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I Thought I’d Be Fine When I Lost My Job at 66. But I Wasn’t

I believed decades of experience and excellent references would quickly lead to a new job, but lengthy unemployment left me struggling with depression

5-minute read

Mimi Evans,

AARP

Published October 01, 2026

a woman with a sad expression and carrying a box of office belongings while walking the opposite way of a group of people

When she became unemployed in her 60s, author Mimi Evans felt invisible, useless and embarrassed to ask for help.

Vidhya Nagarajan

“You’ll be fine,” someone hollered as I headed for the elevator carrying a box of family photos, coffee cups and desk ornaments. This was the iconic downsizing scene, the kind you see on television, only it was real, and I was the person with the box.

No problem, I told myself. I’d worked in the same field for more than 25 years and had enjoyed considerable success. I was 66, healthy, and hadn’t even thought about retirement.

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Surely my experience, qualifications and energy would quickly put me into a new job. Yup, I’d be fine.

Fast-forward 10 months. Outwardly, I was still hopeful and driven. Inside, I was depressed and ashamed. I’d lost both purpose and income and was about to miss a rent payment. I’d drained my savings and was withdrawing money from my already meager IRA. I never considered asking for help because I wasn’t accustomed to needing it. Plus, it was embarrassing. I could still put on a happy face, but I was quietly panicking.

My grown children had lives of their own. I couldn’t tell them how despondent I felt. How could they understand what was happening to someone they’d always considered invincible? In their eyes, I was successful and tough; I’d been a single mother, after all.

Job-hunting became my full-time occupation. During the first year and a half, I submitted more than 200 applications, had 32 in-person interviews, but received no offers. My friends imagined that I now had lovely free time to visit museums and read books. Nope. I sat at my desk almost all day.

The few times I bothered to ask why I hadn’t been hired, those who didn’t ignore me said, “You didn’t fit the culture” or “Another candidate was a better match.” One hiring manager offered this gem: “You seemed too desperate.”

The first two responses were code for “you’re too old.” And the third was deeply disturbing because it was true.

I felt invisible, useless and angry. I once had a business card — a surprisingly big deal when you no longer have one — and now no one returned my calls.

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Deep into my world of hustling, rejection and depression, I had lunch with a friend who’d also been downsized and so was a fellow job hunter. He was a year older, married, a homeowner and seemingly more financially secure. I hadn’t heard from him in a while.

After some small talk, he explained why I hadn’t heard from him. He’d been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. His frustrating job search had almost killed him. His wife found him and stopped him just in time.

After a long and awkward silence, I said, “I’m grateful for your honesty,” then, “I think I understand how you felt. Please, I need help. Now.”

That admission was my first step back from a dark place. I finally abandoned my fake cheerfulness, and now my despair was out there.

He immediately referred me to his therapist, who called me that afternoon. I saw her every week for months after that lunch. She helped me separate my personhood and value from my business card. Fortunately, Medicare covered my therapy.

Eventually, like many older unemployed people, I rebranded myself as a consultant and stopped applying for full-time positions. Before long, I had five clients.

a group of people sitting at a restaurant table

After being laid off, Evans eventually built a freelance consulting career. Here she meets with clients at a local restaurant.

Jada Ruiz

I hustled in other ways, too: doing background work for television shows, volunteering for a paid pharmaceutical trial and selling my grandmother’s silver spoons and my childhood Pez dispenser collection on eBay.

Two years later, a staffing agency contacted me out of the blue, and I was soon hired, full-time, by a firm in my professional field. My age wasn’t mentioned during the interview — or ever.

Being older and unwillingly out of work is hardly unique. In the United States, almost 1.2 million unemployed adults are age 55 or older, according to August 2026 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That number is likely higher. Job seekers who stop searching (classified by the BLS as “discouraged”) disappear from the official unemployment count; people 55-plus comprise over 35 percent of all long-term discouraged workers.

Older job seekers are often stereotyped as technologically inept, resistant to change or incapable of fresh thinking. Those assumptions are harmful and wrong, but age discrimination is notoriously difficult to prove, particularly when an employer offers a neutral-sounding explanation such as “culture” or “fit.” Severance agreements may also require that departing employees waive potential discrimination claims.

The trauma of being laid off as an older worker remains. We are not always “fine.” Now I pay forward the lessons I learned, just as my friend did for me. I don’t offer platitudes, and I don’t pretend it could never happen to me, because it did.

Depression is a medical condition, not a personal failing. Older people know that life throws curveballs, but surviving past challenges does not make us invulnerable to new ones. Depression’s long, bony fingers may try to pull us toward places we should not go. The nationwide suicide prevention 988 hotline (like the 911 emergency number) is available for calls 24/7.

Don’t isolate yourself. Be honest with a therapist or primary care physician. Contact friends and former colleagues, even those you haven’t seen lately. Find an inexpensive happy place: Take sandwiches to the park, spend time with your children and grandchildren, volunteer or curl up with a pet. Like your car’s GPS, recalibrate.

Do take time for yourself. I didn’t, and it added to my stress and possibly hampered my interview skills. It’s perfectly OK to go to a museum or read a book.

When my peers tell me they lost their jobs, I never say, “You’ll be fine.” I offer to help. I introduce them to friends. I check in with them often. I listen as they strategize, and I cheer them on.

Once we learn that we are not alone and that help is out there, it may take a while before we are “fine,” but we can begin the journey back to being OK.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP. 

Mimi Evans is a fundraising consultant for nonprofits. She’s also a photographer and a professional background actor, two interests she developed while unemployed. She’s a mother of three and grandmother of seven.

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