Patricia Flannery remembers reading an article about a teacher who sat on her kitchen floor weeping at the prospect of returning to school for another working week.
A few years later, Ms Flannery was in exactly the same situation as she became unable to cope with teaching anymore, struggling financially due to the economic crisis and finding out that she was one almost four million women impacted by the change to the state pension. All these factors led Ms Flannery to a nervous breakdown.
“It felt like I was drowning,” the now 68-year-old told i. “It was as if I was constantly treading water trying to keep my head above water, but like someone was dunking my head underwater and holding it there. It felt totally inescapable.
“I just sat on the floor and wept and wept and didn’t know how I was going to get up again.”
Ms Flannery, who lives in Stourbridge, West Midlands with her husband David, also a former teacher, have two adults daughters, and had dreamed of being able to retire at 55 after starting work as an English teacher in 1978.
But due to the financial crisis in 2009, wage cuts and finding out that she was one of the estimated 3.8m Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women affected by major changes to the state pension age meant that she had no choice but to carry on working beyond what she had initially planned.
Instead of finishing work at 55 to enjoy retirement, she ended up working for a further 12 years.
As well as the huge toll on her physical and mental health, Ms Flannery, who is still having to take medication today, revealed the cost of living crisis means they are still struggling financially and are unable to live the lifestyle they had planned in retirement.
“Our plan had been to retire at 55 and even before our children were born, we took out investments to help them through university when the time came,” she explained.
“But when our eldest daughter reached university age, the savings we had accrued wouldn’t even pay for one year’s accommodation for her. So we had to work and use whatever money we could to fund our two girls through university.”
Ms Flannery says the family were impacted financially in a number of ways. She was working as head of English at a school, but due to Government cuts, management had to downsize and restructure the school which meant everyone in middle management had to take a significant wage cut.
“As head of English, I was then earning a lot less than I did at a smaller school as second in department,” she recalled. “Then we were told that as teachers, we had to pay extra National Insurance contributions and then we had to pay more into our pension pots.
“The economic austerity affecting everyone also meant any savings we had planned for our children’s future and retirement had to be spent on every day living and paying the mortgage.”
Ms Flannery only found out that her state pension age had risen from 60 to 66 by reading about it in the media a few years before turning 60 and says she never received any official notification of the major change.
Things came to a head for Ms Flannery in 2015 when she suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of 59.
“The rise in my state pension age definitely contributed to my nervous breakdown because I felt trapped and knew I had to continue working,” she explained.
“Everything all got too much and I was in a position where I didn’t feel able to cope with the work I had to do, but I knew I had to because we had bills to pay, our children were at university and we were still paying our mortgage.
“It felt like we had struggled through our children’s lives and worked full-time all our lives and then when we expected to take our foot off the pedal at 55, we couldn’t and had to keep working harder to keep everything going.
“With everything else going on, the rise in my state pension age felt like the final nail in the coffin and it was definitely a major contributory factor to my nervous breakdown.
“It was a miserable and depressing existence and it is very hard to get over the anger and resentment. I feel we were betrayed and totally unprepared for the change in state pension age.
“If I had got my state pension at 60, it would have made a huge difference. I would still have had to work but I could have gone part-time or started working as a supply teacher earlier and maybe not have suffered the nervous breakdown.”
After having a nervous breakdown, Ms Flannery remembers feeling ashamed and suffering from nightmares and panic attacks during the night. She had counselling and was put on antidepressants. She has tried to come off them several times, but is still relying on them today.
“When I had my nervous breakdown, I didn’t want to get out of bed or open my eyes or get showered. I felt paralysed and was nasty to people as I felt like a monster inside.”
After a term off work, Ms Flannery returned to work on a phased return but felt numb and ended up taking voluntary redundancy. After a few months’ gap, she began working as a supply teacher four days a week.
“As a supply teacher, you’re not part of the greater politics of the school, so I felt I could cope with that better, although it was still physically exhausting,” she said. “I went to schools where I felt in control.
“I ended up working until 67 even though I finally got my state pension at 66 as the damage had already been done and it wasn’t enough to live on.
“Financially, we couldn’t do the things we wanted to do. We couldn’t afford to travel or pay for a gym membership or support our children in the way we wanted to because we still had the mortgage and bills to pay.”
Ms Flannery and her husband finally paid off their mortgage last summer, but with everything going up so much, they feel no better off. They are now planning to sell their home and move somewhere cheaper to free up some money.
“It is demoralising after working hard for so many years,” she said. “I expected a cosier retirement and not having to worry so much about money. It feels degrading.”
Ms Flannery wants to see all affected Waspi women compensated for everything they have been through and for the families of those who have died to receive compensation too.
“My nervous breakdown didn’t just affect me, it impacted my husband, my daughters and my friends. They have suffered with me and although they were kind and supportive, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
“If this state pension age rise had affected men instead of women, I strongly believe there would have been more of an uproar and they would have been compensated long ago.
“But because it has happened to women, we are having to fight far harder, far longer and shout louder to be heard as a whisper.”
Angela Madden, chair of Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) said: “The Government’s failure to communicate women’s state pension age increases had a detrimental impact on people’s health and women like Patricia must live with these devastating consequences for the rest of their lives.
“MPs from all parties are rallying behind Waspi’s calls for fair and fast compensation, with the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee weighing in to demand ministers bring forward financial redress proposals before the summer recess.
“This weekend, 280,000 WASPI women will have died since the campaign for justice began.
“The Government must now urgently present its plan to Parliament and give all MPs an opportunity to vote on their proposals.”
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