, for the most part, fine. there are things to complain about, but i’ve learned how to cut my thoughts at their achilles heels when i remember: you should be grateful you have the mental capacity to complain.
i attempted to write about my feelings multiple times over these few weeks,1 but i couldn’t seem to wrap my head around the near-immediate shift of multiple circumstances.
the mixed feelings i felt signing my offer letter kept me unresponsive to the opportunity. it wasn’t excitement, not even relief. thinking back, the only word that comes up is numb. recently, my partner, my love, and i talked about the 15 months as a reflective check-in to the realities we lived during that time.
these chats are not always my favorite moments, but we see each other with a clearer lens when we reflect together, comparing understandings and perspectives to develop our world holistically.
during that conversation, she brought up my energy on that day.
i told her the news plainly, so she responded, on the outside, in the same manner. however, on the inside, i had taken away her excitement, her happiness of the confirmation that the anger and self-loathing i’d been carrying would soon end, because that wasn’t the person she knew but had to deal with for an unforeseeable future.
at the time, i knew i wasn’t reacting the way i should have been. for days, i felt bad about it. and then again during that reality check-in with my love. and while drafting this, every time i drafted this. why wasn’t i jumping for joy? not even a flicker of relief.
in the days that followed the phone call from the recruiter that i spoke to so many times that i could consider her an acquaintance—multiple positions with the same parent company for different properties [unintentionally, but inevitable with how this monopolized industry is set up], at least 2.5 interviews and at least 1 edit test for each: we knew each other—i struggled at the congratulations from my close friends.
i did my due diligence of telling the most important people that i got a job, in an attempt to give them relief from worrying about me. because there were reasons to worry, and i was past trying to deny it.
i wish the phone call had come about 20 minutes sooner. or that i’d made a deal with myself that i’ll just wait another thirty minutes, then i’ll press send.
but i didn’t. 20 minutes before my acquaintance called, i sent a text message to about 70% of the people in my contact list [as i write this, there are 62 phone numbers in my phone and one was added today2] telling them that i needed help. that i had exhausted all of my resources to the best of my abilities and that i was three months behind on rent with no food in my fridge and my wifi had shut off that morning, which truly prompted the ask.
having the one technological resource that felt like my last lifeline to income severed was a gut punch i was not prepared for early in the morning. so i sent the text.3
while i lay in my bed, flattened and depleted, i received an email from the acquaintance confirming my phone number. i responded, and my phone rang. i felt guilty by the lack of happiness i felt in response to her authentic, yet scripted nonetheless, excitement.
after a couple of weeks on the job, i was potentially waiting for a “sorry, actually we miscalculated the budget and there isn’t a job for you” or a “apologies, you took too long to fill out the onboarding paperwork, so we’re just going to take those back.”
but those thoughts grew quieter, and the jitteriness simmered to a standard anxiety of working in news media in 2025. i’ve gotten to the calm where i don’t feel as though i’m going to burst into tears thinking about the past 15 months. too much has happened, in multiple dynamics of my existence, on both macro and micro levels. truths unearthed. new realities discovered. and i’m finding myself stepping back onto somewhat of a path and attempting to build forward.
however, the psychological damage a year of unemployment caused me is unrelenting.
no one tells you about what happens when you’re unemployed for an extended time. it feels almost taboo; one of those topics that most shy away from, unless they’ve experienced it themselves. but even then, there’s a limit to how deep those conversations can go, for fear of triggering yourself or anyone else. soldiers with ptsd—we see each other and we respect everyone’s unspoken boundary in solidarity.
people who have never experienced long-term unemployment or those privileged enough not to have had to face housing or food insecurity cannot relate, and thus lean away from those going through it and coming out of it.4
as someone who’s been working consistently since the age of 15, i believe i’ve normally been one of the latter.
don’t get me wrong, i’ve had my struggle moments: having to wait a couple of weeks to a month for a manager, recruiter, or hr person to get back to me, but income was not something i readily worried about. i had clients, part-time gigs. hell, i worked at huntington learning center for a few weeks in 2016, making $400 a week, when it got really crazy. from the consistency, and helping others in their times of needed support, i had developed my slogan of sorts: i can always find somewhere to live, and i can always find a job.
who knew i would eat those words through my 33rd birthday?
ii.
no one talks about long-term unemployment. how mentality-shifting and soul-crushing it is. it’s not whimsical or fun—i now despise the internet’s idea of funemployment, as in, i can do whatever i want with my days because all my friends and everyone else in the world is at work and the kids are at school, so i can be at a museum on a tuesday and it’ll be the best experience ever.5
when you’ve been taking care of yourself by yourself for as long as i have, the concept of not working for any length of time in this capitalism-driven society is anything but fun.
the beginning is a blur at this point; maybe because, for a while, things felt normal. severance pay, a couple of clients, unemployment checks—the ability to find replacement work sooner rather than later felt possible. eventually, all those temporary safety nets slowly, one by one, disappeared and began to feel like mirages in a desert. the comfort slowed to a crawl and eventually just stopped.
no one ever talks about the loneliness of long-term unemployment. it’s not the loneliness one feels from being single or when all of your friends are suspiciously busy on the same weekend you’re craving displays of platonic affection.
it’s a loneliness where time is a thick blanket of oil that slips across the body and weighs you down. i didn’t want to talk to anyone, because i didn’t have anything new to talk about and, quite frankly, wasn’t too thrilled to hear about the joyous things happening in their lives—not in their personal lives, and certainly not their professional advancements. and who wants to keep up with someone who’s increasingly growing bitter at life, not celebrating the personal and career wins of their friends? so, each in our own ways, slowed communication until it was none at all.
living in new york, being unemployed, broke, and with no prospects in sight is solitary confinement. i’m also someone who enjoys going outside; however, the whimsical adventures i enjoy cost money, and it’s not a fact i shy away from. i don’t go outside unless there is a certain dollar amount in my pocket. it allows me to shift my day however i see fit with a moment’s notice, and so, as a safety precaution, i never want to be stranded somewhere, knowing if i had enough money, i wouldn’t be in this position. i always want to be able to get home, and get there safely.
so i spent my days applying to jobs, talking to no one [checking in with my love out of respect], and sinking further into the black hole that was quickly becoming my dissociation space.
the self-isolation made me think of a game i came across in 2023 that perfectly mirrored how i was feeling about my situation. my unemployment was just shy of the length of the longing. though i couldn’t in good faith recommend it, i’ve talked about it multiple times on my podcast, promising to go back and finish. most likely, i’ve mentioned it in passing on my blog, because it is a beautiful work of art that has left an impression on me, and i barely played.
based on a german folktale, namely the 12th-century king barbarossa, gamers open to a cave with a king and a tiny, feeble-looking character named shade. shade/gamer is told that the king needs to sleep for 400 days to regain his power, and it’s shade’s mission to remain in the cave and awaken his overlord when the 400 days are up. then it’s just shade, off to explore the empty, melancholic halls of the gothic castle to the silky melodies of dungeon synth.
shade moves at a glacial pace through the network of passages and walkways. they’re also a rather depressing character, with their slumped posture and bulging yellow eyes that wander. shade is quite literally the personification of depression, and so, the gamer must keep shade occupied and relatively entertained for the many long days ahead.
the real-world 400-day playtime is an intriguing blend of extreme boredom and occasional triumphs through the long hallways and in hidden corners of a once bustling castle. as shade slinks about the castle, they’ll discover pieces of life, such as instrument parts, books, color pigments, and home decor. those small joys are matched with the “disappointments” that come when they find a dead end to long corridors [and then having to walk back out of them].
the clock on the top of the screen counts down the remaining time. A unique twist on a simple mechanism6—popularized through the rise of the mid-2010s idle game movement—quietly, but somewhat menacingly, reminding me of the long journey ahead. would i have appreciated a timer for my unemployment? if i knew the time was ticking down and i just had x amount of time left, would i have felt differently? this question plagued me many times when i first noticed the resemblance.
described as a “waiting simulator,” and like most in the genre, it’s an existential metaphor for how society views time and our individual relationship to it; in line with the concept of optillusion’s newest game, aptly titled, while waiting.
the clock runs even when the game is closed, forcing the gamer to confront their abandonment of their journey, and shade’s. the puny character makes remarks each time you log in, and depending on how long the gamer left shade in the darkness of the castle, the more depressing and haunting the retorts.
“it’s been so quiet,” shade would say as they crawled back to their feet upon my arrival. “i’ve been so alone,” is the one that gets me, since i know what it feels like to be forgotten and abandoned for different reasons by multiple people across my lifetime. of course, for the sake of this essay, it was my long-term unemployment and the loneliness that comes with financial insecurity in this country that panged my heart recalling shade’s predicament.
ironically, released march 5, 2020, the longing captures the essence of what many were grappling with during the covid-19 lockdowns. that same excruciatingly visceral feeling of time passing across my skin felt familiar in the worst ways.
for me, the difference between lockdown and long-term unemployment was the forced block of time. during that year, those who were employed had the privilege of having a marker for time. whether an essential worker traveling to and coming from work in disposable ppe, or like me, opening and closing your laptop, there was an event happening at least five days out of the week that can determine the hours of the day.
for shade in the castle, and me in my brooklyn apartment, that privilege was not an active part of our existences.
in an interview with wired, germany-based creator of the longing anselm pyta said he’s “realized a strength of the game was the empathy people felt with the character.” given the unimaginable circumstances surrounding global events during the time of its release, after working on the project for six years, pyta added, “of course, now they associate with him even more—his loneliness and isolation.”
“i just want to go home and sleep until it’s all over,” shade says to himself. more times than i’d like to admit, i have felt that feeling. life has been rough, in more ways than i can count, but not even chronic episodes of depression or life-threatening trauma can compare to the psychological damage of having the threat of multiple basic needs being pulled from under you in a slow, systematic fashion.
iii.
gamers—like those who lived through covid, and i alone in my apartment—were forced to make decisions with their time. in the longing, if you worked with shade and made use of the time in the labyrinth of halls, you would find useful tools that could assist in the year-long mission. for instance, if you read the books you found–one brilliantly including friedrich nietzsche’s epic of the soul: thus spoke zarathustra, a text that synonymously explores self-discovery, existentialism, and the search for meaning in life–the clock sped up.
Another game mechanic demonstrated the quirky ways time could move faster or slower. such is said for sprucing up shade’s living quarters: if gamers decorated the cozy corner where all of the found possessions were stored, the clock counted down by seven seconds at a time—the poetic illustration for making use of one’s time.
during my first attempted playthrough, i didn’t make it to these small victories of time. but of course, art imitates life, for i also did not do the same in my apartment. time passed, and i sank deeper in my darkened castle. would time have passed quicker for me if i had decorated? i read, sure, and gamed when my waning energy allowed me to, but not enough that it awarded me the same time-reducing satisfaction that other shades may have experienced. when i wasn’t applying to jobs or scouring career pages of media websites, shade and i, allowed time to just dredge on.
though i attempt not to think about last year too much, in retrospect, the passing of time is now apparent in unexpected ways. i see and feel my body, and its additional folds and rolls that i’ve already subconsciously learned to love, as that’s where i am in my body neutrality [most days]. other days, i see the marks made from the bedridden days.
i noticed them in the shower one day. familiar stretch marks now looked out of place. discoloration and irritation scars have found new homes. my first reaction was genuine shock. have i not been looking at my body for this long? how long has it been? days, weeks? has it very well been months? how long was that year? i don’t dwell on the consideration too long: this is my body and i will love it through all the traumas it’s carried me through.
the more noticeable and uncomfortable changes came from outside my safe space. i no longer knew how to speak to people, which is more than embarrassing when i prided myself on being able to network and be a comfort space for anyone i come into proximity to. while i do believe this was a somewhat universally adopted trait after the lockdowns, i was doubly reminded by how out of tune i was with common conversation etiquette. a terrible issue to have when you need to be in a new office three days a week with strangers who either know nothing about who i am or have only seen snapshots of a career that had forgotten me.
“where were you before here?” is a question that made me shudder on the inside every time i was asked. before i sprinted down my resume, i’d start with, “well, before being unemployed for a year, i was at…blahblahblah,” because did they really hear anything after those first few words? i don’t know. anxiety is a lifelong frenemy that kept me on my toes, but in those moments, i just wished the bitch would let me live.
there’s no formal lesson on how to reintegrate into the world after yours stopped spinning. of course, there wouldn’t be, in the same context, it’s why there isn’t a reintegration program for soldiers coming from war. it would signify that something is wrong, that the system is broken and needs to be reformed. the small reward from being laid off as a professional creative in this industry, and during this time, is that it’s almost a badge of honor. the cracks of this capitalistic society lost so many excellent writers, but here you are, shining and pushing through anyway, you go, girl! yeah, woohoo.
it’s a reprogramming, after being unplugged for so long.
when i reentered the world, i also had to do an audit of my life. i remembered i’m no longer speaking to my father and his sewn-together lineage after he called me pathetic at my lowest point. joining my mother in the no-contact box, i sat/sit with the realization that i don’t speak to my parents and therefore, have no parents in this world. however, when reflecting on my later life and our relationship, i had to contemplate: was he ever really a father to me? how unfortunate to receive that answer when parents would normally be the support system necessary in those trying life moments. but i understood and accepted the truth.
i reflected on the friends that disappeared for good and those i wouldn’t consider updating on my life at all. were they even friends? it’s a double-edged sword, really: going through a tragic life event and seeing who cares enough to see if i’m dead or alive, knowing not just my mental health, but that i have no solid safety net to fall back to. i’ve always had a jaded look on family, but something about being abandoned by chosen family feels even more crushing. i looked back to see who responded and didn’t respond to my embarrassing call for help. i saw who left me on read. taking notes, taking notes.
what did shade do when the king awoke from his slumber? after having autonomy of itself for so long, did shade feel like its own king? how do you bow down to an overlord when you yourself had to become your own ruler, creating your own systems of survival? who else from the castle was waiting for their return? anyone at all? what lessons did they learn in their isolation? what did they let go of? how did it act in front of the other shades? did the others sense its defeats and disappointments? i would like to ask shade, how do i go back into the politics of corporate america when i realized its cult resemblances during my time away? how do you put aside all that you’ve learned?
fuck the ridiculous uses of ai, but my god, the things i would ask a shade that was utilized to completion during the 400 days.
iv.
i did attempt to play the longing again, but not only did i not make a dent in the clock, i no longer had the same enthusiasm or curiosity. it felt like a personal hell in some ways, but in others, i found contemplation to be a bigger reward for its existence.
whether the game is played by maneuvering through the castle and covering every corridor, dead end, and secret passage, or allowing the clock to run out, the game has to end. however it ends, it simply does.
when the mental fog lifted from my unemployment, i had a lot of questions: about myself, the people around me, my relationship, the world around me. not many of them answered, but i’ve been slowly getting the answers over these few months, as time continues to move on and the world continues to spin.
i spend a lot of time considering if i wasted my time during my unemployment. should i have picked up [another] hobby? if i had created a proper schedule, i potentially could have finished projects that didn’t have a financial component. with the seemingly unlimited time, i could have developed my creative skills. maybe i could have found ways to save my relationship and not let the domino effect of the unemployment lead to its ending. in hindsight, maybe i could have tried harder, not allowing my anger and self-pity to swallow the light i once cradled with soft hands. i spent years nurturing and growing myself into a “better me,” all for it to excruciatingly crumble right before my eyes.
the longing has a similar, single dilemma for the gamer: when left to their own devices, what does shade do with their time? does it drown itself, literally and figuratively, to get away from its unenviable and inevitable situation, or choose to see the brighter side of the situation and make use of what they’re given?
i chose to use shade the same way i chose to live with myself during that time: waiting for the end to end. i question what that says about me and who i am. more importantly, who i thought i was before that year happened. given all that has happened and domino events since, i question a lot about what kind of person i believed myself to be.
i didn’t abandon the longing and shade altogether, my curiosity just couldn’t let that happen. what happens at the end of shade’s painful year of self-isolation, physical pain, self-loathing, pity, suicidal contemplation, intense anguish, and loneliness?
nothing. the time just ran out.
i don’t know if anything different would have happened if i’d done everything possible in the game, and i don’t want to know. something about the ending frustrated me, but also gave me an unexpected feeling of comfort.
anselm encourages gamers to play the longing once and make peace in whatever outcome they experience. “i hope it really feels like the story is over,” he said in the wired interview. “the character has made his way and you have decided his fate.” i sat with that for a while, attempting to find the meaning in how i played the game.
since there’s no winning or losing, how it ends and the meaning of its end is up to the gamer. when thinking of the longing, i’ve come to one understanding: i finished the game. maybe not in the way i originally intended, but i did finish. this didn’t mean too much to mean when i saw the clock on the screen read 00:00:00, but when i thought about it in consideration of my year of unemployment, it felt more rewarding.
i finished. i didn’t take my own life like i’d planned in january. i had a plan, and then i mapped steps with a deadline for if nothing came through. the text message to my community pleading for help was one of the steps. but then i got an email, and a phone call.
so did i fail unemployment? well depends on how i, and i alone, look at it.
yes, i could have potentially used my time more creatively, though a hard ask when dodging calls from my landlord and treading to keep my sanity just above water. but more importantly, when all is said and done, my cat didn’t have to sit next to my lifeless body for days7 before anyone noticed me missing. i didn’t fail unemployment, because i got to the other side. and while i’m still working through my feelings on the entire ordeal, i am proud that i’m still here to say so.
my last suicidal attempt was in 2017, and thankfully, that remains true. i don’t know what my life would have looked like if i were employed through 2024, and while that still gnaws at me some days,8 i have to exist in the reality of today. and today, i choose to praise my desire to continue living. i didn’t know i cared that much, but if i learned anything from that year and the longing is that i have a strong determination to finish what i start, and that is a triumphant ending.
I started reading this post a few days ago and had to step away because I’m dealing with this now and it’s HARD! I came back to finish today and just wanted to thank you for sharing and helping me not feel so alone.
I can definitely relate to what you went through. I have been there. After a while, you start to doubt yourself and your abilities. I learned through that experience to never give up because I knew I would get out of that valley.