My field dried up and died while I was a SAHM. I'm now working on setting up a home-based business in a related, but different field. It's a hard slog, and I feel very dispirited and discouraged much of the time. All my old colleagues have left the field or if they are still there, are hanging on by their fingernails, and say life is beyond miserable.

I'm not really grieving, though, OP. I never loved my field, just enjoyed it, but it wasn't my passion. I loved feeling competent and building up skills, and now all that experience is lost, which is so sad.

What's life all about if there are no rewards for working hard and becoming good at something? It really does feel terrible, so I suppose I am actually grieving that loss. It will take me 20 years to build up comparable skills in my new field, and by that time I will be old indeed.

I never signed up for this. I thought I'd reap the rewards of all my hard work in my old age. Now it looks like I'm headed for nothingness.

Video rental store manager, foreign section.

Buggy whip designer.

Bar soap factory worker.

TV antennae installation.

Watch designer.

Record player sales.

Anonymous wrote:law? cold war strategy?

Cold War strategy should be making a comeback. Seriously. There's a dearth of mid-level folks who really understand Russia right now.

I have a lot of sympathy and compassion for your situation OP. Its something that really isn't acknowledged at all. My mother worked from the late 70s to the early 2000s as a travel agent. She truly LOVED her career and was very good at it. She poured her heart and soul into every single trip she planned. Needless to say with the rise of the internet her job became obsolete. She feels really bad about it to this day and people really don't give her any credit. They kinda think it was a fun part time job she had while raising her kids that didn't matter much. Sad.

Publishing?

Typewriter salesperson?

Journalism?

law? cold war strategy?

What area of work were you in?

I read this in another thread here. "Grieving loss of career in a field where all the jobs disappeared. Put 20 years into it, now, nothing. Underemployed in unrelated field for the past 3 years. Just so scary and depressing. Can't figure out what else I want to do that someone would pay me a decent salary to do."

I experienced this myself. Around 2008, I noticed the strain on my work relationships and colleagues. People at work became much more competitive, less collegial, hoarding instead of sharing work or information. Funding for the type of work I do started to dry up. Co-workers started back stabbing and fighting like dogs over a bare bone for work.