Have you ever been fired from a job?
I actually have been fired three times and that doesn't count being laid off from my last job!
 The first time I was fired was when I was in graduate school.  I was working at a group home for developmentally delayed adults as basically a house parent.  The agency was fairly new and had some administrative issues, to put it gracefully.  When I first started, there was a very good house manager who tried really hard to stay on  top of things. She would  make sure that the home was well maintained that she had good communication with the line staff.  I don't know why she quit, but when she did, things sort of went downhill.  We went through a couple of relatively decent House managers in the short time that I worked there.  The fact that they didn't stay  was probably a pretty good clue about what was going on with the higher administration.  The last guy they hired while I worked there (because he was the one who fired me), tried to take charge  without really knowing the  residents.  We had an older man whose hygiene was n ot his main priority.  Some of the residents were clearly severely delayed.  But some of them were higher functioning.  The gentleman in question was one of the higher functioning residents.  He could even read a little bit at very lower-level.  The new house manager told me that I was to make the man take a bath, physically, scrubbing him myself if I needed to.  I tried to reason with him and explain to him why having a young woman physically give a bath to an older man may not be the best idea.  He  said "if you refuse to bathe him, you are being insubordinate and you are fired.".   I refused to bathe the man and that was it.  My first firing experience. 
My second firing experience was much more traumatic.  It was my third full-time job after graduate school.  My first job at the Center for Children's Services in Danville was a wonderful experience.  I loved the people there, my supervisor, and my clients.  But I left to move to Chicago to get married.  My first job in Chicago was at the Jewish Children's Bureau.  I loved my supervisor and the people I worked with.  I loved my clients, too.  But I hated the casework that I was doing.  So it got another job at therapeutic day school called Learning House.
The Learning House was the privately owned for-profit day school for troubled adolescents.  At first glance it seemed lovely place to work.  The kids were great, and I liked the teachers.  My supervisor seemed clinically astute so I thought I could learn something from him.  But there were troubles that began  soon after beginning there.  The owners/managers of the school had some real issues!
Codependence is a fairly well known topic.  Most people think of codependence as assisting an alcoholic in remaining an alcoholic  without meaning to.  But codependence is actually a way of interacting with someone to keep them from or acting in certain ways.  Everyone at that school had a codependent relationship with the owner, Mark.  We all tiptoed around him to keep him from exploding or being angry about some slight.  He would yell at the staff for something that was done unintentionally.  When there was an issue, a simple directive stated in a polite way would have sufficed.  But Mark's response was to yell and call people names.
The firing didn't happen all at once as it did in the first circumstance.  I was unhappy there and felt that no matter what, I could not make Mark happy.  My supervisor had arranged for us to have an intern from the University of Chicago.  She was in the social work program and since my supervisor was not a licensed clinical social worker, I had to supervisor.  She was wonderful.  Very smart and capable.  But it was evident to her that this was a somewhat toxic environment.  Much of supervision with her was spent discussing how to navigate the politics and keep Mark happy.  During that time, I actually got a new job.  My dad knew how unhappy I was. He had me call someone he knew at Lifelink Corporation.  They were looking for licensed clinicians for a new program in foster care.  So I went to the interviews and I was hired! Hooray!  Unfortunately, this meant that I would be leaving my poor intern fend for herself and without a social worker to supervise her.  When I told her I was leaving, she said she didn't want to stay there without me.  She spoke with her advisor at school and told him about the situation.  She requested to change internships.  When I told my supervisor that I was leaving, I also told him that the intern would be leaving as well.
I should've seen it coming.  Mark was furious that I had told her that I was leaving before I told him.  He was also furious that she was leaving and blamed it on me.  He basically threatens to take my license saying that this was unethical.  I'm pretty sure it's not.  He made life very uncomfortable for me for the next week or so.  He finally told me I was fired.  This really was an incident where I could've said "you can't fire me!  I quit!"  He didn't give me any opportunity to say goodbye to any of my clients, and in fact canceled an appointment I had without telling me.  I sat around and waited for the client, and when I called her, she said she was confused because market already canceled the appointment for me.  Awkward!
I later found out that he told the kids that they could write the letters to say goodbye and he would send them.  I never received any letters.  He told them I had to be fired because of unethical behavior.  I really wish I could sue his ass for defamation of character!
A couple of months later, my husband and I bought a new car.  I had to verify my work experience for the last year.  I had just started at LifeLink so not enough time had passed.  I gave them the number of the learning house and they called Mark.    A car salesman told me that Mark had told him not to sell me a car and that I was a bad risk.  This is  highly illegal.  Nevertheless, we did get the car.  Despite knowing that I had actually quit, the experience of being "fired" was uncomfortable for a very long time.
The last time, and hopefully the final time, that I was fired was recently from a side gig I had.  I was doing professional presentations for Aetna.  They would send me to various locations and I were present on a variety of topics including cultural sensitivity, stress management, positive communication, things like that.  They would send me the materials including handouts and the PowerPoint and I would just present.  I would try to add some material if it was appropriate.  The last couple of times I was not well received.  People didn't like that I went off script and they didn't like that I talked about my own experiences sometimes.  So the company called and told me that I got some bad reviews.  They gave me one final gig after that.  I'm pretty sure the company that I was presenting to may have been told that I was being tested out.  I was met with stony silence.  No one participated in any discussion or activities.  They didn't laugh at any jokes or ask any questions.  Try to have a conversation sometime with someone who is paying any attention to you.  It is a lesson in futility!
Now I am in business for myself and it is unlikely that I will fire myself.  Clients fire you all the time, and I am able to keep this from feeling personal in most cases.
It is funny how your idea of what is really awful morphs when you are fighting a chronic illness.  Being fired from the Learning House seemed to be shameful and embarrassing event.  But when I look at it now, not only was it pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it's laughable that I could see that as any kind of a challenge.
Trying to put my pants on in the morning...That's a challengw!