#HumanizeYourComms: Using adverse experiences to improve your PR practice

Many of you reading this are communicators by trade, and it’s likely one-in-five of you have a mental illness like me, too.

The most common mental health conditions, like anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders, do not have a single reason for cozying up in our lives. I have had different triggers over the last decade that I’ve sought professional counseling for: from developing acute anxiety disorder after the death of both of my parents in my early 20s, a car accident, work burnout, to fear that I was developing the same neurological disorder I lost my mother to after falling during a yoga class.

Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Charryse Johnson says the presence of difficult emotional states can provide us with valuable, often life-saving information.

“Emotions compel us to take an introspective look at the true level of functioning in our lives. Ignoring our mental health is an indirect form of self-sabotage, a pattern that turns our wall of protective bias into a fortress,” says Johnson.