Now a lot of people will get pissed about this. How could I collect unemployment for two years and not get another job. You lazy bum you.

In 2006 when the real estate market crashed in CA I decided to join the plumbers unions. It cost me 2000 bucks to join and I had to go to a year of school two nights a week. They still had a lot of work on the books. Big hospitals, schools, processing plant, refineries. Alot of good work with good pay and benefits. I thought I was set. Then the work they had started drying up and the lay offs started. Work six months get laid off, work three months, get laid off. In the union if you go get another job they kick you out. I had invested a lot in the union gig and I wanted to stick with it. And there were no other jobs out there in plumbing. Even my side jobs ran dry. So I sat on my butt for two years and collected unemployment. Half my normal pay. My financial situation was getting worse and worse. This was not at all good for my depression. It kept getting worse and worse. After those two years I got called out to a big prison hospital. It was the only work the union had in two years. Everyone had been laid off. I worked for a year on that job but my depression was getting worse and worse. I finally got fired for missing to much work due to depression. I went into a six month long very deep suicidal depression. Longest and worse I have ever had. So I don't know for sure if my depressions are just getting worse naturally or it is due to all the work and financial issues. Finances are a huge trigger for me. I snapped out of it for four months and then went diving into another long one that I am just now coming out of. The last year and a half no way I could have worked. I did a lot in the four months I was better but you can't hold a job being depressed 8 months out of the year. I am still in good with the union and could go off the disabled list and go back if they have the work. I have heard that most of the guys I worked with on the prison hospital job are laid off again. The construction trades have been hit the worse since the economy crashed in 2006. It has not recovered since except for the oil boom in North Dakota. I am not a pipe fitter I am a plumber so I couldn't really work an oil rig or gas well. I know I could pass the test and learn but in reality I would be like a one year apprentice. And I have no idea what my depression is going to do in the future. I am gaining more hope. But I have had hope lots of times.

Not that anyone cares but I felt a need to explain. I could be writing all this in my journal because it helps me to write about it. I would rather do it here. I know I write these really long posts and a lot of them. Maybe no one reads them, doesn't matter, but if it helps one person than it is worth it. It helps me so I do it.