Layoff Recovery Phase 2: Stabilizing After Losing Your Job

The shock fades faster than people think. Not because you suddenly feel better, but because your brain realizes it can’t stay in freefall forever. Stabilization isn’t graceful. It’s not peaceful. It’s the point where you stop spiraling long enough to put your feet on the ground and say, “I have to handle this.”

Not “I can.” Not “I’m ready.” Just “I have to.”

DoorDash, Survival Mode, and the First Look at Control

The very first thing that helped me feel even a sliver of control again was DoorDash. I’m not ashamed of doing work that other people think is beneath them. New residential construction got me through college. Delivering pizzas gave me my first taste of freedom when I was homeless at 17, nearly 18.

Work is work. Movement is movement. Money is money. And a job that gets you out of your head is sometimes exactly what you need.

I was doing deliveries in a full suit so I could take calls from recruiters between drop-offs. Survival mode looks ridiculous sometimes. It also works.

Hyper-Focus as a Life Raft

My stabilization phase was hyper-focused. No time to unravel. No room to ignore reality.

I:

• updated my résumé the ASAP

• replied to recruiters using my old résumé while letting them know a new one was coming

• built spreadsheets of jobs, links, deadlines, and contacts

• took intro calls while navigating apartment complexes in my car

• enacted my emergency budget within hours

• played out the worst-case scenarios: “If I lose my house, where do I go?” “Who can take me in when my family is 2,000 miles away?”

  
  

It wasn’t optimism. It was necessity.

The Logistics Nobody Talks About

The official tasks came next:

• filed for unemployment

• realized I could not afford COBRA

• did the math on how to stretch my medications

• dug up pay stubs and documents

• cut everything non-essential

Let me be blunt for anyone who lands here because they’re in the same spot: trying to ration medication is its own kind of destabilizing. It’s a specific fear. I knew my quality of life would drop, and I knew untreated symptoms could push me toward underemployment. It wasn’t dramatic. Just honest.

Oddly, the moment that helped the panic ease wasn’t emotional at all. It was my emergency budget. Seeing the numbers laid out gave me the clarity I needed to breathe again.

The Support System That Showed Up

Everyone showed up for me. Family, friends, former coworkers, LinkedIn connections I hadn’t talked to in years. People cared in a way I wasn’t expecting.

Emotional support mattered, but what actually moved the needle were the people who:

• messaged me directly

• sent me leads

• connected me to their recruiters

• reshared my open-to-work post with stories of what it was like working with me

• reviewed my LinkedIn profile

• reminded me that my work had impact

Their support helped me rebuild something I didn’t know I had lost: pride in my work. My manager’s perception wasn’t the universal truth I had started to believe.

And then there were my laid-off coworkers. We lifted each other up in real time. “Hey, I applied here and talked to their recruiter. I mentioned you.” “I sent them your name too.” “I told them you were strong in these areas.”

We supported each other in ways only people going through the same crash can.

The Identity Hit

The hardest part of stabilization wasn’t financial. It wasn’t logistical. It was the identity crash.

I knew even before the call that I was about to lose the version of myself I had worked so hard to build: Cade Scherer, the Purview SME (subject matter expert) for US Education.

For over a year, I worked 12 to 16 hours a day maintain that reputation. I built it with intention and care. And I lost it in a 15-minute Teams call.

Losing that identity decimated my pride, my ego, and my sense of worth. It brought up the echoes of old fears I thought I had buried. I grew up in instability. I was homeless before I turned 18. Losing housing through no fault of my own was a familiar trauma, and the layoff snapped me back into those survival patterns instantly.

Being 2,000 miles away from my family didn’t help. They could cheer for me, offer what little extra money they had, remind me I was a good person. But no one could drop off leftovers or sit with me at the kitchen table. Support can’t always cross that many miles.

My stability felt like it was hanging by a thread.

The First Flicker of Hope

Hope showed up when my calendar started filling with recruiter calls before I had even applied.

Internal recruiters were reaching out because:

• someone recommended me

• someone shared my post

• someone spoke highly of me

• someone remembered how I showed up for their team

I had recruiters asking to speak before the job description was even ready. That was the first time I thought, “Okay. Maybe I’m not sinking.”

The spark grew when I interviewed with the recruiter from the company I work for now.

And it grew again when a coworker I cared deeply about (someone laid off a week or two before me) cheered me on in a way that made me feel like I mattered.

Stabilization finally took hold when I could see a path forward. Even if it wasn’t perfect.

Even if it wasn’t guaranteed.

And the moment I got a start date — almost exactly one month after losing my job — I felt myself surface from the water for the first time. I wasn’t fully safe. But I wasn’t drowning anymore.

If You’re in Phase 2 Right Now

This phase is not pretty. It’s messy, fearful, hyper-focused, and exhausting. But it’s also the phase where you start clawing back your stability. Inch by inch.

If you’re here right now:

• You’re not failing.

• You’re not behind.

• You’re not weak for being scared.

• You’re not dramatic for spiraling.

• You’re not wrong for being in survival mode.

You are stabilizing.

And survival is progress.

Phase 3 is next. The rebuilding. The perspective shift. The part where things make a little more sense and a little less noise.

You’ll get there.