Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) explained that winning the Senate seat against his former Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz “didn’t matter” to him as he was battling his depression.
Fetterman, the former lieutenant governor, won his Senate seat by “five points” to Oz. A few weeks into his first term as a senator, Fetterman was hospitalized, and later checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Center to be treated for clinical depression.
“We won by five points. The last time this seat went to Democrats was in the ’60s,” Fetterman explained in an interview with Men’s Health. “But even then, it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t have any interest to be a senator after that. It was rough.”
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“You would think that, Hey, you won, and it was good. But it wasn’t,” Fetterman continued. “It was confusing and hurtful to my children, because they thought, You won. What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with us?”
Fetterman continued to explain that his depression took a toll on him and he eventually stopped doing the day-to-day things like, “getting out of bed,” “going on walks,” or even “listening to music.”
“Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I barely sat at the table,” Fetterman said. “Christmas, of course, I love that, and I’m ashamed to say that I wasn’t part of the Christmas. It was my wife getting all – our youngest child still believes in Santa.”
The senator from Pennsylvania recounted how during winter he was comforted “in knowing how it was dark early” and how he “cringed whenever the clock said it was a time that most people” were already out of bed.
At the end of March, Fetterman was released from Walter Reed and since his release, he has spoken up about his depression, and how it has affected him and has encouraged others to seek help for their depression.