Representative Thomas H. Kean Jr., the New Jersey Republican who vanished from Congress and the campaign trail in March with almost no explanation, said Tuesday that his long absence had been for a hospitalization 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,” 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, had 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.
Mr. Kean’s reappearance was closely watched after months during which he and his staff had 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.
But unlike a news conference during which Mr. Kean might have answered questions and defused the considerable mystery that had risen around his whereabouts, the format of a floor speech allowed him 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.
Before his brief speech and afterward, he was silent in the hallways of the Capitol, appearing wan and mute as reporters asked him where he had been, how he was feeling, why he had not been more transparent about his health condition and whether he was still fit to serve.
Inside the House chamber, Mr. Kean, who described himself as “a private person by nature” who had struggled to share his journey, delivered a deeply personal speech that left out some important details.
He did not say what had originally landed him in the hospital, but said his doctors had told him the fastest way to recover was to stay there.
“I was hesitant,” he said. “I didn’t think I had time for it.”
And he said that when he had initially released a statement saying he would be gone from Capitol Hill for just a few weeks, he had believed that was true. He did not address why he had failed to correct the record when it became clear that his absence would last much longer.
Mr. Kean, who said he was generally uncomfortable talking about himself as he sought to defend his decision not to share more earlier about his absence, said he had come to understand that “asking for help is not a weakness, it is a strength.”
He added that he was now healthy and returning to work with the full support of his doctors.
“Recovery is possible,” he said.
Before his remarks, Mr. Kean sat alone in the House chamber, flipping through the pages of his speech in a leather folder that he held in his lap.
Republican leaders said they supported Mr. Kean, whose seat could be critical to their chances of hanging onto their slim House majority. But 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 that grew into a national fascination with the mystery of the congressman who had vanished. 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. After his speech, Mr. Johnson commended him for addressing it “appropriately” and said he was confident Mr. Kean would win re-election.
Representative Richard Hudson, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, simply shrugged at questions about whether Mr. Kean should have shared more about his situation earlier.
“He was going through depression,” he said. “Who am I to judge how he should have handled that differently?”
But some Democrats, including his challenger Rebecca Bennett, criticized Mr. Kean for his handling of the situation.
“We give up our right to privacy when we run for office,” said Representative Maxine E. Dexter, Democrat of Oregon, who added that Mr. Kean had a duty to be more transparent. “If our colleagues don’t feel comfortable saying they are struggling with real humanity-driven challenges, then how can we expect our communities to feel comfortable disclosing that? We have to be leaders.”
With an election in five months, Mr. Kean and his months of silence have tested the limits of what the public will tolerate in terms of privacy for its leaders. It was not clear whether his speech would put to bed all the questions voters might have about his long-unexplained absence, or whether it would raise more.
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.
Experts said voters tend to be forgiving of politicians with medical problems, but less so when it comes to mental health.
“Voters punish politicians who have mental illness more than they punish politicians who have an illness like cancer, for example,” said Peter Loewen, a professor of government at Cornell University and the Harold Tanner dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Loewen, who published a paper in 2018 on depression among elected officials, said that “mental illness is still stigmatized for politicians in a way that physical illness is not.”
“I can’t imagine it will help him,” he said of Mr. Kean’s speech.
It is still unusual for lawmakers to talk about suffering from depression.
After Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was hospitalized for six weeks in 2023 for treatment for clinical depression, he for a time tried to highlight the issue of mental health and encourage people to seek help if they were struggling.
But last year, after scrutiny of his frequent absences from Capitol Hill, Mr. Fetterman told The New York Times in an interview that he regretted having been so open about his travails.
“My doctor warned years ago: After it’s public that you are getting help for depression, people will weaponize that,” he said. “Simple things are turned. That’s exactly what happened.”
Mr. Fetterman did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday about Mr. Kean’s revelation.
Ms. Bennett, his opponent, said in a statement that she wished Mr. Kean good health but continued to hammer him for his behavior during his absence.
“Tom Kean Jr. still somehow found time to trade stocks while missing votes,” she said. “This is the self-serving culture in Washington that New Jerseyans are rejecting, and the kind of behavior they are sick and tired of from career politicians.”
Mr. Kean cast three votes on Tuesday, and was scheduled to participate in a fund-raising reception on Tuesday evening, according to an email obtained by The New York Times that confirmed an earlier report by Politico.
