What They Have In Common:
Personal Challenges These People Face
What do these individuals have in common?
Individuals who experience significant personal transitions may find that it impacts every area of their lives:
Financial: They have likely lost their livelihood. How now will they provide food, shelter, clothing, and medical care for themselves, family and pets?
Housing: When individuals lose their jobs and/or careers, it often becomes very challenging to continue to pay for their housing. In extreme situations, some lose their homes and move in with others or wind up homeless. Many people in this situation will not be able to take their pets with them when they are forced to move out of their home because they can’t afford to pay for it. So the pets may become homeless as well. During the economic recession, countless foreclosed homes were found with abandoned pets left behind.
Strained Relationships: These situations often put tremendous stress on the individual’s relationships with family, friends and communities, thus sometimes will leave the individual in isolation as they are abandoned by people who can’t deal with the stress of the situation.
Emotional/Psychological/Spiritual/Identity Crisis: The hidden consequences of these situations are often the most devastating. These situations can do tremendous damage to the individual’s personal identity, psyche, mental and emotional health, values and overall worldview.
Physical Health: The stress of living in survival mode often affects the individual’s physical health. In addition, they often lose their medical and dental insurance when they lose their jobs. If their financial resources are extremely limited, they may not be able to pay for medical insurance, medical bills, dental bills, prescriptions, and/or expenses involved with maintaining a healthy lifestyle (eating right, going to the gym, etc.). Often times medical needs go unaddressed, and can therefore get worse.
Career: These situations often lead to a point where the individual can no longer perform the job or skills they once had. Or because of their public notoriety or their personal reputations being ruined, will find that their employers are very quick to let them go, and quickly distance themselves from them due to the risk of harm to the institution’s reputation, legal liabilities, and concern for physical safety of its people. Consequently, they will likely need to be retrained to develop new skills, which could wind up costing thousands of dollars for many people.
Child/Elder/Pet Care Challenges: Many of these individuals have others who depend on them for support and survival. Just because an individual experiences a major disruption in their life, does not eliminate those responsibilities. Unfortunately having others depend on you for food, shelter, health and personal care adds to the stress level.
“Helping Those in Transition Holistically: Their Success Depends on Identifying All Barriers”(Presentation at California Career Development Association Regional Conference – 11/2015). This conference presentation has been adapted and is now offered as a professional development workshop