Fans say his special helps families understand depression, so he stays well to avoid letting them down

Gary Gulman, the comedian who built a special around his depression, was asked whether it is strange to use his suffering to help others. He pointed to football quarterback Terry Bradshaw and rock singer Bruce Springsteen, both of whom have talked publicly about being depressed.

Their candor did a service, in his view, because it showed depression is chemical and not a measure of success. He recalled that somebody said to Bradshaw, "But you're Terry Bradshaw," and that he would have had the same reaction to Springsteen.

He had lived that confusion himself, Gulman said. He thought he would be happy because he was a comedian and was successful, and when he was not, he told himself he just had not gotten successful enough. Then he heard Springsteen, Bradshaw, and swimmer Michael Phelps describe the same illness, and he concluded, in his words, "it has nothing to do with achievement."

Gulman argues that realization "lets you off the hook," which he calls a service to people, because it separates the illness from what a person has earned or achieved.

It had long been a fantasy of his, Gulman said, that his suffering could make people feel a little better in the way he had been helped. He said fans told him they watched the special with a relative and the relative understood better what depression feels like inside, which mattered to him because the hardest part had been describing what was going on inside him.

That is why he is vigilant about staying well, Gulman said. He said, "I am concerned that I will let certain people down." He feels "there is something above just feeling well for" himself in staying well, Gulman said, because he does not want people to feel, in his words, "oh what hope was there for me." He described himself, if anything, as a standard bearer for comedians who talk about mental health.