After Retirement, A Downturn  

By Abigail Trafford, the Washington Post  

May 4, 2004

The familiar script: He's lost his secretary, his parking place. He has no business card. Like Jack Nicholson in the movie "About Schmidt," he's endured the retirement party. He goes home, and then what? Stripped of his job title, who is he? What value does he have in a society where what you do is shorthand for who you are?  

Retirement -- welcomed or dreaded -- is a jolt. Sure, you can wake up in the morning and be grateful that you don't have to commute to the office anymore. But doing nothing can take its toll. You may have another 20 or 30 years of healthy life. How do you find purpose in work and meaning in relationships in these decades?  

Reese Cleghorn, who stopped being dean of the journalism school at the University of Maryland in 2000, had done it all -- he'd been reporter, editor, author. He covered the civil rights movement and wrote a book on the struggle. He capped his career at Maryland , turning the J-school into a leading institution. After nearly two decades at the helm, he wanted out. As he says: "I've ball-busted for 20 years." He wanted to teach. And write a book. He had nothing more to prove. He was 70.  

But several months after the grand farewell party, he was lost. "I had a great sinking spell," he says. "I felt really down. . . . I dragged around." His wife, Cheree, who worked in the health care field, grew alarmed. This was not the dynamo who built castles all his life.  

"I found myself being incompetent in little things," he says. "I would sit down and try and get my voice mail, and I couldn't remember the code." He had looked forward to teaching, but felt inadequate to the task. "I didn't feel confident," says the man who once guided professors on how to teach journalism.  

He slept 12 to 14 hours a night. "I had no ambition about doing anything," he says. His back hurt. Other times, he seemed like a "frenetic zombie," he says. "I was not aware of how odd I was behaving."  

But his wife and his internist were aware. They got him to a psychiatrist. Cleghorn was suffering from depression, and he needed treatment.  

So began a two-year journey to get his self back. The doctor prescribed a cocktail of antidepressants. It took time and trial to work out the proper mix and dosages, to let his body heal and regain its strength, to recover his compass for living.  

Cleghorn knows he is one of the lucky ones. He credits his wife with saving his life. He has support from family and friends. He has access to excellent health care. This was his first experience with clinical depression. It was detected early and treated appropriately.  

He is now fully engaged in his new career as professor at the school's recently named Philip Merrill College of Journalism. He's involved with the American Journalism Review magazine and other activities at the university. He loves working with his students. "I enjoy it immensely," he says. "It's fun. . . . It's like starting a new life, a new profession."  

He has a message for those making the transition to the bonus years. "Watch out when the big job ends," he says. "Anticipate it and get started on something before it happens."  

He also wants the public to know about depression. "A great many people are susceptible to this. It comes in many forms, in many different kinds of behavior. It has different origins," he says.  

The jolts that come at this stage put people at risk of depression. Traditionally, men have been more rooted in the workplace than women. They tend to attach their identity to their job and their bread-winning role. When the role goes, their sense of self is shaken. They may lose energy and ambition. Withdraw from people. Start drinking too much.  

The National Institute of Mental Health has launched the "Real Men Get Real Depression" campaign to strike down the stereotype that depression is mainly a woman's problem. More recently, health officials have turned to mental health problems in older Americans to strike down the stereotype that depression is an inevitable part of aging.  

This new attention is spurred by an ominous statistic: The highest suicide rate is found among white men over 65. In most instances, suicide is linked to an undiagnosed or uncontrolled mental condition such as depression.  

Sometimes a jolt unmasks a previously hidden depression. Or it triggers an episode in people who have been managing their illness for years. Sometimes depression develops in combination with another illness, such as heart disease. It can be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease. Then, too, normal grieving may morph into a depression that needs treatment. Researchers estimate than 20 to 30 percent of those who experience the death of a spouse will develop depression within six months.  

Retirement is often experienced as a loss. As Charles F. Reynolds III, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh , has explained: "For some, work is a major focus of life. With the loss of work, there's a loss of person-hood. It's important to find replacements that can lead to hope and integrity instead of despair and emptiness."  

At the forefront of the federal mental health campaign are men who have struggled in the trenches of depression and bipolar disease for most of their lives.  

Dennis Hagler, 58, works for the Manic-Depressive and Depressive Association of Boston (MDDA). An engineer, he has swung between the two poles of his illness since his early twenties. For about the last decade he has been stable, with the right mix of medication and support.  

He knows the importance of work to self-esteem -- and the positive role of work in keeping depression at bay. He also knows that some "people are hiding their depression through working too hard," he says, and when they stop working or lose their job, "suddenly, they are depressed."  

He knows about the risk of suicide. About 15 years ago he tried to end his life. At the time he had high-status job in engineering design. Out the outside, his life "looked quite successful and full," he says, but "the depression wore on me so long. . . . I became too weary. I tried to slash my wrists." His wife found him and rushed him to the hospital.  

He recovered, though in the aftermath of the attempt, he lost his job and his marriage. Finally, with medication and peer support, "I was able to rebuild a life." He was never able to get another engineering job, but he turned to helping others at MDDA. "I wake up every day happy. Not being depressed is the greatest gift," he says. "This is probably the best period of my life."