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PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Sen. John Fetterman was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Wednesday night to get treatment for depression.
The senator’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, released a brief statement on Thursday, saying Congress’s attending physician, Brian Monahan, had evaluated the senator on Monday and recommended inpatient care for clinical depression. Fetterman agreed and voluntarily checked himself in, two days later, according to the statement.
The senator has experienced depression on and off throughout his life, but it became severe in recent weeks, according to the statement. The senator's chief of staff says Fetterman is getting the care he needs and is expected to be "back to himself" soon.
This is Fetterman's second hospital stay in as many weeks. Last week, Fetterman was hospitalized overnight for what his office said was “light-headedness” and was discharged when tests for stroke and seizure came back negative.
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Fetterman, elected in November, suffered a stroke on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary and has experienced communication deficits ever since. He has trouble processing language and uses a teleprompter for interviews, but he has been voting and participating in the U.S. Senate since January.
“Millions of Americans struggle with their mental health,” Fetterman’s Pennsylvania colleague Sen. Bob Casey wrote in a tweet. “I am proud of him for getting the help he needs and for publicly acknowledging his challenges to break down the stigma for others.”
The statement gave no indication of what might have triggered this episode, and Fetterman’s office has not responded to questions from KYW Newsradio.
‘Really unmask [depression] for what it is … which is very common through life’
Tom Longenecker, a therapist and clinical supervisor at Retreat Behavioral Health in Lancaster County, says Fetterman's announcement is bringing both mental health and depression into a public conversation.
"I think it's probably not uncommon for people in positions of great stress to experience major depression,” said Longenecker. “I suspect that he's hardly a minority.”
However, Longenecker believes Fetterman is in “quite a minority” in having the willingness to publicly share his journey of addressing and advocating for his mental health. He said often, people are taught to bury their mental health struggles and “continue to push through” to a level where it becomes detrimental.
"We do really have a culture that encourages us to minimize and mask our mental health and to see that as less valuable, or as a sign of weakness, or some kind of stigma and judgment,” said Longenecker.
“People such as Sen. Fetterman present this opportunity for us to really unmask it for what it is ... which is very common through life, and be able to provide some compassion and understanding and encourage people to highlight and advocate for their own self-care."
He says there are a lot of factors that can contribute to developing depression. Genetics, struggles in life, and illnesses can contribute to it.
"Depression is not something people ask for. There's all kinds of precursors and correlates that might feed depression. But it's not something that people do to themselves,” said Longenecker.
“There's a genetic predisposition that people might be more predisposed, more germane, more likely to develop varying degrees of depression through life. There are life episodes where people will develop struggles to walk through a situation that might cause a certain kind of depression. There are illnesses ... stroke, heart attack are not uncommon precursors that are correlated. I don't think we can necessarily say they are causes, but that are often correlated with the onset of major depression.”
He adds depression responds well to the right kind of treatment and care, but doesn't necessarily resolve itself on its own.
"So much of depression, so much of major depression, is fatigue. It is a withering away at the imagination. It is really a degree of despair, an ‘I can't imagine outside of this,’” Longenecker said.
“To be able to focus and have a lot of ‘those other parts of life not be part of my focus’ is really essential in terms of working through the issues that are driving it and teaching skills, and giving people the freedom and the ability to address themselves, and know themselves again."