I’ve lost my identity twice. The first time was when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For years, the undiagnosed condition had fuelled my creativity, bold decisions and a kind of kinetic energy that made me indispensable to brands across the country.
I was the guy who’d jump on a plane at a moment’s notice, who saw campaigns in colours others hadn’t imagined yet. It worked – until it didn’t.
Meeting the man who would become my husband shifted everything. I wanted to be present. To live with purpose, not just performance. That’s when the diagnosis came. And with it, the medication.
It stripped me bare.
A leader, a creator
Not just of the highs and lows, but of everything I thought made me a man. A leader. A creator. I couldn’t feel joy or sadness. I couldn’t feel much at all. I remember asking myself, “Is this it?” And for a long time, the answer was yes – you must start over.
Movember asks us, especially men, to acknowledge what society often pressures us to hide: that mental health struggles can dismantle identity, confidence, and the sense of who we think we are supposed to be. My journey was one of many men’s journeys.
It took two years to rebuild emotionally. My husband became my compass, feeding my soul the right words at the right time. And something extraordinary happened: my team stepped in. They reversed the roles. They asked me how I was doing. They held space. They didn’t flinch.
Mental health check-in
That’s when our agency changed forever.
Mental health became part of our daily language. “How are you feeling today?” wasn’t a check-in, it was culture. “What does support look like?” wasn’t a question, it was a commitment. We stopped pretending that leadership meant invincibility. We started leading with humanity.
Then, it happened again.
This year, I lost my husband, my partner, my lighthouse, my best friend. His sudden passing didn’t just shake us, it shattered us. He was also a director at our agency, and his absence was felt in every meeting, every campaign, every heartbeat of our culture.
For me, there were no neat stages of grief. No tidy arc of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. There was only trauma. A rupture so complete it echoed pain throughout my entire sense of what was, what is, and who I am to become.
Silent crises
In Movember, we talk about the silent crises men face – the ones behind closed doors, behind leadership titles, behind expectations that condition us to hold everything alone. This was mine.
I’ve always believed that three threads hold a couple together:
- The past – the memories, the shared language, the inside jokes.
- The next two years – the plans, the holidays booked, the Christmas menus half-written.
- And the future – the vision, the investments, the dreams you build in quiet moments.
I lost the next two years first. I had to call and cancel everything. Every call meant explaining. Every explanation reopened the wound. Reliving agony.
Then the future thread snapped. Everything we had imagined, gone. The purpose, the plans, the promise of what was next. All of it up in the air.
And suddenly, I was a leader who couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. I woke up each morning knowing others relied on me – my team, my clients, my community – but all I could hear was silence. All I could feel was the weight of despair, the shame of not being able to save him, the anxiety of having to put one foot in front of the other.
Needed help
Six months later, I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise the man staring back.
Eventually, I realised I needed help. I turned to Debbie Taylor, a well-known Spiritual, Life and Success Architect whose work I had long admired. When I began seeing Debbie, I had no inkling of what tomorrow held. But I knew one thing: the agency my husband and I had built – our award-winning, human-first consultancy – was still running.
Not as loudly. Not as efficiently. But it was alive.
Because this time, the team was ready. Ready to face trauma at any level. Ready to hold space for leadership. Ready to carry the culture we had built together.
They had lost one director, the glue. And I was not mentally present. But they didn’t falter. They didn’t wait for instructions. They led with heart.
That’s the message of this piece.
Is your business culture ready to face trauma, especially when it happens to leadership?
It isn’t a side issue
Movember is a reminder that men’s mental health isn’t a side issue. It isn’t a once-a-year campaign. It is a lived reality that affects identity, relationships, performance, and entire organisations.
Because readiness doesn’t come from policy. It comes from practice. From conversations that are real, raw, and human. From cultures where “How are you feeling today?” isn’t a nicety, it’s a lifeline.
Human-centric business isn’t a trend. It’s a necessity. It’s what keeps the lights on when the lighthouse goes dark. It’s what allows teams to lead when their leader can’t. It’s what transforms mental health from a risk factor into a resilience strategy.
Mental trauma doesn’t discriminate. And leadership is not immune. In fact, it is often the most vulnerable, carrying the weight of others while quietly crumbling inside.
So build the culture now. Have the conversations now. Equip your team now.
Because when the storm hits – and it will – readiness is everything.
Paul Reynell is vice-president of PRISA and managing director of Paddington Station PR.
