Born Here, Written Out: Surviving a System That Rejects You

This isn’t just my story—it’s the story of anyone the system tries to erase

I need to be brutally honest with you. My current job search has taken me down some dark, dangerous rabbit holes. Not just because work hasn’t come, but because of the questions it’s forced me to ask—the kind of questions that shake the foundation of who you are, where you belong, and whether the ground you stand on still holds you.

See, being unemployed is not just about not having an income. That’s the easy part to explain. The hard part is the invisible assault—the erosion of your identity, the way time drags without purpose, the gnawing shame that creeps in when people ask, “So, what do you do?” The truth? Unemployment is a form of grief.

Many psychiatrists have studied this pattern. Denial first —“This won’t last long, I’ll bounce back.” Then anger —“Why them and not me? I’m better qualified.” Bargaining comes next —“If I just rewrite my CV or hustle this contact, things will turn around.” Then the depression — heavy, suffocating, relentless. Finally, a bitter version of acceptance that doesn’t feel like peace at all, but resignation.

Sadly, my grief has another layer. A distinctly South African one.

I am a Coloured man in a country where my skin is not black enough, not white enough, not useful enough for the laws of the land. I am not excluded by chance — I am excluded by design.

You don’t have to look far. BBBEE. Quotas. All words dressed in noble intent, but in practice they are a quiet execution of opportunity for people like me. I have watched doors close, not because of my lack of skill or my lack of fight, but because I tick the wrong box on the form.

So I ask myself the question that burns me from the inside out: Do I even belong here?

It’s a dangerous question, because when you begin to doubt your place, your citizenship, your very right to exist in the economy, you also begin to doubt the soil under your feet. So when that soil refuses your roots, you start to wonder—am I just a guest here, in the land of my birth?

And what about my kids? How do I explain to them that in the land that raised them, they may always be outsiders to the system? How do I tell them that their brilliance, their grind, their determination will often matter less than the tick-box politics of race? Do I tell them the truth and risk breeding bitterness? Or do I sell them the lie that “if you just work hard enough, the world will reward you”?

This is the part that eats at me, because honesty with them feels like cruelty, and dishonesty feels like betrayal.

So then I ask myself another question: Is the answer self-employment?

Maybe? Maybe not?

I like the idea of building something no policy can deny me. Something my children can inherit that no minister or HR policy can confiscate, but here’s the psychiatric reality: when you are unemployed and broken down, self-employment doesn’t look like freedom. It looks like standing at the edge of a cliff with no parachute, praying that when you jump, the ground won’t shatter every bone in your body.

Hopelessness is not laziness. It’s not weakness. It’s a clinical state. A collapse of meaning when life keeps handing you defeat, and that’s where I have found myself lately—staring into the dark, fighting to remember who I was before rejection hollowed me out.

Yet, here’s the thing about the human psyche: even in despair, it searches. It clings. It rebels,

and maybe that’s where I find a sliver of resistance. In the decision to tell this truth out loud. To write it, raw and unvarnished. To admit that being unemployed in South Africa, as a Coloured man, feels like playing a rigged game where you can’t win unless you change the rules entirely. Maybe my foothold is defiance—the refusal to let exclusion dictate my worth.

So, yes. I am at a loss right now, but maybe that’s where the rebuilding begins—in the rubble.

If you’re in this with me—if you know the weight of rejection, of exclusion, of feeling like the system has decided who you are before you even show up—then hear this: survival starts with small acts of resistance. Getting out of bed when you’d rather disappear. Sending another application even though yesterday’s rejection still stings. Telling your children the truth, but also showing them that exclusion does not have the final say.

Truth be told. if honesty is not the currency employers trade in, then maybe it must be our currency. Living in a country that tries to erase us, perhaps the most radical act is to stand anyway—visible, defiant, and unbroken.

A Word to My Kids ❤️

To my daughters and my son:

I won’t sugarcoat this. You live in a country that may not always recognize your value. You may be told — quietly, in the language of policy — that you are not wanted in certain spaces. You may knock on doors that never open.

Don't worry, but hear me now: you are not the box they want to put you in. You are not your exclusion. You are not your rejection.

This country may fail you, but you cannot fail yourselves. Your worth is not up for negotiation. If they don’t let you in, you build your own door. If they erase you, you write your name in stone.

Life will try to convince you that survival is enough. Don’t believe it. Survival is the starting line, not the finish. Your fight, your defiance, your refusal to disappear—that is your inheritance.

Hear this, even when the system tries to tell you otherwise, know this: you belong. Not because the country says so, but because you decide so! I may be down, but I am definitely not out! Ciao! Damien