An Atlanta Business Leader Opens Up About Depression -- There Is NO Small Amount of Antidepressant Drugs Which Is Temperate

An Atlanta Business Leader Opens Up About Depression

ATLANTA -- In June 1999, Larry Gellerstedt III, one of this city's most influential and respected businessmen, vanished from town. His company said only that he was taking a leave of absence for a medical condition.

On Aug. 1, Mr. Gellerstedt wrote to a childhood friend, Mike Egan, to explain his sudden disappearance:

"I entered the hospital around June 1. A secret demon ... of mine since my second year at Chapel Hill is chronic depression. It has haunted me physically, and my embarrassment of the stigma of mental illness kept me from getting it properly treated.

"I am so embarrassed about this flaw in me, but I can no longer hide it."

In fact, so deep-rooted was the deception that Mr. Gellerstedt, then 43 years old, continued to conceal his illness, much as he had for two decades.

At the highest reaches of the business world, battles with anxiety and depression typically remain secret. Many executives are ashamed to broach the issue, fearing they will be seen as "soft and weak and vulnerable," says Efrain Bleiberg, a psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kan., where Mr. Gellerstedt eventually sought help. Often, the illness comes to light only after a person takes his or her own life. The refrain after such an event is unvarying: No one saw it coming.

The near-absence of clues is explained by the fact that executives grappling with depression become remarkably adept at one thing: hiding their illness. Indeed, many spend more time concealing the disease than they do seeking help.

A Former Executive at CNN Confronts His Depression1

Earlier this year, Tom Johnson, the former chairman of CNN News Group and before that publisher of the Los Angeles Times, disclosed his own fight with depression after hiding it for 15 years. Several tricks helped. His two assistants learned not to schedule appointments in the morning, a time when Mr. Johnson felt his worst. An antidepressant, Effexor, helped -- but caused him to sweat profusely. So he brought three shirts of the same color to work so he could change and no one would notice (see article².).

Sometimes, unable to work, Mr. Johnson crawled under his desk. But with the exception of CNN founder Ted Turner, he didn't tell executives at CNN or its parent, AOL Time Warner, of his illness. He feared that others would undermine him.

"A CEO is expected to be a strong, stable, dynamic leader," Mr. Johnson says today. "I didn't want to provide a bullet that could be used against me."

Mr. Gellerstedt managed to hide his illness while participating in some of the most prominent moments in Atlanta's recent history. His construction company built the stadium where Muhammad Ali lit the torch to open the 1996 Summer Olympics. He saved the city's natural-history museum from bankruptcy. He helped merge two of the area's largest children's hospitals, and his name was on corporate and nonprofit boards throughout Atlanta. No one, except for his family and psychologist, was aware of his illness.

"Several crashes have been secret," he told Mr. Egan in his letter in 1999. Those secrets were worse than anyone in Atlanta might have imagined.

Growing up, Mr. Gellerstedt was expected to follow in the considerable footsteps of his father, L.L. Gellerstedt Jr. In 1969, the elder Mr. Gellerstedt acquired Beers Construction Co. and began helping build much of Atlanta's skyline. An early lesson for his son -- and one that stayed with the younger Gellerstedt for a long time -- was that pain was to be ignored or hidden.

One summer day, the younger Mr. Gellerstedt, then 11 years old, fell sick at a construction site. Returning to the office, he sank into his father's chair and put his feet on the desk. Presently, the elder Mr. Gellerstedt walked into the room. "What the hell are you doing?" the father shouted, suggesting to him that sickness wasn't an excuse for missing work. (The elder Mr. Gellerstedt says he regrets the outburst, but at the time thought he was teaching his son to be tough. "Would I have handled things differently? Hell yes I would have," he now says.)

In college, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Mr. Gellerstedt thrived at first. Unburdened, for the moment, of any expectations, he excelled in the classroom and became president of his fraternity. But there were some troubling signs. Mr. Gellerstedt says he remembers suffering severe headaches related to stress, but he told no one. Friends noticed a change his junior year but couldn't put their finger on what was wrong. "He became more withdrawn," recalls Mr. Egan. "He wasn't hanging around the fraternity house."

Return to Atlanta

Mr. Gellerstedt, under pressure to succeed his father, returned to Atlanta to work for Beers. Obligations mounted, both in and outside the office. He was asked to join several boards of directors, sometimes with the explanation: "We've always had a Gellerstedt on this board." His headaches worsened, escalating into migraines. At one point, he began to vomit blood. A doctor diagnosed the problems as stress-related. But instead of stepping back, Mr. Gellerstedt threw himself into his work.

"I had to prove to myself that I wasn't there because of my name and being the son of the boss," Mr. Gellerstedt says. "I didn't want to leave if there was a car in the parking lot."

The one person he did confide in was Ivan Allen III, a person well acquainted with the demands placed on children of prominent parents. Mr. Allen's father, Ivan Allen Jr., led Atlanta as mayor through the racially charged 1960s. On the night of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Mr. Allen was photographed escorting Dr. King's widow. To Mr. Gellerstedt, Ivan Allen III, who was 17 years older and who had taken over the Allens' office-supply business, was the perfect mentor.

On May 15, 1992, a Friday, the younger Mr. Allen stopped in to see Mr. Gellerstedt. Everything seemed normal with Mr. Allen, who was leaving for a weekend at his farm west of Atlanta. On Sunday night, a member of Mr. Allen's family went to check on him at the farm and found him near his bedroom, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Mr. Allen's suicide left Mr. Gellerstedt with the wrenching thought that if Mr. Allen hadn't beaten his own demons, then how could he? "I was just devastated," Mr. Gellerstedt recalls.

On a morning not long after Mr. Allen's death, Mr. Gellerstedt's wife, Carol, got their son and daughter off to school -- but realized she hadn't seen her husband. Mrs. Gellerstedt found him in a walk-in closet, half-dressed in his suit. He was curled in a ball. The only sound in the house was that of Mr. Gellerstedt crying.

His wife urged him to see a psychiatrist, and for the first time in his life, he learned he suffered from major depression. It is a confounding disease, believed to result from a combination of brain chemistry and life stresses. Major depression, the most severe form, which can significantly interfere with an individual's thoughts and physical health, affects an estimated 5% of Americans. For Mr. Gellerstedt, the treatment "started a year of just hell in trying to treat the disease."

The episode was never mentioned to anyone else, and after just a week, Mr. Gellerstedt returned to the office. Work became the curtain behind which Mr. Gellerstedt could hide his illness. His day began early and ended late. Mr. Gellerstedt actually found that his anxiety allowed him to be more focused at work. By the time he arrived home, though, he was mentally and physically spent.

"His work was his mistress," says Mrs. Gellerstedt.

He constantly worried that his parents' stake in Beers would be lost. In 1994, Mr. Gellerstedt sold Beers to a Swedish construction company Skanska AB.

He stayed with Beers for three years after the sale, and then quit, having increased annual revenues to $1 billion from $150 million when he took over from his father. Barely three months later, he agreed to take the helm of American Business Products Inc., a struggling Atlanta maker of business supplies, including envelopes and labels.

"I became terrified of what in the hell am I going to do" after Beers, he says.

Mr. Gellerstedt immediately set to work revamping the company -- starting with tearing out the fireplace and wood paneling in the executive suite to make the place less stuffy. Two months into the job, he decided to begin selling divisions that didn't fit with the company's core printing business.

"Larry was doing a good job," says Joe Rogers Jr., an American Business Products director brought onto the board by Mr. Gellerstedt. "This was a competent, confident, capable guy bringing you real stuff, well thought out, sound execution, good insight."

But disguising his growing depression required increasingly elaborate ruses. He started seeing a psychologist, telling people he was going to the doctor for a physical ailment. His anxieties turned his hands to ice. Thus, at times when he knew he might have to greet someone, he would shove his hands under his suit pants to warm them.

"What could be an explanation other than 'I'm scared?' " Mr. Gellerstedt says. For an executive, "That doesn't work."

His hands also threatened to betray him during business presentations; they would shake too much to hold a piece of paper. To help conceal that problem, he began sticking his papers in a three-ring binder, which was easier to manage.

In May 1999, the Gellerstedts traveled to Cancun in Mexico as part of an American Business Products trip to award employees.

By this time, dark circles had formed under Mr. Gellerstedt's eyes from lack of sleep. His psychologist, David Rouzer, encouraged him to relax. To distance himself from the rest of the gathering, Mr. Gellerstedt and his wife stayed in another hotel. Their wedding anniversary provided a useful explanation for why he didn't lodge with his employees.

One Friday in June 1999, Mr. Gellerstedt arrived for what had become a twice-weekly session with Dr. Rouzer. They talked for a few minutes, but Mr. Gellerstedt was unfocused.

"Where is it right now you'd like to be," Dr. Rouzer asked.

Mr. Gellerstedt responded, "I'd like to be sitting on my boat dock by myself at Lake Rabun with a shotgun in my hands."

At that moment, says Dr. Rouzer today, it became clear that hospitalization was the only option. He called Carol Gellerstedt, telling her that if Mr. Gellerstedt wasn't home in 10 minutes, that she should call. He arrived home in shambles. Agitated, he walked around the house, crying.

The next morning, Mr. Gellerstedt searched for his shotgun. He was ready, he says today, to kill himself. But his firearms were nowhere to be found. Five months earlier, Mrs. Gellerstedt, concerned that her husband would turn a gun on himself, had taken them to Dennis Love, a childhood friend.

"Don't tell Larry I gave them to you," she told Mr. Love.

Two days later, Mrs. Gellerstedt took her husband to a psychiatric institution.

The Menninger Clinic in Topeka sits on 50 acres that resemble a small, tree-dotted college campus. Founded in 1925, the center, says Mrs. Gellerstedt, seemed to offer the program best-suited for her husband's situation: "Professionals in Crisis."

Early on, Mr. Gellerstedt, exhausted and depressed, found it impossible to discuss his illness. At 10:30 each morning, he and a handful other patients would gather in a circle for group therapy. To hide his identity, he used the name "Larry R." Other patients included two professional football players, a lawyer, a priest and a local television news anchor. Another patient, a neurosurgeon, called Mr. Gellerstedt the "statue man" because he didn't talk the first week.

Progress was measured in a daily journal. On June 30, Mr. Gellerstedt made his first entry:

"Woke up at 6:45. Good night's sleep. ... Have been here a week and feel a good deal better. ... Told my story. First time I've talked. It was hard. [Another patient] used the word 'seductive' to describe my work and asked: 'How do you give up the toys and trophies?' "

In Atlanta, rumors had begun to brew. Mr. Gellerstedt had notified the head of the American Business Products board, but no one else in Atlanta knew a thing. On July 21, American Business Products, in releasing its quarterly earnings, stated simply that Mr. Gellerstedt "will take a temporary leave of absence to care for a medical condition." Mr. Gellerstedt was quoted as saying in the release: "My condition is treatable and not life threatening, and I expect to return full time to my responsibilities as Chairman and CEO."

After reading a brief news item, Mr. Gellerstedt's longtime friend Mr. Egan wrote to Carol Gellerstedt offering his support. On Aug. 1, 1999, Mr. Gellerstedt wrote back, trying to explain his leaving Atlanta and his disease.

"This time I almost died. Physically, I have not slept for over three hours in four months, was suffering severe daily migraines, and stomach ulcers. Mentally, I was so depressed that I wanted to die. Thank God for C.G. [Carol Gellerstedt].

"Hopefully, I will be able to return to Atlanta by the end of August. I will still have in the best case two to three months of therapy before considering work. I am embarrassed about this flaw in me but I can no longer hide it."

Mr. Gellerstedt left Menninger in early August, ready to return to the life he had left behind. Or so he thought. His plan was to ease in gradually, joining his family for a beach vacation. But work quickly intruded. Mr. Gellerstedt and the board had reached the decision that American Business Products should be sold. It was going to cost the company too much to make an acquisition to bolster operations and it was going to take too long to turn around the company. Instead of relaxing, Mr. Gellerstedt found himself drawn into a flurry of telephone discussions over which investment bank to hire.

His journal entries showed that old habits -- including hiding his pain -- were hard to break.

"Told them I would be out of pocket. Was really hyped up by the call. Had to go run. ... Empty feeling. Why can't this pain go away? I really want to run away but where to? God, it hurts. No one to talk to or hug me. House empty, just like me."

Mr. Gellerstedt could barely talk to his two children without crying. He told them he was sorry for being a bad father. His family, Mr. Gellerstedt remembers, was "really taken aback by how sick I still was. I still was very shaky. I would cry."

When he returned to Atlanta, he and Dr. Rouzer reached what they hoped would be a breakthrough decision. Mr. Gellerstedt would return to Menninger -- this time with the goal simply of getting better, rather than returning to work. "I really hadn't let go enough the first time," Mr. Gellerstedt says.

On Sept. 16, 1999, American Business Products told its investment bank, Goldman Sachs Group, to explore a sale of the company. That same day, the company said that "Larry has been on medical leave. He recently informed the board that his recovery will take longer than expected."

His second visit to Menninger lasted two months. It helped that he lived not at the hospital but in a more relaxed setting at an apartment. He reached out to another patient, whose husband would visit and grill fish. The Gellerstedts themselves, however, had reached an impasse; the couple agreed to separate after Mr. Gellerstedt returned to Atlanta.

Row of Drugs

Mr. Egan recalls a day when he visited Mr. Gellerstedt in the spartan apartment he was renting. On the coffee table stood a row of drugs. Mr. Gellerstedt had two antidepressants, Effexor and Paxil. He had Klonopin for anxiety attacks. One bottle was for his headaches, and another helped him sleep.

The two friends drove to Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch. Mr. Gellerstedt still was sick, leaving Mr. Egan to contemplate the worst. "It was just a very, very depressing combination," he recalls thinking, "and I left him that day with the horrible sense that he would not be with us much longer."

In late summer of 2000, Mr. Gellerstedt agreed to meet with Maria Saporta, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Against the counsel of his wife and his psychologist, who saw no upside, Mr. Gellerstedt had decided to make his story public. For one, he reasoned, an article would help quell the rumors about his disappearance. At the same time, he says today, he felt he might be able to help others who were hiding their own problems.

The article ran in September and disclosed that Mr. Gellerstedt had been battling depression. The response, he says, was overwhelming. "I was totally unprepared for the personal appeals: Where do I go to get help? What do I do for my son?"

Five days after the article appeared, Mr. Johnson at CNN wrote to Mr. Gellerstedt, marking the letter confidential:

"Your openness, your honesty, and your determination to help others made such an impact on me," Mr. Johnson said. "For many corporate reasons and P.R. reasons, I have not been as open as you. You have influenced me to be much more forthcoming in the future."

Mr. Gellerstedt began his reintegration by teaching European history at Westminster Schools, an Atlanta preparatory school he had attended as a child. But he found that he missed working at a business. In December 2000, Mr. Gellerstedt joined an Atlanta real-estate development company, Integral Group, that focused on building Atlanta's inner city.

Last month, under a searing sun, Mr. Gellerstedt and his partner helped open a new Publix grocery store. The opening of a supermarket is a far cry from the stadiums and offices Mr. Gellerstedt used to build. But he can finally be open about his depression and his once-a-week treatment. Not that many people are eager to discuss it.

"Is the business world ready to acknowledge mental illness?" he says. "I don't think the business world is. I don't think it will be unless people are willing to speak."

Mr. Gellerstedt says that today he can wake up six out of seven days and not think about his depression. But he also can sink pretty low at times. A few weeks ago, he was driving home from his North Georgia lake house and he pulled over because he had to cry. He says he has no desire to host depression fund raisers and despite his own desire to open up, Mr. Gellerstedt still finds it difficult to do so completely. He says some friends can't understand why he even tries.

Mr. Gellerstedt says one friend told him, "For God's sake Larry, don't become the poster boy for mental illness."

In May, Mr. Gellerstedt spoke about his illness to an audience for the first time. The event, sponsored by the Carter Center, which is affiliated with President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, focused on suicide. It carried a special poignancy for Mr. Gellerstedt because he agreed to speak at the Ivan Allen III pavilion, a building he hadn't entered since Mr. Allen died.

Before he spoke, Mr. Gellerstedt sat with his wife to avoid the crowds milling around during a break; crowds heighten his anxiety. When it was his turn to speak, he took with him his three-ring binder with its one sheet of paper. He opened it.

"I'm scared. This is new to me," Mr. Gellerstedt said, and he began to tell his story.

Write to Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com³

Updated June 26, 2002