Older unemployed executives often have a real need for emotional support. You need an opportunity to vent your feelings without becoming maudlin and without fearing that a judgment will be made against you. These are some ways to get this emotional support.
1. Join an existing support group for unemployed older executives guided by a competent professional.This has several advantages. First, the others in the group are your peers. Second, the composition of the group is fluid, varying from meeting to meeting with the entrance of new members and the departure of old members to jobs. Thus, it is easy for someone to fill a niche in the group. Third, the very fact that you are going to the group on a temporary basis may enable you to come to grips more readily with some deep feelings and real problems. Have you ever met someone you've never seen before and don't expect ever to see again with whom you developed instant rapport? During the course of your conversation, did you discuss inner secrets and feelings you'd never before bared to anyone? These groups operate somewhat on the same basis. You know you'll be understood-and you know what you say will not be held against you at a later date or under other circumstances. If such a group is available in your vicinity, join immediately. Don't wait until you are discouraged by an unproductive job search. The group will help you feel ready to begin your search; and most importantly, the group will shore up your business identity.
2. Your family.If you have a family, this may be a good alternative to a support group. However, whether family is a reliable source of support for you or not is situational. Do you already have open lines of communication with your spouse and/or children? If so, you are in a position to discuss your current feelings. In fact, the occasion of unemployment can act to draw families back together and to reopen formerly closed avenues of communication. This does require extra effort on your part and you may feel that in your situation, it wouldn't work.
Brothers, sisters and cousins (who are, after all, built-in peers) may make a better support group than those with whom you reside. You have a common experience base, and they may have been unemployed at some time or other. So, if you have family members around, at least try to draw upon these lines of support.
3. Friends. You may encounter problems in using friends as a basis of support. But you still should try. Use care in approaching them. Don't make them feel threatened about their own status. Also, keep in mind that some people may be embarrassed if you attempt to use them as a "crying towel." Most, however, are willing to listen and will help if you can tell them how. Perhaps those friends best able to give you support and good advice are those who have, at some time in the past, grappled with unemployment themselves. Review your friends for this kind of experience. Then perhaps invite several who fit this criterion over for an hour or two, or phone them to talk.
Should any of your friends or acquaintances happen to be currently unemployed, you have a real opportunity to develop a mutual self-help organization with a broader purpose than just that of your own personal needs.
4. Other existing sources of support. If none of the preceding is available, check in your area to see what is. Call the business librarian at your local library. Contact one of the business editors or the librarian at your local newspaper. Approach your priest, rabbi or minister. Stop by the Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA, YWCA, YMHA, YWHA.
Check with local college counseling services, the human resources department of your former employer (if you parted under amicable conditions). Local mental health agencies are another possible contact. And, at least discuss the question of this kind of support with a counselor at your local unemployment office.
Keep in mind, though, that the kind of emotional support you are looking for is likely to be different from that needed to further your job search.
For those few of you who's drinking or substance-abuse habits may have contributed toward your current unemployed status, don't overlook the very real help and support of groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and other substance abuse organizations. Numerous AA members have already struggled with the twin problems of alcohol addiction and unemployment. Locate meetings whose attendees will most likely come from the executive, professional or managerial ranks.
For some of you, prayer may be a means of getting support. In the strictly secular setting of unemployment, people tend to forget that other avenues of help exist. If you have a religious background and some experience with prayer, try it. It could be healing.
5. Set up your own mutual support group. If none of the above will work, then locate other unemployed older executives and set up your own group. Run an ad in a local paper or put up a notice on the community bulletin board. You can probably arrange to have a preliminary meeting in donated space-a church, a school or someone's office after hours. (In many communities, banks and savings and loan organizations have meeting rooms which they'll make available free of charge to worthy community groups.)
To get such a group off the ground, you'll have to use your organizational, managerial and problem-solving skills. But you'll end up helping both yourself and others. And you'll get the sort of support and lift to your self-esteem which you need.
This last alternative requires more commitment than the others if it is to be made to work. You will need to recruit someone to serve as a facilitator-perhaps a minister with counseling training, a high school counselor with special skills for working with groups, or someone who regularly facilitates other types of group therapy. The group should be organized so that it can be ongoing after you get your own long-awaited job. Otherwise, it could be a disservice both to you and to the very people you want to recruit as members.
Above all, you need community. You must reach out for contact with other human beings. Remaining isolated and alone during this time is a prescription for failure.
