John Fetterman: social media made battle with depression more difficult

Social media made John Fetterman’s battle with mental depression last year even more difficult, the Democratic US senator from Pennsylvania said Sunday.

Fetterman said the comments on social media about him and his family played a role in the depression which sent him to a hospital for six weeks in February. “It’s an accelerant, absolutely,” he said.

The first-term senator added: “It’s just astonishing that so many people want to take the time to hop online and to say things to a stranger that never did anything to you – especially members of my family.”

Fetterman’s blunt remarks about his depression, the resulting hospitalization, and the effect of social media came during an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that the news program aired Sunday.

In the pre-recorded conversation with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, Fetterman said virtually everyone he knew advised him to stay off social media after he defeated Republican celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz for an open Senate seat in November of 2022.

Fetterman – once the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and the ex-lieutenant governor of the state – triumphed despite vocal support for Oz from former president Donald Trump.

Victory for Fetterman helped give his party control of the Senate and cemented him as a rising star among leftists. And Fetterman, 54, said he subsequently “made the mistake to check … out” social media commentary several weeks after defeating Oz.

Fetterman said he felt how doing so palpably worsened the dread he experienced whenever he pondered being sworn in on 3 January 2023 – thoughts that accompanied a sudden weight loss and lack of physical energy to get out of bed at the time.

“It wasn’t the things said … but it was the volume, just the, like,