HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Jon Hamm says he struggled with depression after losing both of his parents at an early age. His mother, Deborah, died from cancer when he was 10, and his father, Dan – the inspiration behind his Mad Men alter ego Don Draper – died 10 years later.
"To lose a parent at 10 – which is young, though not unprecedented – it means you understand, at a very early age, what permanence is," the 38-year-old actor tells the U.K. magazine The Observer.
Hamm was studying at the University of Texas when his father died – a moment that led others to rally around him.
"I was… unmoored by that," he says of his father's death. "But I was very fortunate to have really good friends in my life whose parents sort of rallied: 'We're gonna help this kid out, because otherwise there's going to be trouble...'
"I struggled with chronic depression. I was in bad shape. I knew I had to get back in school and back in some kind of structured environment and… continue."
In addition to close friends, Hamm relied on work, therapy and medication to get back on track.
"I did do therapy and antidepressants for a brief period, which helped me. Which is what therapy does: it gives you another perspective when you are so lost in your own spiral, your own bulls---. It helps," he says. "And honestly? Antidepressants help! If you can change your brain chemistry enough to think: 'I want to get up in the morning; I don't want to sleep until four in the afternoon. I want to get up and go do my s--- and go to work and...' Reset the auto-meter, kick-start the engine!"
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