Learning to ask for help

By: Anna Robinson, Founder & CEO, Ceresa

This is my mental health journey. I have loved ones who have experienced acute, traumatic and even fatal mental illness. I share my story not because it is tragic or extreme in diagnosis, but in the hope of further normalizing mental illness and the importance of seeking help.

Growing up in the UK, mental health was not exactly a hot topic. Quite the opposite. Mental health remained hushed, unspoken and a sign of weakness. Stiff upper lip is no joke.

With many privileges in my early life, I had access to incredible education and job opportunities and took it upon myself to maximize every single one. I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion, over and over again. There is likely much to explore as to why I have pursued so many forms of external validation to the extreme.

Fast forward a couple of decades…but first, let me provide a little context.

I moved to the US aged 26 for grad school for two years, but that quickly became permanent, having met my future husband, a cohort of fabulous friends and exciting professional opportunities. The only real downside was being so far away from my family throughout the years of getting married and starting my own family, with the ups and downs that brings. I also founded Ceresa in 2018 –my fourth baby. At the end of 2019, I was completely exhausted – going through the early days of building a small team, fundraising, trying to grow the company and raise three little kids. I clung to the excitement of a break, rest and time with my parents over the coming winter break. That is what truly got me through those last exhausting and stressful few months of 2019.

So it is now the end of 2019. I find myself in France for this eagerly anticipated vacation with my husband, my children, and my parents – who I had not seen for many months. We arrived from the US a few days early, and we are all so excited – giddily waiting for Granny and Grandpa to arrive – dancing around and watching out the window as the snow gently falls. As their taxi pulls up, Granny and Grandpa get out of the car to walk the few feet to the front door. My Dad slips on black ice, straight on his back. That evening, he rubs his back, takes a hot bath, some painkillers and goes to bed. Not too much to it.

But the next day, my Dad is in extreme pain and exhausted having not slept a wink. I go into classic “Anna problem-solving mode”. As the only French speaker, I take my Dad to the doctor who X-rays his back and upon finding 7 broken ribs, immediately sends him to hospital. He stays for three days. I am the translator. I am the soother. I am the organizer of taxis and spare clothes. I am the care-giver and cheer-leader. We are finally able to collect my Dad on Christmas Day from the bleak French hospital. We hazily attempt to make the most of it. The kids have too many gifts. We all have too many G&Ts at dinner. But my Dad barely sleeps and is in extreme pain, and unable to even go outside, meaning my Mum stays with him, and the whole vacation becomes care-giving and survival versus relaxation and joy…right up until the point of figuring out how to get them on a plane back to the UK when my Dad can barely move, sit down or carry any luggage.

Flying back to the US, I remember not being able to stop tears streaming down my face for the ten hour flight. I muffle sobs and use entire reams of cheap airplane tissues to hide my sadness from my children.

When we arrive back home to Austin, I settle back into work and daily life. Yet I find even the smallest thing irritating. I am scared by how quickly I raise my voice with extreme anger to my unsuspecting small children. Unable to find any moment of joy. Unable to feel hope. Unable to bring myself to go for a gentle run, or go to yoga, or even take a quiet walk – regular things that brought me peace and calm previously.

Something broke during that vacation. Maybe it was coming anyway. Maybe the reversal in care giving roles was an existential trigger.

I had been introduced to a therapist the previous year, who had led an incredible workshop that I attended. In the depth of my sadness, I chose to email him. In our first meeting, he said something like “it is not lost on me how bad you must feel to have decided to reach out, given how you were brought up and how you value your independence and self-reliance”. He was not wrong. Let’s just say the “asking for help” gene was entirely missing in my DNA. ?

Yet, I had a single moment of being brave. A single glimpse of self-awareness to know this profound sadness was different from all others before. I am so grateful for that moment.

January 2020 was when I started working weekly with my therapist, met with a psychiatrist, and started taking anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication.

Choosing to start the medication was another huge hurdle for me to get over. I had deep-rooted yet ill-informed opinions of the “kinds of people” who need medication. Turns out I was one of them.

The medication initially helped me get back to a functioning reality. Where I could interact in a more balanced way. Where I could find moments of happiness. And critically where I could get back to my own tools for regulating my mind and body. Moving. Stretching. Connecting. Meditating. Gratitude. Art.

I continue to meet with my therapist weekly whenever I can, via Zoom. This has become critical for me to process what is happening, how I am feeling, and why that might be. I am so grateful to Tom for his wisdom and for helping me see that vulnerability is human and asking for help is a sign of strength…. Although I suspect he would tell you that is something I am still working on.

It is not lost on me that I started getting help for my own mental health and continued wellness exactly 3 months before Covid hit the US for real. My company was on the precipice of the first of several existential crises, and I was suddenly supporting our small team and our broader community of customers and mentors through this unprecedented global pandemic. I truly believe that because I had invested in my own foundations, I was able to guide my team and company through these challenging times with empathy and optimism.

The entrepreneurial journey is a roller-coaster. I liken it to having children. It is 10 times better and 10 times harder than anyone tells you. The highs are incredible. The lows are profound and unrelenting. With a stable underpinning of mental health, I see a path forward and bring optimism through the lows (after all, one of the CEO jobs is Chief Optimism Officer). I am also able to bring incredible productivity and focus – sometimes described as “hypomania”. My team would tell you that I go through times of insane productivity with superhuman work output. It is only because I have built strong mental health underpinnings and a support team that I can go through this journey without plummeting into exhaustion or depression.

This is my story, and there are many more layers to it – as it goes with humanity. Maybe one day I’ll be able to process more layers in public too. As a quick glimpse…. I wrestle with where, when and how much alcohol to consume, having come from a family and society that celebrates regular heavy drinking. My medication has a common side-effect of weight gain, and some of my demons around body image have reared up their ugly heads… an issue that has ebbed and flowed since I was in my teens. My eight-year-old son is transgender. While he is thriving (thank you to our miraculous community in Telluride), I feel a huge weight surrounding the life-changing choices we will make for and with him in the future – in the face of woefully inadequate research and data.

I hope this story encourages others to seek help and share their own experiences so we can remove the stigma of mental health, one story at a time.

To learn more about Anna and her journey with Ceresa, click here.