When Becoming Unemployed Feels Like a Celebration

Trigger warning: discussion of workplace trauma, retaliation, and bureaucratic harm.

Most people don’t celebrate becoming “unemployed.

”But for me, this week, it felt like a small miracle.

After surviving a near workplace-violence incident, I asked for the most basic protection any worker should expect: a safe setting to do my job.

Instead of accommodations, I was boxed out.

I wasn’t allowed to work for the hospital where I was under contract.

I wasn’t allowed to work anywhere else either — not with a $150,000 penalty clause hanging over my head like a pair of corporate handcuffs.

So I did what survivors of retaliation often do:

I went down the rabbit hole.

• Regulatory complaints.

• State tribunals.

• Federal lawsuits and injunctions.

• Endless filings, motions, and rejections.

And I learned quickly that when you speak up — when you blow the whistle, when you ask for accommodations — you are stepping into an arena where the institutions have deep pockets, a full legal department, and an entire playbook designed to outlast you.

The cards aren’t just stacked against you.

They’re glued to the table.

The Unemployment Gauntlet

When my unemployment claim was denied, it felt like insult stacked on top of injury.

First, the paperwork didn’t upload in their portal.

Then I missed a registration deadline because of that glitch.

One setback after another — the kind designed to make you quit.

But finally, the case went before the full Commission.

They reviewed everything.

They heard my employer argue (I don’t even know what they were arguing — if I said the sky was blue, they’d insist it was green).

And then they did something I had stopped expecting:

They ruled in my favor.

They agreed:

• I did not voluntarily leave.

• I left with good cause.

• I qualified for unemployment benefits.

Why That “Yes” Mattered

It sounds small.

It sounds like paperwork.

But after months of being gaslit, pushed out, threatened, retaliated against, and blocked at every turn, that ruling felt like oxygen.

Because just the day before, I was drowning in federal court losses and Sun Life’s never-ending legal games. I walked into my house expecting another denial letter — another “no,” another confirmation that the system wasn’t built for people like me.

But it wasn’t.

It was a yes.

And for the first time in a long time, my heart sang.

Sometimes the System Does Work — Barely

Look, I’m not naïve.

Most of the time, these systems fail people like us.

Most of the time, they retraumatize the injured and reward the institutions.

But sometimes — not often, not reliably, and never without bruises — they actually work.

And when you’re in the middle of a battle designed to grind you down, that tiny “yes” feels like a celebration.

Not because unemployment is glamorous.

Not because the fight is over.

But because for once, in a sea of retaliation and injustice, something went the way it should.

And that is worth celebrating.

#DisabilityRights #WorkplaceRetaliation #Whistleblower #CorporateAccountability #MentalHealth