The Layoff Diaries #3: The Five Stages of (Layoff) Grief

Yep, they apply here too

This essay is part of a larger, longer series: The Layoff Diaries. I’m writing about my experiences after being laid off three times since 2022. I’m capturing the hard stuff, the fun stuff, and the mundane of it all.

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I sit here, one day before the one-month anniversary of being laid off for a third time, and honestly? I’m exhausted.

I’ve had many drafts of this third installment of the ‘layoff diaries’ but have really struggled to find the words behind what I’m feeling. And when it comes to writing, at least, that’s unusual for me.

The last month has been a complete blur. It feels like it was eons ago but also feels like it just happened last week.

me in my high school library in 2008. But also a personification to me today, looking at LinkedIn.

Since the first time this happened to me in 2022, I’ve always said you really do go through all five stages of grief when a layoff occurs, but I’ve found those stages are cyclical — you move through them, but not always linearly.

Denial

This time around, the denial was quick. I went through it and moved past it in the span of the ten-minute call where I learned my fate. And I haven’t gone through that since.

Last time I was laid off, when I was 23 weeks pregnant, denial was an emotional state I kept coming back to. That layoff was technically a furlough, so there was that lingering question of whether or not I’d be brought back always present in my brain. That made it much harder to move through denial. Is this really happening? It was, and I knew it, but at the same time, it was almost too soon to tell.

But this time? It’s happening, and while at first there was a shock, I didn’t deny it happening for long.

Sometimes I have a flash of a thought. Is this really happening?!

And then I tell myself, as gently as I can, that yes, it is. And I somehow move on.