Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is hopeful, an emotion surprisingly foreign to a man who’s achieved so much.
“It’s a strange feeling for me to have,” he told Jane Pauley on CBS Sunday Morning, his first interview since seeking treatment for clinical depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in mid-February.
The freshman senator spoke to Pauley days before he was discharged from the hospital, where he spent nearly two months undergoing treatment. He admitted to being “miserable” during pivotal moments, starting with his November Senate win through his January swearing-in ceremony.
“I was definitely depressed,” he said, describing his mentality in January.
His depression left him unable to leave his bed or hold an appetite, resulting in weight loss. “I had stopped engaging some of the—most things that I love in my life,” he said. His sudden turn sparked concern among his Democratic colleagues, who pressed him on his lack of eating.
That concern extended to his household. His wife Gisele dove into research on depression, he said, unable to understand how a man with so much—three kids, a healthy marriage, a prosperous political career—could not find joy in it all.
“But depression does not make sense, right?” she told Pauley. “It’s not rational.”
Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed—under the guidance of a doctor—on his 14-year-old son’s birthday, a fact that both weighs heavily on him and brings a sense of renewed purpose.
“My aspiration is to take my son to the restaurant that we were supposed to go during his birthday but couldn’t, because I had checked myself in for depression,” he said.
It’s a drive Fetterman seeks to carry into all aspects of his life now that he’s in remission, he said.
“I will be going home,” he said. “And I can’t wait to [see] what it really feels like, to take it all in, and to start making up any lost time.”
