March 19th, 2010

The Philadelphia Inquirer Reports:

These days, John and Patricia Gallagher can’t talk enough about the depression and suicide that imploded their family.

They’ve even written a book about it, No More Secrets: A Family Speaks About Depression, Anxiety and Attempted Suicide, that lays all the baggage on the table.

But it wasn’t like that nine years ago, when their silence was the ransom they paid to try keep up appearances of the American dream.

John raked in a fat salary as a financial analyst for Bristol-Myers Squibb, the biopharmaceutical giant. Trish was the rock at home, overseeing their four children’s activities out of the family’s stately Bucks County Colonial – a very nice house that they were considering putting on the market so they could buy something even nicer.

They had a dog that looked like Lassie.

Heck, Oprah had even crowned them with her seal of approval, inviting them on her show so Trish could talk about their book Raising Happy Kids on a Reasonable Budget.

“That was back in the days when everything was happy,” Katelyn Gallagher, the couple’s middle daughter, says wryly.

That would be the days before John began stressing over his job, snapping at the kids, staying up all night, experiencing excruciating headaches, thinking he was choking, feeling like he had a brain tumor, losing his appetite, and dropping weight like a Biggest Loser contestant.

The good old days before John spent a hellish 13 months in and out of hospital emergency rooms and a psychiatric ward, not knowing what was happening to him, knowing only that something was terribly, horribly wrong.

Depression was never mentioned. “We didn’t know what depression or chemical imbalance was,” Trish says.

And certainly neither realized that depression strikes men especially hard during their 40s and 50s – John was 48 – or that the suicide rate for men in that age group has been estimated at three times the national average.

In fact, doctors didn’t diagnose John’s depression until late April 1999, after more than a year of symptoms.

John, seeing no way out, initially tried to kill himself by inhaling carbon monoxide. It didn’t work because he did it in an open space.

Two days later, after he was rushed to a hospital with dangerously high blood pressure, John tried again, plunging headfirst out of his third-floor window in the cardiac unit.

Much to his family’s relief – and to John’s dismay – his suicide attempt hadn’t worked. He had hit the side of the building, flipped, and landed on his feet, his legs collapsing underneath him.

Miraculously, he had survived.

But John’s legs were crushed. He’d need three operations, steel rods, and extensive rehabilitation to learn to walk again. But that was OK, as far as Trish was concerned. At least she still had her husband.

And just as important, they could still keep up appearances.

The Gallaghers told no one about the incident. John didn’t even tell his father.

“I guess we both just decided it was shameful and we didn’t want anybody to know,” Trish says.

I met John, 59, and Trish, 58, on St. Patrick’s Day at a cozy diner in Richboro, not far from where they used to live. John was dressed in a pin-striped suit with a crisp, white shirt; cuff links; and a shamrock tie. He sells suits now at Jos. A. Bank, a far less stressful job than the one he had. Trish wore a tasteful white suit.

They make a handsome couple, even though they’ve been separated for almost two years. John and son Ryan, 19, live in an apartment in Jeffersonville; Trish and oldest daughter Robin, 27, live with Trish’s 84-year-old mother in Chalfont.

Katelyn, 25, a psychology student at Temple, lives in Lafayette Hill, and Kristen, 23, a student at Chestnut Hill College, lives in South Philly. The family is still close, maybe closer than ever.

“It’s better this way,” Trish said of living apart from John. “It’s almost like we’re a dating couple now, because all that time we didn’t talk. . . . We talk about everything now.”

For the Gallaghers, true healing began in 2008, after John picked up an Inquirer and read my colleague Michael Vitez’s saga about Jordan Burnham, the Upper Merion High School student who, like John, attempted suicide by jumping out a window.

Like John, Jordan had suffered from depression. And like John, Jordan survived.

“God saved me and that kid for a reason,” said John, who takes 20 milligrams every day of Celexa, an antidepressant. “We should have both been dead. It was clear to me that my job right now is to make people aware.”

In No More Secrets, each family member writes a chapter.

In retrospect, said Trish, the blessing in the storm was that their family now stands as a testament for others who may be going through the same thing.

And sharing the story that depression affects every member of the family, not just the one suffering from it.

And the Gallaghers have learned not to suffer in silence. In fact, you can’t shut them up. They’ll gladly talk about it to any group that invites them.

“I’m really proud of my parents,” said Katelyn.

“Especially my dad.”