“I would literally stare at [my computer] for an hour before doing anything.” . . . “I don’t want to think about anything, I don’t want to move. . . just leave me alone.” . . . “I was verbally abusive to people around me.” . . .“the only emotion that I showed was anger.”. . .“I had a high degree of anxiety; I had a sense of loss of self-worth.”

This is how men describe what it feels like to be depressed – even when they are playing tennis and football, tending to children, fighting in Iraq, delivering news to the world, building our cities and its infrastructure, creating food, music or books. Their stories, like those of the six million men in America who struggle with depression, are the subject of a PBS documentary, Men Get Depression.

The film opens with the question, how do men know that what they’re experiencing is not just a typical reaction to stress or to grief? Or it's something they should simply endure, because they always have, and it's not the signal of an illness which spins out of control? It’s not an easy question for one in four men who will wrestle with a depression during his lifetime. And the answer may not be as clear as a train’s whistle. Dr. John Greden, director of the University of Michigan’s Depression Center, says men rarely walk into the office and say, “I’m depressed.”

The ten men whose lives form the kaleidoscope of Men Get Depression have unique profiles, sharp and clear, yet their stories also blend. Whether they are in treatment or struggling to afford it, not a single one initially believed he was battling an illness. Was it a character flaw? Something alcohol or drugs could numb? Or just the miserable set of cards life dealt him? Each found it easier to entertain another option before considering he suffered a treatable illness.

“Real men get real depression,” says Greden, one of the film’s experts who explains what professionals see, including the strength required to cope with this illness. In a film about the faces of depression, not the science behind the discoveries putting recovery into the hands of so many, these experts and therapists add another dimension.

The challenge for making this film, said Grady Watts, producer, writer and director, was getting a handle on what keeps people from recognizing their own depression. Often this awareness is on a collision course with their culture’s stereotypes of masculinity. Tom Johnson, one of the featured men, is the epitome of corporate success as the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times and CEO of CNN. Yet he knew that if word got out that "you had depression, it could be held against you." Layered over this was his belief that it was important to work through problems, that “nothing should show on the surface.” Richard, a chef from Puerto Rico, attributed his initial hesitation to Hispanic culture: “You don’t discuss your problems.” The same, James said, if you’re African-American. And David, a psychologist of Korean ancestry, said an Asian man seeking help for mental health problems jeopardizes family honor where, it seems, he is being punished for his ancestors’ transgressions along with his own.

The fear of losing their families, or their own plans for suicide, created the urgent situation allowing many to seek help. Suicide still takes more than 30,000 lives a year, and knowing how he viewed his options, Eric Hipple explains “that’s why I don’t have a gun anymore.” Hipple hid his depression while playing pro football for the Detroit Lions just as he hid it all through college. After his teenage son’s suicide, along with the threats of his own moods to his marriage, he acted. With the support of his wife, and the means to afford treatment, he’s been able to summon the courage to take on this responsibility. It’s different for Pierre, who is now willing to enlist the help his wife has been urging. But it’s unaffordable and when the camera pans to Pierre’s two-year-old son, you understand where his resources go.

Watts calls threats to relationships “the collateral damage” of depression. For many the slow climb from depression includes rebuilding the relationships they came so close to destroying. And their wives, daughters, and girlfriends move this story with their own words and pain.

More than a movie
Men Get Depression, which will air on local PBS channels in the coming month, is also the backbone of a public outreach campaign. The goal is to use the movie, which has been re-edited for discussion and dialogue in community settings. It aims for an audience with three age groups 18-30 (the years of peak onset); 30-55 (when demands of work and family consolidate); and over 55 (an empty nest syndrome with the loss of work, and the death of people close). Mental Health America is coordinating the campaign with state affiliates. A website provides information on the campaign, in Spanish and English. For local station broadcast information, click here.

May is known as "Mental Health Month." These designations are a public relations construct making it easy, or permissible, to tell stories with a built-in audience and a congressional stamp of approval. That may explain the timing of airing this PBS documentary on local stations nationwide. But this movie truly has no season.