‘It was soul-destroying’: Shining a light on the emotional toll of retirement
By Nell Geraets
For some, retirement seems optional. Country music superstar Dolly Parton, 77, recently said she had no plans to retire, hoping she would instead just “drop dead in the middle of a song onstage someday”. For most people, however, retirement is an unavoidable reality – one that can carry a heavy emotional load.
Terry O’Callaghan, 87, had to leave his post as the executive director of the United Dairy Farmers of Victoria – a position he held and cherished for about 15 years – to care for his ailing wife.
Terry O’Callaghan retired from his decades-long career in the dairy industry to care for his wife. Credit: Eddie Jim
Despite being just 62 at the time and both physically and mentally capable of continuing his work, he felt he couldn’t juggle a demanding full-time job with the everyday pressures of palliative care.
“You can feel lost when retirement is sudden. You felt useful, and suddenly, you don’t,” says O’Callaghan, who is based in Balwyn.
Director of the University of Queensland’s Healthy Ageing Initiative Nancy Pachana says this is a common reaction among retirees, yet it’s generally not as openly spoken about as financial concerns.
“You’re feeling fulfilled,” Pachana says. “If you feel like you’re having a positive impact ... it can make it very hard to walk away because what’s going to replace that thrill?”
From astronauts to line cooks, many people define themselves through their work, creating social networks inextricably linked to their working selves.
“If you’ve invested too much of yourself in work – if all of your emotional eggs are in that basket – it can be very frightening to think ‘what do I do now? How can I have an identity if I’m not doing this?’,” says Pachana.
O’Callaghan found ways to cultivate his own sense of self while caring for his wife post-retirement. In between making her breakfast, taking her to medical appointments and enjoying the evenings by her side, O’Callaghan would consult, teach seniors how to use technology at the University of the Third Age and offer advice on superannuation.
Once his wife passed, he leaned even further into these activities and other hobbies to occupy and stimulate his mind, including bushwalking and travel.
Planning some kind of work post-retirement – whether it’s part-time or casual, volunteering or joining the board of organisations – can help keep the brain stimulated, says clinical psychologist and recently retired academic Christina Bryant. These commitments can make the transition away from full-time work less confronting.
“The research has also shown the importance of maintaining physical activity and social connection. We know that those two things are extremely good for brain health,” Bryant says.
O’Callaghan says for a long time he lived in two worlds. “One of caring for my wife and one of keeping myself interested in work and busy at the same time,” he says. “You should never think about retiring from your work. You should always be thinking about retiring to something – something positive that you can focus on.”
The pain of involuntary retirement
Not having control over when to retire – whether because of your health, redundancy or the need to care for a loved one – can leave people feeling shell-shocked and disoriented, Bryant says.
“There’s a lot of research that says involuntary retirement and retirement driven by health concerns are some of the most challenging,” Bryant says. “It’s the reality that you’re not retiring to go for longer bushwalks, you’re retiring possibly into a situation of limitation rather than expansion.”
Mary Henley-Collopy, 61 from Melbourne’s western suburbs, had to retire from her role as a social worker in the public service at the age of 41, which was 24 years before the official “retirement age” at the time, due to her disability. She lives with foreshortened limbs due to thalidomide, which impeded her mobility and made using a computer extremely difficult.
Mary Henley-Collopy retired at the age of 41 due to her disability. Credit: Eddie Jim
“It wasn’t a case of ‘I don’t want to go to work’, it was that I just physically couldn’t,” Henley-Collopy says. “It was soul-destroying. I went through a very deep depression as I was leaving work ... My social life declined, my sleep was deprived.”
Leaving her job was a loss akin to a death, something she says could be more easily navigated with a grief counsellor. Work was more than just a place to be during the week, it was her opportunity to make a real difference in people’s lives, such as the homeless and elderly, and a means to proudly represent those living with a disability within the workforce.
But when the office underwent a digital revolution, and she was expected to write her reports using a computer, what was already exhausting became unmanageable.
President of People with Disability Australia Nicole Lee says those living with a disability sometimes feel as if retirement involuntarily relegates them to a life of dependence. “For many of us, that choice isn’t there. We want to do it, but we just physically can’t and there’s not too many jobs out there that are one day a week.”
People like Henley-Collopy could benefit from the establishment of dedicated job-share positions for those with disabilities, Lee says. This would involve two people sharing a part-time job, allowing them to continue working under flexible conditions or to ease themselves into retirement.
Retirement comes in different shapes and sizes
Australians born on or after January 1, 1957 must be 67 to access the age pension, but Pachana says a single “retirement age” could be disadvantageous for certain people.
“It can’t be a one-size-fits-all thing. They just raised the retirement age, but not everyone is living longer. We still have a gap in longevity with Indigenous people. So, you’ve got groups of people that need to be considered in a different way, you can’t just say everybody lives this long, ergo everybody should work longer.”
This could also be applied to more physically demanding jobs, such as carpentry or hospitality. Not only do these types of jobs become physically taxing faster than other industries, processes also rapidly evolve.
Kevin Wallace, 72, from Sydney’s Hornsby, says he felt like he “aged out” of his job as a railway carriage builder once he approached 65, as the business looked for more general tradespeople rather than specialists. “At that time, they were sending people off to get a crash trades course to become electricians or fitters. So, I could see the writing on the wall. It wasn’t going to last with us.”
Kevin Wallace finds fulfilment in retirement by taking part in his local Men’s Shed.Credit: Nick Moir
Wallace says he found himself fixing up the seats and windows on trains post-retirement, not quite able to remove the emotional attachment he formed to the job. He also missed the incidental social connections he’d form by showing up to work.
To ease the transition, he joined an over-55s football team and his local Men’s Shed, which enabled him to remain sociable and continue using his hands (he now repairs chairs and makes wooden toys for underprivileged children around Christmas).
“You need that diversification. Otherwise, you get into this huddle and it’s the same all the time.”
Though finances are generally front of mind when considering retirement – particularly as some people struggle to end their careers amid the cost of living crisis – Bryant says emotional planning is equally essential, and should be done ahead of time and without shame.
“We don’t like talking about getting older,” Bryant says. “But be kind to yourself. There’s no one way to retire. Expect it to be an adjustment ... Find enjoyment in the slowness.”
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