Tag: retirement

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
– Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”

I realise that at least part of my recent mental malaise is to do with “retiring” and getting old. There’s been a lot of personal stuff too, which is also related to ageing, being alone, contemplating death childless and alone. There has been an unfortunate conjunction of traumas coinciding with nearing the end of the day job. Heavy shit has been going down, as they say.
As of writing this sentence, today I have 40 days left in the wilderness as an employee. Unfortunately many people are insisting on calling it my retirement. It’s only a word, but it gets to you, after a while. Many people don’t want to retire; many do and then regret it; a few look forward to it and really enjoy it. I must admit to having doubts. Suppose I can’t cut the mustard on my own? Suppose instead of writing I drift and each day follows the preceding one in a (hopefully) long line before the grave? Suppose I write and it’s no good? Suppose I have only a life of grinding poverty to which to look forward? Suppose (particularly living in the country) I become socially isolated? Suppose I never find love? Suppose I become more and more inward looking? Suppose I starve? Suppose I trip over my teddy bear and break a leg; how long would I lie there before anyone notices? And because I’ve been so unwell recently I’ve written very little, and that makes me feel like a failure, which in turn makes me feel more depressed …
I’m pretty sure I’m doing the right thing but doubts about major transitions are perhaps only natural. I’m not enjoying my job any more, and so much of it seems pointless. I’ve recently been so mentally ill I don’t think I’ll be able to do the job properly much longer. I don’t think it’s fair on my colleagues to have to carry me. Already I feel like I don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to carry out really good novel research any more; I was out of it as a manager for too long. I tootled along with research for a while. but am now out of tootling. It’s time to let someone younger have a go. There are things I want to do and can do; I believe I can still make a contribution through writing. So my plan is to maximise time for how I think I can make a difference. But I am doubting the plan. I am doubting whether I can execute the plan.
Why do people not rage more about getting old? It’s horrible. Why do so many go against Dylan Thomas and go gentle into that good night? Most other people I know either accept the prospect of getting old and infirm and then dying, or don’t even see that there’s an issue. Why am I cursed to be so different? Why can’t I just accept getting it like everyone else?
Perhaps we all rage against the dark, but most people keep do so quietly. The highest suicide rate of all is among elderly men. Am I an elderly man yet? We’re lonely, we feel useless, we feel that we’re a burden, we look at young people around us enjoying themselves and feel envy and regret. Our bodies afflict us with increasing troubles and increasing pain. People expect us to be depressed in a way that wouldn’t be tolerated in other demographic groups. Those of us alone and without children are even worse off. Although as far as I can tell everyone who is severely depressed feels very alone, even if they surrounded by friends and family, so perhaps really being alone doesn’t matter as much as I think it does. I don’t know.
Leaving a job is one of the great transitions in life – particularly for academics, who tend to stay in the same career all their lives, and often at the same institution for decades. I know many people who have only worked at the same place from the beginning of their careers. We lose our focus, our purpose, our social setting, all one day. Overnight any meaning in our life has gone. It is sad to define meaning and purpose in terms of work, but for many work does much more than pay the bills.
On another note, I consider it possible that the relapse has been exacerbated by cutting back on my medication – particularly the quetiapine. I was boasting about this success only two blogs ago, but it could be that as the drugs fell beneath a critical level the depression and anxiety kicked in when life events conspired. My resilience has gone. So my healthcare professionals have urged me to increase the dose again, at least in the short term. I hate it. I hate the sedated feeling, the necessity to sleep so much, and I live in fear of starting to put on weight again after I’ve fought so hard to lose a little. And I particularly hate the fact I can’t concentrate on anything. No wonder I can’t write. I can’t even read much, and that makes me feel like a failure, which in turn makes me feel even more depressed …
Last year I experimented with reducing the dose of my anti-depressant, Duloxetine (Cymbalta), and that experiment was a disaster for my mood. Within five days of increasing the dose again I started to feel better. It could be that I will need this dose of both drugs for ever. And that makes me feel like a failure, which in turn makes me feel more depressed …
Once I have left the job perhaps my life will be defined by having to empty the dishwasher every day, or periodically buy a new tube of toothpaste. It’s these things that I find to be overwhelming, and that make me think most of that savage god, suicide. (I have been reading Andrew Solomon’s The noonday demon, and am relieved to find that he thinks exactly the same way.) I do the dishes today and fuck it, they need doing again tomorrow. It overwhelms me. What is the bloody point?