Why Zak Adkins Wants Mental Health to Be Part of the Work Conversation

Balancing career ambitions with mental health challenges is anything but easy, with Zak Adkins, senior account manager at DCPR, telling LBB his own experience of trying to build a career while dealing with severe bipolar disorder “has been really difficult.”

“The hardest part has been watching my peers and friends go through their lives and get great jobs and get promoted, and have all these beautiful things happen to them. For me, it was hard to watch that when I was having so many setbacks, every few months I'd have an up or a down. It wasn’t that I couldn't hold a job, but it was just that I was just so mentally unwell I really needed that extra support. 

“Geez, it is a challenge. A lot of people struggle with it, it's a huge problem. So that's what I'm trying to change a bit here at Dentsu and in general at every place I work, I try to make a bit of difference.”

That extra support can look different for everyone, but ultimately, Zak said it starts with understanding.

“It's a tricky one, because sometimes people have this fear that if they talk about their mental health, they will be judged or treated differently. It's more just about understanding a little bit about the background of the person, not that they have to go into super huge detail, but then they can tailor workloads appropriately. You can know ‘okay, well, this person gets stressed a fair bit’, or ‘this person is a bit down in the dumps. What can we do to help with workload in that way?’

“As a senior account manager, I manage a couple of people, and I try to do that. I try to think of how this person is going to face this work, and how I can best help them to do that.”

Getting his story out there came through the publishing of a book, ‘A Ballad from a Bruised Brain’. A year on from its launch, Zak said the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I had the launch for the book in April last year. It was a small launch, but it was a lot of my family and friends, and it was a really awesome experience just to get it out there into the world, at least on a small scale. But it was still a big thing for me, that's an important thing.”

Since then, life has been full of change for Zak, with a “pretty hectic” year seeing him transition from automotive journalism into PR.

“That's been a big, big change in my life. But I've always loved writing, I've always loved crafting words. That's been the passion since the get-go. But since launching the book, I've had such a great response from people at work as well as in the general community and my social network.”

That response, particularly within Dentsu, has been overwhelmingly positive, and began for Zak with a single LinkedIn post.

“I had CEO Kirsty [Muddle] come up and talk to me, and everyone was coming up and saying, ‘this is amazing, what you've done’. I've never had that reaction before, not even from my family or friends.”

Putting such a personal and vulnerable story into the world, Zak said came with few outward challenges, though some topics remain difficult.

“On the surface people are very good about it, it's just that I think people just aren't talking about it enough. It's a chapter in my life that feels like another life, it just feels different – but in terms of challenges, no, generally, people are really, really positive about it. They don't talk about the tough bits in the book too much, but I get that it's hard to talk about your mental health, and it's hard to talk about, in this case, severe bipolar disorder, which has been extremely tough on my life, my relationships, my family. All of that was impacted by this really significant disorder.

“But generally, people are very supportive. It's just whether or not they want to talk about the harder topics like going to hospital. I was restrained in hospital which was really difficult, and there were some really challenging parts that I think we've still got a lot to learn from about how we can talk about that in an open forum in a comfortable way.”

Looking ahead, Zak hopes his story will spark more conversations about workplace mental health, regardless of where people work or their individual experiences.

“In terms of the book, I'm really excited that it's had such a great reaction, and I think that it can go far and wide. I hope that if people read about my story, they might want to reach out and have a chat with me about mental health in the workplace, and what we can be doing to try and make it a better place.

“Mental health is in the news a lot at the moment, so I think the more work we do, even if it's a small amount of work, can make a huge difference for mental health in general.”