Psychology says the people who struggle most with retirement aren't the ones who loved their careers — they're the ones who used work to avoid being alone with themselves, and retirement didn't take their job, it took the disguise, and now they have to meet the person they were working so hard not to become

I stared at my colleague across the lunch table last week as she rattled off her retirement countdown: "47 days, 6 hours, and approximately 23 minutes." She'd been tracking it on her phone for two years, dreaming of mornings without alarm clocks and afternoons without meetings. But when I asked what she planned to do first, her smile faltered. "I guess... I haven't really thought about it. I've been so focused on leaving, I forgot to think about arriving."

That conversation haunted me because it echoed something I'd witnessed with my second husband. He'd spent decades in his career, complaining about the endless demands. Yet when his illness forced him to stop working, he struggled in ways neither of us expected. Not because he missed the work, but because without it, he had to face the person he'd been avoiding in all those busy days.

When work becomes your hiding place

Neil Pasricha, author and behavioral scientist, challenges our traditional view when he writes, "Retirement is a Western invention from days gone by that's based on broken assumptions that we want – and can afford – to do nothing." But what if the real broken assumption is that we're working toward something, when we're actually working away from something?

I think about the teachers I knew during my 32 years in the classroom who volunteered for every committee, coached every sport, sponsored every club. We called them dedicated. Looking back, I wonder how many were simply terrified of going home to an empty house or, worse, a house full of people they'd become strangers to while grading papers until midnight.

The research backs this up. A study on academic physicians' late-career transitions revealed that identity threats, such as concerns about self-esteem and loss of meaning, significantly influence retirement decisions, indicating that individuals who derive identity from their work may face challenges when transitioning to retirement. But I'd argue it goes deeper than identity. For some of us, work isn't just who we are; it's the excuse we use to avoid finding out.

The difference between loving work and needing it

Here's what nobody tells you about workaholism: it looks exactly like passion from the outside. The person who genuinely loves their career and the person desperately avoiding themselves both stay late, both volunteer for extra projects, both talk about work at dinner parties. The difference only becomes visible when the work stops.

Remember that teacher who seemed to live at school? Maybe she wasn't dedicated to education as much as she was allergic to stillness. The executive who never took vacation? Perhaps those spreadsheets were easier to face than the silence of his study.

Simone de Beauvoir, the philosopher, observed that "Retirement can mean different things to different people." For those who used work as medicine, retirement feels like withdrawal.

I watched this play out with a neighbor who'd been a cardiac surgeon. He'd saved thousands of lives, published groundbreaking research, mentored dozens of residents. But when mandatory retirement arrived at 70, he fell apart. Not because he missed surgery, but because without those 14-hour days, he had to face the family dinners he'd missed, the marriage he'd neglected, the children who'd grown up calling him "Doctor" even at home.

What retirement really takes away

A comprehensive meta-analysis on retirement anxiety and life satisfaction found substantial variability in retirees' experiences, with some studies indicating negative impacts on life satisfaction post-retirement, highlighting the complex psychological adjustments individuals face when their work identity is removed.

But what if it's not the work identity being removed that causes the crisis? What if it's the protective shell work provided?

Think about the daily architecture of a working life: the commute that creates transition time, the meetings that fill the calendar, the deadlines that dictate priorities, the colleagues who provide surface-level social interaction without demanding real intimacy. Remove all of that, and suddenly you're left with vast stretches of unstructured time and the person you've been avoiding.

Have you ever noticed how some people can't sit through a movie without checking their phone? Can't eat a meal without the TV on? Can't drive without a podcast playing? Now imagine those people suddenly having eight extra hours a day with nothing but their own thoughts. That's what retirement feels like for those who've used work as white noise to drown out their inner voice.

Meeting the stranger in the mirror

The cruelest part about using work to avoid yourself is that you still age, you still change, you still accumulate experiences and losses and regrets. You just do it unconsciously. So when retirement finally forces the meeting, you're not encountering the 30-year-old who first started hiding behind spreadsheets. You're meeting a 65-year-old stranger who's lived an entire life you weren't present for.

Gary Drevitch, a psychologist, suggests that "Retirement is a time for achieving one's ultimate potential." But first, you have to figure out who you are beyond your job title, and for some, that revelation is devastating.

I remember those early months after I retired at 64 when my knees couldn't handle standing all day anymore. I'd reorganized my house three times, started and abandoned different projects, and was driving myself crazy with constant puttering. "I don't know what's wrong with me," I admitted one evening. "I thought I'd be happy. I thought this was what I wanted." What I wanted was to stop the physical pain of teaching. What I got was the discovery that work had been holding me together in ways I hadn't realized.

Finding yourself after the disguise falls

Retirement is the perfect time to embrace the person you want to be and enjoy the things you've always wanted to do.

But first, you have to survive the encounter with who you've been.

The research examining retirees' social identity found that only the affective component of social identity predicted satisfaction with retirement, suggesting that emotional attachment to one's retired status influences post-retirement well-being. In other words, you have to learn to love being retired, which means learning to love being with yourself.

In one of my previous posts about finding purpose in later life, I explored how some people discover their authentic selves only after their professional obligations end. The key difference between those who thrive and those who struggle? The thrivers use retirement as an opportunity for integration, not just cessation. They don't just stop working; they start living.

This might mean therapy for the first time at 67. It might mean finally grieving the divorce from twenty years ago that you never processed because quarterly reports were due. It might mean acknowledging that the ambitious career you built was actually a elaborate fortress against intimacy, vulnerability, or simple boredom.

Final thoughts

If you're approaching retirement and recognize yourself in these words, know this: the person you've been avoiding isn't as terrible as you fear. They're just human, with all the messy, complicated, beautiful imperfection that entails. The disguise you've worn for decades served its purpose, protecting you when you needed protection. But retirement offers something work never could: the chance to finally be yourself, without performance reviews or productivity metrics.

The meeting might be awkward at first. You might not recognize each other. But given time and patience, you might discover that the person you were working so hard not to become is actually someone worth knowing. Someone who deserves those morning coffees without rushing, those afternoon walks without purpose, those evening conversations without checking the time. Someone who, after all these years, deserves to simply be.