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Lawmaker takes battle with depression to airwaves

(March 23, 2006) - One day, he was sitting on the floor of his State House office, crying, when his chief of staff walked in. Other times, he'd stay at home, unable to face the day. When he finally sought treatment, after his brother committed suicide, he wanted to pay his psychiatrist in cash, to avoid a paper trail of checks and insurance forms.

Senator Robert A. Antonioni is to appear in a public service announcement titled "It's Not What You Think" to air next week for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

For nearly a decade, state Senator Robert A. Antonioni was willing to do almost anything to hide the fact that he was depressed. Now, he is speaking out about it, to residents in his Central Massachusetts district, to television reporters, and next week on the airwaves, in a public service announcement in which he declares, ''I have a mental illness."

Antonioni's transformation from private sufferer to public campaigner is remarkable in Massachusetts' hard-nosed political culture, where politicians seldom speak about anything that could be perceived as a weakness. And he is winning praise from advocates for putting his personal and political reputation on the line in the name of helping the other 18.8 million Americans who suffer from depression.

''It doesn't have to be something you feel bad about," Antonioni, 47, said yesterday in his sunlit State House office. ''To me, what was debilitating was to hide it."

Elected to the Legislature in 1988 at the age of 29, Antonioni quickly developed a reputation as a quick-thinking, impeccably prepared, and unfailingly polite legislator. A former city councilor and socially conservative Democrat from Leominster, he rose to chairman of the influential Education Committee in 1998, a position he holds today.

Yet even as his public life blossomed, his mental health began to fray in his 30s, he said. On his darkest days, he stayed at home rather than face his colleagues in the Senate. Sometimes, he left the State House at lunchtime, he said, driving 41 miles to go home and sleep. He didn't want to acknowledge that what he was feeling was depression.

In 1999, he was forced to confront his problems when his younger brother, John, 29, committed suicide. His parents and four younger sisters were devastated and he began to seriously question his own mental health, he said. He thought about leaving politics. Though he had occasionally received counseling in the past, he started weekly therapy and began taking antidepressants. Still, he was ashamed. To fill his prescription, he drove 20 miles from his condo in Leominster to a drugstore in Acton; at the CVS across the street, he said, he knew the pharmacist.

''I was not open with my own family about it," he said. ''I didn't want them to worry."

The first time he decided to speak publicly about his pain was three years ago at a vigil for the mentally ill in Fitchburg. Driving to the event, he was preparing to give what he called a typical speech, when he thought, ''this isn't very authentic."

''I said the reason I'm doing this is my brother died of suicide, and we should be doing something about this," said Antonioni, who is single and has no children. ''It just occurred to me that life is too short and we should be talking about this."

Now, he is taking his story far beyond Fitchburg, with a public service announcement that will air on network and cable stations across the state. Taped for the state chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, it shows Antonioni seated in his Senate office, dapper in a red-patterned tie and dark suit, as the words ''Sen. Robert Antonioni" and ''Depression" appear on screen.

Those battling the shame surrounding mental illness are already calling him a hero.

''He's the best," said Dr. Elizabeth Childs, commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health. ''He's been very courageous, I think, in being very upfront and open about his own history and I think he has actually gone a long way to helping break down the barriers of stigma."

The alliance says it is thrilled to have a respected politician speaking candidly about mental illness. While some national figures such as Tipper Gore and Kitty Dukakis have spoken about their struggles, Antonioni appears to be the first elected official in Massachusetts to take such a high-profile role.

''As far as I know, this is uncharted territory," said Tobias Fisher, executive director of the alliance's state chapter. ''He didn't do it for the political gain. He did it because he thinks this was the right thing to do."

In the State House, where politicians are loath to reveal anything about themselves that can be construed negatively, reaction has been positive, legislators said. Antonioni shared his struggle with some of his closest friends in the Legislature, and is now comfortable speaking with anyone about it.

''People appreciate that he's been able to be out front and open," said Representative Kay Khan, a Newton Democrat. ''We're normal, average people and we all have things we have to deal with in our lives, so I think it's helpful to know you can have depression and you can still be very effective, and he certainly has been a very effective legislator."

Antonioni is not known as a showboat on Beacon Hill, and seldom stands out in the often-chummy club that is the state Senate. Razzed by his more boisterous colleagues on the Senate floor, the boyish-looking education chairman usually responds with a shy smile and an almost courtly nod.

He prefers working on legislation and has only a distant relationship with the State House press corps. He is proud of his record: toughening drunk driving laws, making it easier for the elderly to receive care at home instead of a nursing home, and boosting state aid for schools.

And his constituents seem content, reelecting him five times. In 2004, he handily defeated a Republican challenger, and he is running unopposed this fall.

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Despite his big worry that revealing his mental illness would sink his political career, Antonioni says the unburdening has reinvigorated him. He says he is feeling fine these days, as long as he sticks to his regimen of therapy and medication, and he is trying to address the issue at the State House, too. This year, he is pushing to more than double the funding for suicide prevention programs and to reverse deep cuts in the mental health budget.

''Working on the issue has given me a purpose here, a personal purpose," Antonioni said. ''It's great. I feel like for the first time, in some respects, I'm really making a difference."

Source: Boston Globe

Last updated: 3/06

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