Depression at Work

A TV anchorwoman tells her story of depression.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on December 01, 2003 - last reviewed on June 30, 2005

The mania made me picky. Normally I’m very easy to work with, but now I was yelling a lot. One young producer actually had the courage to call me on my behavior. I want to contact her now, 22 years later, and thank her. She said, “This is not my fault, Mary Jo, this is you. Can you see how you’ve been behaving recently? You’re yelling; you’re not yourself. I don’t understand what’s going on. Don’t make me the villain here.” She was right.

Thirty percent of working women suffering from depression either quit or lose a job as a result of symptoms.

Some people did the obvious; they dropped out of my life. I’ll never forget November 12, 1980. I was totally alone on my birthday. No one called. My husband was with another woman because I’d left him. There was no happy birthday. It was horrible. The illness makes you feel unloved anyway. You can’t feel love, even though people are probably right there.

The first of December, my husband and I got back together. Then I started becoming a zombie. Eventually, I stopped functioning. I was hosting a big series on Vietnam vets for the February ratings book. I came to work on a Friday night, stayed 18 hours a day, and at midnight on Sunday, there was still nothing on the page. For the first time in my life, I had to go to my boss and say, “I can’t write this piece.” They had to get someone else to write it, and to do stand-ups and voice it. I was humiliated. I didn’t have a reason. If I had said, “I’m mentally ill and I have this illness,” that would have been easier.

They sent me on a story, a simple voiceover on Nicaragua. I couldn’t write it. I erased the tape. I blamed it on technical problems. I feel pretty terrible; you don’t blame it on some poor videographer. It goes back to being unable to say to your boss: “My brain is broken.”

The television station sent me to the top psychiatrist in Arizona. I remember Dr. McGrath reaching out across the desk and saying, “I promise you with all my heart, you’re going to feel better, and you’re going to get your life back again.” I believed him. He gave me various medications. None worked.

One day I did the five o’clock newscast, called my husband, and said, “I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t act one more second. I can’t pretend one more minute to be healthy. I can’t get this face out anymore.” I couldn’t write a check, I couldn’t read a newspaper. In March of ’81, the same day President Reagan was shot, I was secreted into Camelback Hospital for two weeks to get shock treatment—I wasn’t forced, I signed the papers. The station circled the wagons and protected me. It was beautiful. Most stations would have fired me. The station owners felt I was worth the investment.

I was back on the air in two weeks. I was not completely out of the depression, but I was functioning. I didn’t start feeling normal again until January of ’82, when I remember smiling frankly for the first time and feeling it.

A year and a half after I had shock treatment, in October 1982, I was hired by CBS network news. I moved to New York and went on the air in December ’82, on a show called Nightwatch.

I anchored from 2 to 6 a.m. My husband had just divorced me. I didn’t know anyone. And I worked in the middle of the night. Unlike Phoenix, it was cold. The darkness came back ten-fold. There was no way I was going to go to CBS and say “I’m ill.” They would have never hired me if I had told them the truth.

By March I knew that I couldn’t stay. The depression kept getting worse. I thought it was New York. That might be a pattern with people with the illness. There was a 12-year period where I lived in 11 different houses. I have two ex-husbands. You think if you change houses or change husbands or change jobs you’re going to feel better, but it’s the illness.

Only 47% of women diagnosed with depression seek help right away. Most think they can deal with the symptoms on their own. Further, they do not know where to go for help.

I wasn’t bombing professionally in New York. It was the struggle inside. I couldn’t handle the cold. I couldn’t handle anything about New York. But I somehow managed to get to work on time, do my job and perform. But that was all I could do.

I came back to Phoenix to work for the competition, a local station that was last in the ratings. They had heard that I wasn’t happy in New York. They flew up and asked me to come back to Phoenix and make them number one. They offered me more money than I was making at the network, which was unheard of.

It was a disaster professionally. A local anchor is seen as the girl next door and the people let you in their homes each night. When I went to New York, my look totally changed. I went from wearing my hair in a pageboy to a new, short, chic haircut. I dressed differently, and the local people hated that. An ex-friend betrayed me, went to the press, and told them about my salary. I was portrayed as making big salary demands.

The station’s promotional campaign was all about me, so my old station developed an award-winning campaign called, “we’re the team” and showed all these team people playing together to play off the prima donna. The ratings got worse. I went to the owners and told them I couldn’t do it alone, that I needed a really good captain to head the ship.