Representative Thomas H. Kean Jr., the New Jersey Republican who disappeared from Congress and the campaign trail in March with almost no explanation, said Tuesday that his lengthy hospitalization had been to treat depression.
“Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing,” he said in a short speech on the House floor during his first day on Capitol Hill since disappearing more than 100 days ago. “I was given the diagnosis of depression.”
Mr. Kean added: “Many people think it is feeling sad. It is so much more than that. It is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself,” he said, it is hard to understand “how powerful this illness could be.”
Mr. Kean, a 57-year-old seeking a third term in a competitive district, has missed more than 100 votes since he was last seen in public in March. He broke his silence on Tuesday with formal remarks during a morning period of speeches that are delivered by lawmakers to a mostly empty House chamber.
Members of Congress typically use the speeches, limited to five minutes and offered mostly for the record, for things like eulogizing constituents who have recently died or celebrating events in their districts.
For Mr. Kean, who described himself as a private person who struggled to share his own journey, it was a deeply personal speech.
He said his doctors had told him the fastest way to recover was to stay in the hospital. “I was hesitant,” he said. “I didn’t think I had time for it.”
And he said that when he had told his constituents he would be gone just a few weeks, he had believed that was the timeline.
Mr. Kean, who said he was a “private person by nature,” as a way of explaining why he had not shared more earlier, said that “asking for help is not a weakness, it is a strength.”
He added that he was healthy and returning to work with the full support of his doctors.
“Recovery is possible,” he said.
The format allowed Mr. Kean to say only what he wanted to about his long absence, avoiding the questions that journalists — and many of his own colleagues — wanted to ask. Earlier in the day, he had been silent in the hallways of the Capitol as reporters asked him where he had been, why he had not been more transparent about his health condition and whether he was still fit to serve.
Before his remarks, Mr. Kean sat alone in the House chamber, flipping through the pages of his speech that he held in his lap in a leather folder.
Mr. Kean’s reappearance was closely watched after months during which he and his staff refused to disclose anything about where he was or what was keeping him away. Their silence built Tuesday’s return into a major reveal after a prolonged cliffhanger.
Some of his colleagues appeared less than thrilled about how he had chosen to handle the situation. Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that he had urged Mr. Kean to share more about his condition earlier, to avoid rampant speculation. He told reporters that he had “encouraged him many times over the last few months” to be more transparent about his health.
“If it were me, I would have been more specific about that,” he said, noting that Mr. Kean’s condition was very common.
In the absence of official information, his own colleagues had speculated wildly about Mr. Kean’s health, privately raising an array of possibilities.
Mr. Kean had said only that he was dealing with a “personal medical issue,” and until recently offered no timeline on his return, only vague assurances that when he did come back, he would be fully recovered and open about what he had been through.
He also was scheduled to participate in a fund-raising reception on Tuesday evening in Washington, according to an email obtained by The New York Times that confirmed an earlier report by Politico.
Mr. Kean has invited some Republican officials to participate in a 2 p.m. conference call on Tuesday, according to multiple people who were invited. The people said they expected he would have to address the health issue in some way.
With an election in five months, Mr. Kean’s months of silence have tested the limits of what the public will tolerate in terms of privacy for its leaders.
Presidents traditionally release the results of their annual physicals and disclose what medications they are taking, although they are not legally required to do so. But members of Congress typically provide no information to the public about the state of their health or their fitness to fulfill their duties.
Voters tend to be forgiving about the ailments of their leaders. And some lawmakers in the past have tried to turn their own medical challenges or issues with mental health, alcohol or addiction into a way to relate to voters who may be struggling themselves.
So Mr. Kean’s decision to keep his constituents and his colleagues in the dark for so long had largely been viewed as inexplicable.
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