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In February 2007, Newsweek magazine reported that 6 million American men will be diagnosed with depression in a year. Millions of other husbands, sons and brothers will go undiagnosed, suffering silently through the darkness.
Emme Aronson, the world's leading plus-size supermodel, was a Revlon cover girl, television host, clothing designer and best-selling author...until her husband's dark secret nearly destroyed their family.
In 2001, shortly after the birth of their first child, Emme began to notice changes in her husband Phil's personality. "Right after Toby was born, strange things started to happen," she says. "Phil was retreating, not vivacious and bubbly. And [he had] outbursts of anger."
Phil spiraled into a severe depression after developing a debilitating pain that he says tortured him. He discovered later that the pain was caused by prostatitis, the inflammation of the prostate gland located at the end of a male's urethra.
During this time, Phil says he wouldn't get out of bed for days on end. "I wouldn't comb my hair. I wouldn't shave. I hated myself," he says. "It's just the deepest, darkest abyss that anyone could ever imagine." Phil was prescribed antidepressants, but he says they had little effect.
Afraid for Phil's well-being, Emme put her career on hold so that she could be there for her husband. "For two and a half years, she stepped out of her life and into my life and it affected everything," he says. "She was the housekeeper, the breadwinner, the mother and the father during my illness."
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