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WHEN I WAS GROWING up, my father would drag me to his office in lower Manhattan a couple of Saturdays each month. He always claimed it was to teach me “the value of a dollar.”
He was raised below the poverty line, and felt my mother spoiled me and that I needed to learn what it meant to work. I now realize he was right, but back then I thought he just wanted an audience who he could then impress with his business exploits.
One day, I was watching him write out checks in the office, when he looked up. “Stevie, go down to the warehouse and help the boys pack up the tape recorders. You’ll get to see what real work is all about.” In my father’s world, if you worked for yourself, you were a man. If you didn’t, you were a boy.
The boys saw me coming down the stairs, and quickly broke up and put out their cigarettes. “Hey, Stevie, your dad send you down to see these Webcor Royals? They’re nice.”
“Uh-huh. He wants me to help you guys pack.”
Luther looked uncomfortable. “Well, it’s simple. Here’s how I do it. The only hard part is wrapping the pad around the inside to protect the recorder.”
Getting the Webcors into the padded box was not as easy as Luther advertised, and I had to put down my transistor radio. I turned on the Dodgers game with the volume on low and out of range of the boys. Looking back, I guess I turned a work assignment into a day by the pool.
“Hey, Stevedore, what’s going on here,” my father barked. “This isn’t Ebbets Field. It’s what brings home your bagels and lox.”
I was petrified. I should have known the Jewish Sherlock Holmes would be on my trail.
“Shut that thing off. You’re the boss’s son, Stevie. You’re setting a bad example.”
“But Dad, Robinson’s up with men on second and third. How about I only listen to the Dodgers’ half of the innings and turn it off when the Giants are up?”
“Okay, but if and only if you pack 20 boxes in the next hour. Don’t get one of your migraines because I’m having Luther check up. Then we’ll go to Max’s for some pastrami.”
“Thanks, Dad. Don’t worry, I won’t cheat.”
My second retirement. Twenty years later, my career as an academic psychologist was taking off. I was a maverick investigator, inveighing against race and sex bias in diagnosis and psychotherapy, and against the “who do you know” charade pervasive in the academic research review process. Before turning 40, I had served as head of the university’s doctoral training program in clinical psychology and director of psychiatric research. I had already published more than 100 professional articles and was the associate editor of the field’s flagship journal.
Soon, I was playing a stealth part in my department’s research programs. I found a niche as a ghostwriter, polishing early drafts of faculty members’ manuscripts before they were submitted for publication. That role was as valuable to me as it was to the department chair. I was granted a free pass from teaching large undergraduate classes, which I dreaded because of my crippling public speaking anxiety.
My childhood introduction to partial retirement had gone well. I had persuaded my father to cut me some slack so I could listen to the play-by-play when the Dodgers were at bat. But around age 40, I discovered a wholly different and unwanted kind of retirement, when I was laid low by a merciless depression. The career juggernaut I had set in motion was stopped in its tracks, and I eventually surrendered my tenured academic position.
With that fall from grace, my self-esteem plummeted. To my father, who couldn’t understand why someone couldn’t just “snap out” of a major depression, I was still very much a boy.
After almost 20 years of intensive psychotherapy and countless futile trials with psychiatric drugs, I finally hit the medication jackpot. My illness, which portended permanent unemployment and was seemingly without end, was over. But even with extensive treatment, the road back from a monstrous depression is not a straightaway.
Back at work. At age 78, partly by game plan and partly by chance, I’ve arrived at a productive and meaningful partial retirement. I’m still the boy with the transistor radio glued to his ear. But I’m now hoping for some runs in the late innings. Bloodied but unbowed, I’m humbled by my bout with mental illness, and thankful for the income we receive from our investments, our rental properties, my wife Alberta’s fulltime private psychology practice, my pension and my remaining patients.
Before my collapse from depression, we worked ourselves to the bone and saved religiously, and Alberta continued to support our family financially and otherwise through my two-decade-long struggle. But let’s be honest here: Our parents—both Alberta’s and mine—jumpstarted our financial journey.
We also benefited mightily from luck. Too demoralized by my depression to “upgrade” our portfolio of rental properties, I avoided capital-gains taxes and recurring closing costs, points and unconscionable 6% selling commissions. Through no foresight of my own, I capitalized on uninterrupted compounding over four decades of real estate ownership.
My parents both died at age 81. I’m now three years shy of that mark, with cancer and a heart condition that are under temporary control. I can see the ceiling. Last week, I visited a friend with whom I’ve had a weekly lunch for almost 20 years and whose kidneys are failing. As I drove away from the hospital, I felt gratitude for a balanced retirement that has given me the space to revisit my life, and ponder where I want to take it from here. I’ve made some progress toward achieving peace with my mortality. But I have further to go.
Steve Abramowitz is a psychologist in Sacramento, California. Earlier in his career, Steve was a university professor, including serving as research director for the psychiatry department at the University of California, Davis. He also ran his own investment advisory firm. Check out Steve’s earlier articles.
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Another great reflection on the twists-and-turns of life.
Thank you. Maybe the surest prediction we can make about retirement is that it won’t be quite how we planned it to be. We don’t know just what it is that will derail us—health problems, relationship struggles, financial reversals and the like, only that some will come as, of course, will the unexpected triumphs.
This is a beautifully written piece, and I for one am hoping for quite a few more from you before you reach your “ceiling.” Thanks as always for being so honest and vulnerable.
Thank you so much. At 78, why hold anything back?! I’m hoping that ceiling is actually just the underside of a magic carpet that will transport me to a few more meaningful destinations.
Thank you for the wonderful article as always, Steve. I always look forward to your contributions and always learn something new every time.
One completely unrelated question: do you have any thoughts on low dose (or ultra-low dose) lithium supplementation on a daily basis? Given your profession I thought you might have an informed decision. I’ve read some articles lately that seem to make the case it has a protective benefit for the brain. For instance, places in the world that have higher concentrations of lithium in their water supply tend to have lower incidence of things like suicide and dementia. It’s ok if you don’t have have an opinion but I thought I’d ask.
Thank you. Unfortunately, I can’t help too much because I’m a psychologist (Ph.D.) and not a psychiatrist (medical doctor). I will say though I do know of some reports that an ultra-low dose of lithium can sometimes be beneficial. But there are also studies that fail to confirm this. Lithium is a wonderful drug for treatment of mood disorders, but it can have serious long-term side effects. People who are considering even a micro-dose of lithium should only do so under the care of a physician, preferably a psychiatrist.
Steve, this is an aside, but relevant. Your long journey with mental illness and treatment, twenty years you mention, points out the debate over insurance coverage for such care. Legally such care is to be treated as physical care – sort of.
But for decades employer plans limited the number of treatments and reimbursed at lower percentages. The reason being the very long term nature of the care and hence cost.
‘’I agree on the equality of care, but as a professional do you see any reasonable way to reach a conclusion if that is even possible? How do we equate cost with value I guess is the question.
I don’t think length of care is a valid criterion. I have had a chronic form of leukemia for 15 years and am also now taking a new immunotherapy drug that is costing my insurer many thousands per month. Coverage has never been in question.
I sincerely think that the reluctance to cover mental health care is the nagging stigma that it is not a real illness, but rather a lack of motivation or some deficiency in character.
Assessment of “improvement” is more of a bugaboo. A depressed patient improves sufficiently to rehabilitate a struggling marriage, but she soon experiences angry rages because of lingering resentment. Is her treatment “completed?” That’s a tough call. But will a fully disabled patient be considered needing no further treatment if he can now occasionally get up from his chair? See what I mean? The mentally challenged are too often held to a higher standard. But, yes, the meaning of improvement (in many medical specialties) can be elusive.
I think the lack of empathy and the idea that people who suffer from mental illness should just be able to ” snap out of it” extends beyond depression. My brother’s son suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, (after years of misdiagnosis). At age 28, still living at home and unable to hold a job for any length of time, it has been a continuing nightmare for my brother, in no small part due to my brother’s wife’s lack of empathy and understanding for her son’s condition. My brother’s recent retirement is now almost wholly consumed with getting Kevin the help he needs, and the strain on their marriage because she refuses to see her son’s illness for what it is. My brother feels very alone because of this. We talk, I just wish he didn’t live a thousand miles away.
BPD is truly a nightmare.
Sorry to hear that. The role of the caregiver is so crucial and so overlooked. Many essays and autobiographies about mental illness, but when have you come across a book about caring for it? Really too bad about Kevin’s wife. You are an able substitute, but obviously not the person he lives with day to day. “Alone” is the right word. When a mentally challenged person feels invalidated, it often engenders guilt because he absorbs the implicit stigma and not contributed to the family. He is fortunate to have you to offset that, but 1,000 miles is a long way. I’d suggest medication and therapy, but he’s probably already tried those. Friends could be really helpful here to provide support and understanding. I might also say he’s not the only one in the marriage who could benefit from psychotherapy.
Steve, congratulations on your recovery… and on having the courage to openly discuss your struggle. One of my long-term medical device clients was a company whose technology used magnetic pulses to treat profound depression, and I talked with many patients whose illness had been compounded by the shame and stigma attached to it. Having a constant voice inside their heads urging them towards suicide was made even more nightmarish by the need to hide it from family and friends.
The shroud is slowly being removed from depression, and it’s being treated as an illness, not a weakness in character. And one reason for that is the bravery of people like you in speaking out.
You’ve seen how physical/biological treatments have become increasingly more prominent in treating mental illness. It may put me out of business, but at 78, I guess that’s okay! Organic (like brain) focuses should help offset the stigma and shame, because in our society being “ill” is okay.
The notion of the inner voice is something I bring up in therapy all the time. As you say, it can even be suicidal thoughts experienced as dangerous urges to action. Having a kind and tolerant inner voice can relieve the pangs of negative self-judgment as well as the hasty judgment of others’ ways of coping with life. People “in their head” a lot are especially prone to painful self-criticism, yet they are also well-suited to rebalance to a more accepting self-assessment.
When I was very young I used to think that people suffering from depression and/or anxiety should have the ability to just toughen up and snap out of it. Now I consider myself lucky not only because I’ve never suffered with depression, but also because of the empathy I have acquired from so many people who I know and love that have to struggle with it every day of their life. Kudos to you for overcoming and also to those who have “had your back”.
Thank you. That depressed people should just “snap out” of it is so unrealistic and unfair. It’s partly rooted, I think, in our fast-paced, material society—he’s not achieving or even striving, so he’s “lazy.” Then, particularly for men, there’s the masculinity albatross—he’s just “weak.” Depressed women are often labeled as -“too sensitive.” I believe therein lies the origins of the stigma surrounding depression.
Psychiatric medication has its own stigma all by itself. I have had so many patients “prefer” to get their prescriptions from their internist rather than a psychiatrist, who is leaps-and-bounds more knowledgeable about antidepressants. One positive development relating to meds is that it increases awareness of the biological contribution to mental illness. She didn’t “do it to herself,” she was partly a victim of a birth factor largely out of her control By the way, we’re learning that empathy and caring for people as you do is a powerful deterrent to mental illness.
Steve, thanks for the honest article about your retirement journey. It’s interesting to read how the mental part of retirement can be just as important as the financial aspects.
I was also struck by another thought reading about your depression and how your wife supported you and the family, So many of us are blessed by the strong women in our lives, who bear so much of life’s burden. I’m lucky to have one of the best as my wife, but also my mother, mother-in-law, and so many of the women in my family and friends were, and are, exceptional people. Their contribution to their families “net worth” is often under-appreciated.
Wow. Look above to see how many readers can resonate to your post. Apparently, I’m also a victim of taking a woman’s many roles for granted, right here on Humble Dollar. I have written about my conflictual relationship with my father and my love for my brother. But where is my mother? She was the glue that held a raucous family together. Although embittered by the Holocaust, she
(continuation) still had so much empathy for people (and feeding the ducks on the back lawn!). When I was at summer camp, she would send me boxes of what we now call junk food. It routinely came with a brief note. “Hope you’re doing well Stevie and remember to share.” Mom, you were so taken for granted in literally a male-dominated family, I miss you.
OMG, I forgot about my wife!
We know that you never forget your wife, Steve! As always, your reflections are inspiring and hopeful. One of my cousins is a psychiatrist who, after retiring from his career in the military, has begun a practice treating severe depression with the magnetic stimulation mentioned above. As a newish treatment, I thought it was a risky venture, but now, several years later, he’s seen even greater success than he had hoped. And, yes, there’s still “talk therapy” involved.