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My Journey through Depression, Unemployment, and Cooking

Recovery Program Solutions of Virginia > Blog > Uncategorized > My Journey through Depression, Unemployment, and Cooking
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Unemployed, again. The stress has left me with depression and financial problems. After graduating with my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I spent my time unemployed. All in all, I’ve been unemployed for years at a time. I’ve had periods of job searching that have come up with absolutely nothing. I don’t blame the economy; I sit around blaming myself. I need to have employment in my life. I need to be employed and feel independent, strong, and intelligent. All the things that I already am but without employment, I consider myself less than.

What can someone learn from my prolonged period of unemployment? The value of self-care. It may seem like a small thing, but self-care is my coping tool and I use it to be a preoccupied and productive person. Without self-care, my world would not exist. When I was too sick to keep myself preoccupied, I lived bored, depressed, and stressed. Every day requires happiness, calm, and distraction from my problems.

Fortunately, I can look forward to a job coach in the future. For the first time, I’ll be able to work with a job coach and revitalize all of my documents. In the meantime, cooking keeps me preoccupied and happy. With all my unemployment and depression, I have found cooking to be the answer to my problems. Not only does it help me with my budget but it also keeps me healthy and stress-free.   

Cooking has relieved my stress and given me a new perspective on self-care. I often feel that cooking forces me to face my depression and my health daily. Every day I have to decide on what to prepare and how to make it. Finding recipes is often difficult, but with cookbooks at the library, I have been entertained and happy.

My most recent meal was spaghetti squash with marinara sauce. Spaghetti squash is this amazing vegetable that is a squash and vegetable spaghetti. It cooks up looking like squash and when you apply a fork to the flesh of the squash, it magically transforms into spaghetti! I made the vegetable spaghetti with a delicious pasta sauce. It turned out beautifully and I added a new vegetable to my diet. I couldn’t have been happier with the results. Cooking gives me a sense of accomplishment that I was missing in my life.

All this gives me the chance to be a productive and happy person. Self-care and cooking are tools I reach for on a day to day basis to relieve my stress, center my mind, and manage my life. Without self-care, I wouldn’t have much.

~ Anonymous Guest Blogger

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Author: Information @ RPSV

March 29th

RPSV Will Be Closed