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Since going public in 1987 about the tortures of depression, Larry Sitton has done so many interviews and speeches, he couldn't be blamed if doing more might be, well, depressing.

But he keeps on talking. He wants others to do as he did long ago when depression was considered a hush-hush topic. He spoke about his struggle and recovery at an N.C. Bar Association prayer breakfast. Many talks and articles followed, all getting responses.

"Afterward people approached me to say they suffer from it or family members do," he says.

Their words sound so familiar. They say they feel worthless, hopeless, fatigued and unenthusiastic. They say logically they have nothing to be depressed about. They have good jobs and loving families.

They all nodded knowingly when Sitton told them, "I felt like I would be the only person who ever went through something like this."

His depression started in the late 1970s and rendered him nonfunctioning by 1980. He lost enthusiasm for all he once enjoyed. He lacked energy, his appetite ("food tasted like sawdust") and weight. He couldn't make decisions. A lifelong fear of failure intensified. Friends observed Sitton wasn't the same old Larry and said, "You have nothing to be depressed about. Snap out of it."

"Telling someone who is depressed that they have nothing to be depressed about and to snap out of it," he says, "is like telling someone who is having a heart attack to snap out of it."

The stigma attached to depression isn't what it was 30 years ago. It is seen as an illness with recognizable symptoms. Sitton is supporting the Mental Health Association in Greensboro's National Depression Screening Day, which will be held Oct. 30.

Free, confidential screenings will take place in four places in High Point and Greensboro.

Sitton's boldest step came 28 years ago when he went for help to each of his 30 partners at what's now the local firm of Smith, Moore, Leatherwood. He says, "If any of them had said, 'Larry, sorry, you got to carry your weight around here,' I would have been out of there!

"But no one said that. They were understanding and they covered for me. I couldn't do anything for six months. I'm so grateful to my partners."

Drugs his psychiatrist prescribed in the late 1970s made him feel like a zombie — "worse than depression," he says.

But new drugs, such as Prozac, soon arrived, enabling him to climb out of his depression.

He went on to enjoy productive years, including serving as N.C. Bar Association president in 1997.

He and others began helping fellow lawyers after a Bar survey in the 1990s showed 20 to 25 percent of Tar Heel lawyers battled depression and 11 percent considered suicide at least once a month.

The result was BarCARES. Today, it enables lawyers and their families to get help at no cost.

Improvement has resulted, but Sitton says the problem persists.

Sitton's recovery made him more aware of the joys of life, work, family and religion. Now 68, he slowed down 10 years ago. He and his wife moved permanently to their getaway house at Badin Lake. He works from the basement, outfitted with electronic gear linking him to the firm's Greensboro and Charlotte offices.

Sitton has known people, including one super wealthy Greensboro man, who killed themselves after medication and therapy failed. But he says these cases are rare. Medication and treatment continue to improve.

"You can do something about depression" he says, urging people to go to the free screenings. "It's just a small percentage who don't get better."

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net