FOCUS: Charles Pierce | Can't We Cut John Fetterman a Little Slack?

 

 

18 February 23

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FOCUS: Charles Pierce | Can't We Cut John Fetterman a Little Slack?
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "All of his friends thought him gloomy. Some of them thought him dangerously so. His 'melancholy' was an accepted fact about him, the way his gifts for oratory and ribald humor were. A painter engaged to paint him recalled that."   

It has required a special sort of bravery for the Senator from Pennsylvania to go as public as he has with his condition.

All of his friends thought him gloomy. Some of them thought him dangerously so. His "melancholy" was an accepted fact about him, the way his gifts for oratory and ribald humor were. A painter engaged to paint him recalled that,

There were days when I could scarcely look into it without crying...his hands behind him, great black rings under his eyes—a sight so full of sorrow, care, and anxiety as would have “melted the hearts of the worst…adversaries.”

With all of this, Abraham Lincoln won the Civil War and saved the American republic.

Another worried about himself. He worried about the creature within him. "The black dog," he called it, copping a metaphor from Samuel Johnson. There was a time in his life when he thought it would devour him. He told a friend:

"For two or three years the light faded from the picture. I did my work. I sat in the House of Commons, but black depression settled on me. I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation."

With all of this, Winston Churchill stood up to Hitler and helped save the world.

So, maybe, we all cut Senator John Fetterman a little slack. From the Washington Post:

The senator voluntarily admitted himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington at the recommendation of the attending physician of Congress, Brian P. Monahan, who on Monday evaluated the senator and on Wednesday suggested inpatient care, Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said in a statement.

“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Jentleson said. “After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself.”

Our understanding of depression and the therapies that have resulted from that understanding have each advanced a great distance since his history of electroshock therapy knocked Senator Thomas Eagleton off the 1972 Democratic ticket. Millions of Americans—this one included—have heard the baying of the black dog in their lives. Nevertheless, it still took cojones of a considerable size for Fetterman to go as public as he has with his condition. He already had taken considerable incoming from the graceless Republican side on the possibility that his stroke had incapacitated him more profoundly than he admitted. He stood in against that during his successful senatorial campaign and during the month since he took office.

Fetterman, 53, had a stroke in May, days before he overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s Senate race. He spent Election Day in surgery having a defibrillator installed. His campaign later disclosed that Fetterman had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy years prior and had not followed the recommended medical advice for his condition. The stroke, which sidelined Fetterman from the campaign for about two months, left Fetterman with an auditory processing disorder that inhibited his ability to hear, especially when there is competing background noise. In mid-August, he resumed public campaign events, where he spoke openly about his health setback and recovery. At his rallies, he’d ask people to raise their hands if they or someone they loved ever dealt with a serious health condition. Rally after rally, scores of hands went up.

Most of Fetterman's congressional colleagues—including Amy Klobuchar and Tailgunner Ted Cruz—have expressed good wishes and admiration for Fetterman's courage in going public with his quest for treatment. Still, he has a long road ahead of him. Recovery from his stroke is still ongoing. He had a bout with dizziness immediately before this latest pronouncement.

For people who have suffered strokes, the risk of depression is likely greater, experts said, because they often lose physical mobility or some other natural ability, like in Fetterman’s case, his auditory processing. And in a stroke, there is an injury to the organ that is also involved in mental health—the brain, said Joshua Gordon, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health who is also a psychologist and neuroscientist. He said the organic component of depression after stroke should not be overlooked. “There are studies that show that compared to all other forms of depression, stroke-induced depression tends to be more severe,” Gordon said.

There are spirits in history on which John Fetterman can draw. They saved a nation. They saved the world. Maybe we give them all a little time.

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