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Red or blue, if you have depression, get help, please
| Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e | 11/13/25 |
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Date: November 13th, 2025 7:57 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (One Year Performance 1978-1979 (Cage Piece) (Awfully coy u are)) Sitting in his office last week, dressed in his uniform of a black Carhartt hoodie and gym shorts, Mr. Fetterman toggled between humor, anger and emotion in discussing his current situation. He expressed deep frustration over the constant questions about his mental health, portraying himself as the victim of untenable circumstances.
“This became the Belichick girlfriend story of politics,” he quipped at one point, referring to the recent media attention around the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill football coach. “It just keeps going and going.”
After his discharge from Walter Reed in 2023, Mr. Fetterman embraced a role as a stigma-busting spokesman for the power of treatment and used his challenges as an opportunity to bridge partisan politics.
“Red or blue, if you have depression, get help, please,” he said in an interview later that year.
These days, Mr. Fetterman is not so sure it was wise to talk about any of that. He doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business whether, as some former aides have suggested, he is or isn’t following the regimen that his doctors recommended to treat his mental health issues. He sings the praises only of Mounjaro, the injectable diabetes and weight-loss drug that he credits with making him feel “a decade younger, as well as clearer-headed and more optimistic than I’d been in years.”
Still, there have been big gaps in his attendance.
Since his return from Walter Reed, Mr. Fetterman has missed more votes than all but two senators, both of whom were campaigning for president last year: Republicans JD Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, according to a New York Times analysis of Senate roll call records.
This year, the analysis found, Mr. Fetterman also has missed more votes than all but two of his colleagues: Senators Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. Ms. Murray has been absent to care for her ailing husband, while Mr. Sanders has been on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” speaking out against President Trump and drawing a total of 265,000 people to events across 12 states so far, according to a spokeswoman.
Mr. Fetterman, who has said that being away from his family is heartbreaking and “the worst part of the job,” says he has missed votes to spend more time at home with his children. He seethes over the idea that he must show up for Monday night votes — a staple of the Senate calendar often known as “bed checks,” a term he finds paternalistic and demeaning — rather than skip them and enjoy an extra day with his children.
“The votes I missed were overwhelmingly procedural; they’re even called ‘bed check’ votes,” he said. “I had to make a decision: getting here and sticking my thumb in the door for three seconds for a procedural vote or spend Monday night as a dad-daughter date.”
He has also often missed Thursday evening votes because he likes to check in with his father, who recently had a heart attack.
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