It's tough out there. I went from being unemployed for two years after getting my master's degree (so much for the advanced STEM degree helping) before landing a full time job and dealt with similar bullshit during my long stretch of unemployment similar to like you describe. I wish I could say I got the job I have now based on skill and merit, but the god's honest truth is I mostly got lucky on the job lottery, I know this and deep down this fact terrifies me. When I was unemployed I thought the grass would be greener on the other side. It isn't, full time employment is very much soul crushing in its own way. 40% of my income disappears in taxes and whatever else they take out before I get what's left; I still make poverty level wage, $18K a year is what I get direct deposited to my bank account from this job. I still have $80K in student loan debt. I survive on lentils, canned tuna, and peanut butter. I'm the only male millennial where I work, the majority is late gen-x and boomers, and a few millennial women that these pervs hired. They are so out of touch with reality, I really suffer from work place isolation. I can't relate to anyone who listens to Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh on the radio EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, or someone who decides to have SIX children and bitches about them and his wife and theirs plan to buy a new home, or someone who brags about his vacations to the Caribbean and other exotic locations.

Honestly I was in a better place mentally when I was unemployed. I had more time to myself to rebound, rest, and refocus from the daily shit of life. Now there is little escape, it's like being on a treadmill that doesn't stop. I don't feel like I'm living, just existing.