Texas politician Lina Hidalgo is back to work after taking nine weeks off to address her mental health and seek professional treatment, saying: “I think there’s a world in which I would have killed myself” if she hadn’t taken action.
And now the Democrat, 32, is speaking out about her experience to help reduce the stigma around depression – and the staggering cost of treatment.
“It was about $88,000,” Hidalgo told CBS Mornings on Friday. “That’s where I stop and say, ‘I don’t have $88,000.'”
While her longtime boyfriend used his savings to pay most of her medical bills, “we’re not in a great financial position right now,” she said. “We’re fighting the insurance company.”
But Hidalgo says she didn’t have a choice, and only sought professional treatment at a facility in Ohio after exhausting all other options.
“I just felt so trapped,” she told CBS News. “I exercise. I sleep well. I eat well. I have a psychologist. I have a psychiatrist. What else can I do? There’s no way out.
“I still feel so low and so empty and so sad.”
She says at first she didn’t think she could take time off for treatment.
“People said, ‘No, you’re a manager. You’d never survive politically.'”
It was only after Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman took a leave of absence to seek treatment for his own battle with depression that Hidalgo realised she could seek treatment and keep her high-pressure job.
As the first woman and the first Latina to be elected Harris County Judge, Hidalgo oversees the entire county of 5 million people – which includes Houston – and its $4 billion budget.
After defeating an 11-year incumbent in an upset election in 2018, Hidalgo is now in charge of emergency management, which means she’s in charge when disaster strikes, whether it’s in the form of chemical fires, floods, a pandemic or power grid failures during a historic winter storm.
Last July – just as a mural in her honour was being unveiled – the suicidal thoughts she experienced when she dropped out of law school returned “worse than ever”.
After attending the mural unveiling, Hidalgo flew to the treatment centre in Ohio, saying, “I’m sick, I gotta go.
Prioritising her mental health over her constituents was a challenge, she says, but “I had to make myself stop thinking about it because I never would have left”.
And now she’s hoping that sharing her story will help with the “stigma around mental health”.
“The goal is for people to see it as no different than a politician who has high blood pressure… or has had a heart attack.”
And as for those who say her leave of absence is a reason to resign, Hidalgo says: “I feel better than ever now, and I wish I’d done it sooner. That was part of the shame.”
“I’m so committed. I’m more determined to stay in politics,” she says, and has a message for her critics.
“People are scared of me for a reason, so I’m not going to put those fears away just yet.”
