The job hunt wrecked my mental health and I wasn't ready for that part

This is the part I don't see people talk about. Months of applications. The silence. The occasional rejection that lands right after you'd let yourself get a little hopeful.

Somewhere in there I started tying my sense of worth to callback rates, and I didn't notice it happening until I was snapping at people I love over an unanswered email. My whole mood for a day could hinge on whether a company I didn't even want that badly had written back.

It's a strange kind of grief — mourning a job you never had, on a loop. And the standard advice to "just keep applying" is correct while doing absolutely nothing for the weight of it.

For those who've come out the other side: skip the resume tips — how did you protect your head while the search dragged on? What got you through? Asking for myself, and probably for a few people reading this without saying so.