Hi everyone,

I am going through easily the hardest period of my life right now. I’ve been unemployed for slightly over a year. I know I have been very fixated on applying for some thing that aligns with my dream job. I have taken corrective action and started applying laterally, casting a wider net. The past 12 months have been filled with ups and downs but I would still call it amazing. I met the girl of my dreams and we’ve been together for almost a year now.

The problem is, due to my unemployment she’s starting to feel uncertain about the relationship. It all happened very suddenly, she started withdrawing affection and things just became more distant. She acknowledges that as well and feels bad about not being able to genuinely support me and also contributing to my stress. I’ve been searching for a job for the past few months but the market hasn’t been very kind to me. So because of this, I’ve become very anxious and everything action I do is fuelled by anxiety — perpetually browsing for jobs online, checking my emails and messages constantly, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about jobs, dreaming of my previous company.

I acknowledge the fact that getting a job should be number 1 priority here and it will eventually resolve other concerns. And also, it will just require more time to overcome this hurdle. The past few days have crawled very slowly and it feels like the same will happen the next week.

What I dislike is, all the anxiety i’m feeling is making me act and speak out of insecurity and neediness, and that repels my partner even more and I’m afraid of my girlfriend walking out on me. I don’t know how I can effectively ground myself and it’s getting tiring having my anxious thoughts fire up so often.

I don’t know what I want to hear from sharing this story, may be some kind of reassurance?