Depression Can Get Better. These Four Philadelphians are living proof.
Depression is common and treatable, and many people can go years without experiencing another episode.
by Abraham Gutman and Wendy Ruderman
Clockwork from top right to bottom right: Matthew Anticoli, Rose Khan, Kerrie Sendall, and Taj Murdock.
When U.S. Sen. John Fetterman checked into a hospital for clinical depression last month, critics questioned whether he would be able to serve his six-year term. Mental illness is often portrayed as an inescapable condition. Everyone’s experience is different, and people who’ve had an episode of mental illness are at greater risk for experiencing mental health challenges in the future. But for most people, depression and other mental health disorders don’t last forever, said David Mandell, the director of the Penn Center for Mental Health. “With good treatment, people can then go for years and years without experiencing the major symptoms of depression,” Mandell said. The Inquirer spoke to four Philadelphians about their experience with depression, what treatments worked for them, and how they continue to take care of their mental health.
‘He listened’
Matthew Anticoli lived alone for the first time in the fall of 2020. Now 25 years old, the Abington native was fresh out of college and moved to Bloomington, Ind., to start a doctorate degree in American studies. Businesses were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as were the few LGBTQ spaces in which he could be part of a community.
While other people in a similar situation might have felt lonely, Anticoli said, his brain made him believe that he was “actually alone.” He felt a deep sense of isolation.
He recognized that he was struggling and talked with professors about reducing his course load to give himself space to get better. But before he could take a leave, things got worse.
One night, Anticoli called a university counselor after experiencing suicidal thoughts for a couple days. He was hoping to get a therapy session; instead, a police car arrived at his house to take him to a psych ward at a nearby hospital, where he was put on suicide watch.
He didn’t believe that he could get better until his first therapy session. “He listened to me,” Anticoli said of the therapist he talked to. ‘He listened’. That affirmation made him agree to try group therapy, mindfulness training, different medication, and other programs offered at the hospital. Anticoli was released from the hospital after about a week. He decided to go back home, first to his parents’ house in Abington and then to a place of his own in Philadelphia. He felt well enough to take on a part-time job with UPS.
Last spring, he felt ready to take on more. He got a job with Mental Health Partnerships, a nonprofit behavioral health services provider in Philadelphia, where he trains people in how to respond to a mental health crisis. He says that the work has been healing for him. Anticoli knows that he could suffer another depressive or anxious episode. But his experience makes him hopeful that he could get better. “I will be able to get through it again,” he said.
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