What silence really costs: Communicators & founders share their stories of mental health and healing

Sukhi Sahni is a senior communications industry expert, adviser and educator. 

In PR and communications, we tell hard truths for a living. When it comes to our own mental health, most of us go quiet.

Every May, Mental Health Awareness Month gives us permission to talk about this. Companies build campaigns, share resources and host conversations. And every June, we move on. That pattern is exactly what prompted me to write this.

I am not writing this from the outside. I lost my mother during one of the hardest seasons of my career. I showed up. I said I was fine. I know what that silence cost.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has spent decades fighting the stigma that keeps those conversations from happening year-round. As a former member of its national board, I have seen how much damage that silence does in workplaces, in careers and in people who believed they had no choice but to keep it together.

I have spent years watching people keep it together. The cost is always the same. It just shows up in different ways. Women returning from maternity leave were let go the day after they walked back in the door. People who lost someone they loved were expected to perform as if nothing had happened. Employees on vacation dialed into calls because the culture made it clear that being unavailable was a career risk. And through all of it, mental health only came up when legal needed to cover itself. We can talk about employee resource groups and wellness days all we want. If the culture underneath is broken, none of it really matters, right?

We are not actually talking about this

So how widespread is this? According to the 2025 NAMI Workplace Mental Health Poll, 3 in 4 American workers believe it is appropriate to discuss mental health at work. But 2 in 5 are afraid they will be judged if they actually do. Only 28% would tell senior leadership they were struggling.

Inside our industry specifically, the 2025 PR.co Industry Report on Mental Health found that nearly 60% of PR professionals feel overwhelmed daily or multiple times a week. The top stressor is not workload. It is reactive work: last-minute requests, unclear expectations and no protected time to think.

And yet most organizations respond with an employee assistance program, or EAP,  a meditation app or a wellness day. Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Spin Sucks, has a name for this.

“Those things can be helpful, but they do not solve the problem if the day-to-day environment is still chaotic, punitive or unsafe. If people are rewarded for overwork or afraid to be honest with their managers, the organization is not really supporting mental health. It is decorating the problem.”

Brandi L. Holder, a leadership coach, offers practical tips and small fixes. Instead of sending an email about your EAP, try this: “Our EAP is free, private, and all you have to do is call this number.” Instead of hanging a poster for Mental Health Awareness Month, tell your team about a time you struggled and what helped. Instead of asking people to practice self-care, find the person who seems off today and ask something specific. Not “How are you doing?” Try “What do you need this week?”

Spring Health’s 2026 Workplace Mental Health Report found that 34% of employees do not know whether they have mental health coverage, even though 98% of mid-to-large companies offer an EAP. The benefit exists, and the barrier is not access. It is the permission to talk about mental health issues, without being judged or punished for it.

What silence actually costs

NAMI data shows 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience a mental illness each year. Think about what that means in practice for our industry. If I did the math right, in a room of 20 communications professionals, statistically, four of them are living with a mental health condition right now. Most have told no one at work.

Holder knows this silence personally. While working under an executive contract, she was caring for her terminally ill husband. She told no one.

“I was in the middle of delivering my husband’s eulogy when my phone rang. My leadership team knew I was away for his service and called anyway. I was standing in the only place I needed to be, mentally calculating which work crisis needed attention. That is what mental health stigma costs. When you are in a culture where people are celebrated for bleeding for the mission, you believe that displaying anything that looks like weakness can cost you the job. So you perform fine.”

The silence cost her more than she realized. She eventually quit, found a counselor and a coach, and has not looked back. What finally changed, she says, was realizing the silence was not protecting anyone. It was just delaying the inevitable.

Leaving corporate does not make it easier

Something significant is happening to senior talent in our industry. More than 110,000 LinkedIn profiles now mention fractional roles. Two years ago that number was 2,000. The numbers are staggering. But they do not tell you why.

Ask the people who actually made the leap, including myself, and the answers are remarkably consistent. Some left because the pressure became unsustainable and the support was never there. Others left because they were ready to bet on themselves and build something on their own terms. Most will tell you it was a little of both.

The PR.co 2025 Industry Report on Mental Health found that burnout in PR is more strongly linked to working conditions and culture than to workload. The top predictor is not hours. It is feeling unappreciated. I think most people reach the same conclusion eventually. The title stops being worth it.

Courtney Geduldig, founder and managing partner of VantageRoad Partners, spent years at the top of the corporate affairs world before building her own firm. She does not dress it up.

“I became very good at carrying things, but not always at setting boundaries around what I carried. Rest is not a reward after performance. It is part of performance. Many leaders are navigating grief, caregiving, loneliness, identity shifts or personal reinvention while still showing up every day. The question we need to start asking is not just how are we performing. It is what are we asking people to hold.”

Niharika Shah, founder of Koi AgeTech Ventures and former CMO at Fortune 100 companies, has navigated the C-suite, a founding journey and caring for her elderly mother, often all at once. She does not overcomplicate it.

“You cannot pour from an empty cup. Seeking help is an act of courage and self-belief, not a sign of weakness. Be kind to yourself. That is not soft advice. It is the foundation.”

The wave of senior communications professionals leaving corporate roles is often described as a pursuit of freedom and flexibility. That is part of it. But ask people honestly and another answer comes up just as often: the culture broke them and they had to get out. Which means the stigma does not stay behind when they leave. It travels with them.

The stigma is structural, not personal

NAMI asks why employees stay silent. The top answers: fear of being judged, fear of appearing weak, fear of losing opportunities. These are not character flaws. They are rational responses to cultures that have taught people exactly those lessons.

Devin Keane is co-founder and COO of Gratitude Plus, a wellness platform he helped build after his own experiences with depression and loneliness. His co-founder, Daniel Shaffer, started the company after losing his mother. Together they built something they wished had existed when they needed it most.

“Leaders should talk about the things they do for their mental health as a strength, not something to hide. Too often, we assume successful people were just built differently. The reality is that everyone goes through ups and downs. The more leaders are honest about the tools and habits that help them, the easier it becomes for everyone else to do the same.”

Dietrich is direct about where the problem lives. “If an entire team is burned out, that is not a problem with the meditation app. That is likely a prioritization, staffing, communication or leadership problem, or all of the above,” she says. The best workplaces, she adds, will not be the ones with the flashiest benefits. They will be the ones where people know what matters, feel respected and are not expected to sacrifice their well-being to prove their commitment.

Where to start

This is not about fixing everything. It is about starting somewhere, and doing it now. Every contributor offered one thing you can do today. Here is what they said.

Gini Dietrich, Spin Sucks: Build practices before you are in crisis. Protect your sleep. Move your body. Have people who will tell you the truth. And separate your work performance from your value as a human being. That part is hard. It matters most.

Courtney Geduldig, VantageRoad Partners: Shift from time management to energy management. If something depletes you, delete it from your calendar. Surround yourself with people who make your day feel full, not just busy.

Brandi L. Holder, leadership coach: Stop treating recovery as something you earn after pushing hard enough. A vacation cannot undo a year of chronic stress. Build small moments into ordinary days: a 10-minute walk, music, laughter, time outside. Research from Case Western Reserve University shows these are not suggestions. They are measurable tools that help the body move out of the stress response.

And if you lead a team, start there too. Talk openly about what helps you. Not as a confession but as a signal that it is safe for others to do the same. Find the person who seems off today and ask something specific. Not how are you doing. Try asking: what do you need this week?

Niharika Shah puts it simply: wake up and go to bed with a smile. After a hard day it takes real effort. That small act, she says, changes everything.

NAMI’s StigmaFree Workplace Initiative has free tools to help any organization start this work. The first step costs nothing.

Mental Health Awareness Month is over. The people carrying this weight are not. Awareness without action is just noise. I have built enough campaigns to know that. So let us start normalizing these conversations every day, not just in May. Think of one person who always says they are fine. Reach out and ask: what do you need this week?