Losing your job isn’t just a career disruption. It shakes the nervous system, your sense of safety, and — if we’re being really honest — your identity.
I know this not just as a therapist, but because it happened to me.
For a long time, I believed that if you worked hard, spoke up, and advocated for fairness, things would work out. But my voice — the same voice I now use to teach, consult, and support others — once got me labeled as “difficult.”
That label eventually led to me being pushed out.
It wasn’t just the job loss that stung. It was the microaggressions, the subtle digs, the way my confidence was chipped away by someone who held power over my career. When you’re a woman of colour in a predominantly white space, the dynamics aren’t just workplace politics — they hit at identity, belonging, and psychological safety.
When I was let go, it wasn’t just a blow to my resume. It was a hit to who I believed I was. I questioned my worth, my voice, my place in the professional world. I questioned whether I should stop speaking up altogether.
And here’s the part we rarely talk about:
Your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between a job loss and any other major threat. It reacts the same way — anxiety, hypervigilance, disrupted sleep, a swirl of self-doubt.
Even as a therapist who understands the psychology behind it, I still found myself wrestling with questions like:
“Was it me?”
“Did I misread everything?”
“Should I shrink to fit?”
But over time — with reflection, therapy, and a lot of unlearning — I realized something important:
Losing that job didn’t diminish my voice. It revealed how powerful it actually was.
My work now sits at the intersection of mental health, identity, and workplace culture — not in spite of that experience, but because of it. What felt like an unraveling became the foundation of the life I’ve built today: a private practice, teaching roles, workshops, consulting, and a platform where my voice is not only welcomed but needed.
So when I talk about the psychology of being let go, I’m not theorizing — I’m speaking from lived experience:
Job loss is a form of grief.
Identity shock is real.
Your inner critic gets loud.
Your nervous system goes into survival mode.
And rebuilding yourself takes time.
But being let go is not the end of your story. Sometimes it’s the moment you finally get to rewrite it.
If you’re navigating something similar right now, know this:
You’re not broken.
You’re not failing.
You’re in a transition — and transitions are where identity gets rebuilt.
And if you’ve ever been told your voice was “too much”?
It might actually be your biggest asset.
