At a certain point in being unemployed, the hardest part is fighting of depression. If your needs are met (you've got a place to sleep, and you won't go hungry) then you really don't have much to worry about. In the initial period of time for unemployment it's even almost like a vacation.
You get to sleep in if you like, you don't answer to anybody, and you get to do all the things you didn't have time for when you were working before. But as time drags on, you start to realize that waking up in the afternoon everyday really isn't healthy, and while you don't answer to anybody, you also don't have anything that you're required to do (aside from job hunt). That means that your day is without purpose (aside from what you can give it) and that tends to make a person lazy.
When the extraordinary becomes the everyday it stops being special... it starts to be mundane instead. So all that initial thrill just sort of fades away. At a certain point you realize that you liked the structure of having something to wake up for and times where you had to be. That the schedule you'd constructed your life around actually meant something to you. Suddenly all the things that you get to do now that you couldn't do before don't seem that interesting... because you miss the scheduled activities that are now out of sync with your current life.
Eventually you even realize that you have more time then you know what to do with, or that you can be productive with because eventually the place is clean and the upkeep on it isn't too bad. Eventually you've seen all the movies and shows you wanted to catch up on and there's nothing left to watch. Eventually you've played your share of every game you own and are stuck searching for something new, because let's face it, you can only play one game for so long before you want to do something else. Even if you're being productive and visiting places to try to find a job, there's probably a finite number of jobs that are in your area you can apply to. Even keeping on top of new opportunities burns a trivial amount of time.
After long enough depression sets in, and everything you do seems pointless. I am glad to say I haven't quite reached that point yet. Having job interviews helps. But eventually I'll probably get there too. The longer you stay unemployed the more acute it becomes as you start to ask yourself how you haven't managed to land a job yet. The thought eventually occurs to you that the reason why you're unemployed is not because you were looking for something new, but because you were or are incompetent, and are incapable of doing the work required of you by your chosen profession. And once that thought has gotten into your head, every time you don't get a job, or don't get an interview that thought is just going to get stronger and stronger. That thought (or some permutation of "I'm not good enough") is why unemployment tends to go with depression.
It's not real though. Your first instinct in leaving that job was correct and in almost every case the next job you have will be better then your last one, because you have more experience and more skills then you did the last time you applied for a job. So even when it takes some time... it's probably best to keep one's head up. A better future is one worth striving for, even if it means a little bit of pain and sorrow in the interim. Better to suffer now and take a good job later, then get a job right now and hate it for every day you work there. I've had those jobs and I'm not dying to do that again. So for now, I suffer, I wonder, and I strive. I will put my hope towards a job that I actually want to have instead of a job that just pays the bills.
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