Lost my job, but at least my demons are happy.

So my company went through  layoff recently and I was on the hit list. I work in marketing so it makes sense - companies always trim marketing when profits go down. And I was the last one hired on my team, so "last in, first out" applies. So I'm footloose and fancy free again. At least my demons are happy.

My demons really like it when I'm not running full throttle. They like to nibble at my self-esteem - "you failed....you're terrible at your job....you weren't worth fighting for....". They like to impose on my private time - "come on, you know you should just take a nap, what else do you have to do?". And they really love to laugh at me - "oh you don't really want to 'clean the house/do crafting/practice the piano/do anything at all', it's so much easier to just become inert and let us whisper at you all day".

Bastards.

Those are my worst moments. I feel an incredible amount of guilt that I let the demons get to me and ruin my job performance.

But in my better moments I realize that while the reasons I was let go might have been performance-driven, they might also have just been pure economics.

And at my best moments I acknowledge that my company is being very generous and they are basically paying me to get my head together and make a fresh start.

I try to stay with my best moments. My demons start to sulk and go back into the closet, grumbling and rattling their nails. I've been job hunting, working on some big projects around the house, making to-do lists to keep me focused. Trying to do anything but get lured to my bed for "a quick nap".

It doesn't make my demons happy when I do this, but it does make me happy.

Yay!