JOE MALIK: JOINING THE CLUB >>>

I knew it the moment I walked into my boss's office. He didn't even have a chance to say "You're fucking fired" before my legs started to malfunction. I could see the agony and shame on his face, as I'm sure he could see the panic on mine. It was purely a budgetary decision, he said. The company was preparing for a bad year, and tough choices had to be made just in case things got as bad as everyone was predicting.

One of those choices was to let some people go. And despite years of dedicated service, my head was on the block.

CHOP!

It literally happened that fast.

I now count myself among a growing number of people who are officially without a job. Between November and December, thousands of people in Washington joined those ranks – a near-historic drop during one of the worst economic declines in our nationÃ's history.

According to reports emerging this week, it's getting worse.

On a national scale, people filing for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 26-year high. Preliminary reports show jobless claims increased 626,000 in January - the highest level since October 1982. The total number of people collecting unemployment jumped to a record 4.78 million - that's more than the entire population of the state of Alabama.

This is a stark reality, everyone. This is real terror. Odds are that many of you reading this know exactly what I mean.

So ... in the interest of open dialogue, self-pity, communal suffering, communal groping for hope, communal bitching, and maybe a little healing, the Weekly Volcano has made the marginally wise decision to let me write about being unemployed in Grit City. For all those facing the utter terror of sudden unemployment, know that you are not alone. About 65,000 people joined us during the last week of January, according to the New York Times.

Probably like you, I've spent an undue amount of time scared out of my wits. I can't think, I can't sleep, and I feel utterly lost and ashamed. Suddenly a cornerstone of my identity is gone – I can't tag the end of my name with the name of my former employer. My sense of identity is unraveling. And I have nothing but time on my hands, which provides plenty of opportunity to feel sorry for myself. I've spent an undue amount of time drowning in distraction, and trying to fill the sudden void with all the things I gave up to keep my job all those years. Sometimes it works.

A recent report issued by the American Psychological Association indicates that unemployment can spark a vicious cycle of depression, loss of personal control, decreased emotional functioning and poorer physical health. The authors came to this conclusion from interviewing 756 recently unemployed job seekers. The results show that this chain of woes appears to continue for at least two years.

Meanwhile, daily reports spill from the fetid mouths of industry-funded professional optimists, who literally seem to be saying that we can buy our way out of this. That's right – one of the most popular prescriptions for the unemployment blues is to spend more money. This capitalizes on a well-documented phenomenon in which people who are depressed and confused are more inclined to spend irresponsibly and frivolously. I imagine most of the people pushing this poison pill have jobs, live comfortably, and stand to profit from continued irrationality and denial about the state of our economy.

This is the kind of bald-faced deception that helped place us in the predicament we're in.

I almost bought it myself.

But then I watched Wall Street robber-barons take home 18-plus billion dollars in bonuses, and gobble up billions of dollars in bail-out money without being held to any reasonable standard of accountability. Then I remembered that I wouldn't get a paycheck in two weeks. So, unequivocally, I decided that this "keep buying or keep dying" ruse is the most shameless, deceitful, mindless, panic-driven bullshit of all time.

There has to be a better way out, individually and collectively.

We'll talk about that next week.