Vikings, C.J. Ham fight stigma on mental health: 'I struggle, too'

C.J. Ham was struck by a dual crisis.

It was May 2020 when pancreatic cancer forced his mother into hospice care for the final 10 days of her life — a painful concession to a devastating diagnosis for a family that had clung to hope through prayer.

Ham, a Pro Bowl fullback for the Minnesota Vikings, felt helpless as 57-year-old Tina withered in a Duluth hospital bed.

But anger complicated Ham's grief; his mother's time in hospice coincided with the police murder of George Floyd. As a Black man, he felt sharp pain over the injustice.

Ham coped by turning to his faith but also took a step he'd never tried before — he sought help from a therapist. It's a story he's started to share publicly, with people of color in mind, as part of a broader push by the Vikings to tackle the stigma that blocks many from seeking mental health care.

"I struggle, too," Ham said. "I have these low days. I have these high days. We're all human and it's OK to ask for help."

There are many documented barriers to seeking mental health treatment, including cost concerns and uncertainty about where to go for help. Fear of discrimination and negative perceptions have long been factors, as well. Stigma can reinforce structural problems with accessing care, like limited psychiatric beds in hospitals and gaps in health insurance coverage.

Slightly less than half of people with mental illness receive care — and treatment rates were even lower among Black and Hispanic/Latino patients, federal survey data from 2021 shows.

But Floyd's murder, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, produced a social trauma that opened a new chapter in patients' willingness to consider and seek mental health care.

Researchers in August published study results showing overall mental health utilization in employer health plans was about 39% higher in August 2022 than before the pandemic. Public conversation has been supported by candid disclosures of struggles from high-profile athletes like NBA player Kevin Love, gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka.

In March 2021, the Vikings launched a website feature called "Getting Open" with testimonials about the importance of mental health and well-being, not just from players like Ham, but also a writer for the team's website and the club's chief operating officer.

Messages from Black athletes have the potential to build trust in racial and ethnic communities where people are understandably wary about the risk of inviting more discrimination by talking about mental health, said Sue Abderholden, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, a mental health advocacy group.

Supportive words from workplace peers and leaders can help change attitudes while promoting treatment, she added, particularly if more employers also speak out for better health plan coverage of mental illness.

"We are hearing more people talk about mental health than ever before," Abderholden, whose group has received financial support from the Vikings, said. "If it's OK to talk about it, then it's OK to get treatment."

Revelation via Zoom

The monthly staff meeting for the Vikings in April 2020 was unusual by every measure.

Like most workplaces, the team had shifted to a work-from-home model because of COVID-19. With the NFL draft approaching, there was significant work to accomplish, yet chief operating officer Andrew Miller knew people were struggling with stress and anxiety.

Most of the team's roughly 250 employees tuned in for the Zoom call. Miller wanted to let them know they should feel comfortable seeking mental health care if needed, so he decided to talk about his own struggles with depression.

There was a difficult period between his junior and senior years in high school, Miller says, when he pulled away from friends and family, believing they didn't want to spend time with him. The isolation worsened his depression, which then interfered with diet, sleep and exercise. The fitness lapse was particularly unusual for Miller, an athlete who later walked-on as a baseball pitcher at the University of California-Berkeley.

Miller's condition improved with the help of a therapist, but depression has returned in bouts during times of personal stress and career setbacks. He copes with healthy routines that include resisting his introverted tendencies and sometimes meeting with a psychologist.

Miller told employees that day they shouldn't hesitate to seek help through therapy and medications.

"Mental health is something that I'm always trying to be aware of, for myself, because it can be a downward spiral very quickly," he said in an interview. In May, Miller shared his story as part of a national campaign encouraging C-suite executives to talk openly about mental health.

Desperate for help

In fall 2020, Lindsey Young was sickened by COVID and remembered Miller's message. She experienced only mild symptoms from the pandemic illness, but it triggered a terrible setback for her mental health.

She struggled for weeks to eat, sleep and get work done for her job with the Vikings Entertainment Network, which handles the team's television, radio and website operations. Panic attacks came with what felt like relentless frequency. At one point, desperate for help, she phoned one of the team's mental health clinicians in tears saying she didn't know what to do.

She was grateful when a family member recommended a therapist, although it took Young about two months to get in for an appointment. Periodic phone calls with the Vikings clinician helped provide a bridge to treatment.

"At that point, I was like: 'I'm going to see this therapist or no one, because I don't have the energy to call around and try to find someone where I can get in quicker,'" Young said in an interview.

Things were improving for Young when she got the idea of writing a story about a former Vikings player who was ready to talk publicly about his anxiety disorder. The article launched a website series that has included about 20 write-ups so far, including stories about Young, Miller and Ham, as well as former team tight end Tyler Conklin and retirees Robert Smith and Bryant McKinnie.

The series has not featured former defensive end Everson Griffen, who announced two years ago he has bipolar disorder.

The Vikings are not alone in spotlighting mental health. This spring, the Minnesota Wild hosted its first-ever Hockey Talks event to build mental health awareness. In baseball, the San Francisco Giants have an anti-stigma campaign. And since 2019, the NFL and its players union have collaborated on an initiative to change the culture around mental health throughout the league.

Gaps by race, ethnicity

That's part of the reason the Vikings, four years ago, hired team clinician Brownell Mack. The psychologist made brief appearances this summer in the Netflix series "Quarterback," which followed three NFL players, including Vikings star Kirk Cousins, during last football season.

Mack used his Getting Open story to focus on mental health challenges for communities of color. Reluctance about seeking care is grounded in history, Mack said, citing the infamous syphilis study at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a research project that let hundreds of Black men go untreated between 1943 and 1972.

While there have been improvements, too many mental health providers weren't trained to provide culturally competent care, Mack said, and the profession continues to suffer from a lack of minority representation.

"There has been incremental progress," he said. "But that disparity between whites and Blacks when it comes to utilizing mental health care and benefiting from it — those have held up consistently. I can safely say, anecdotally, that the stigma is pronounced still among African Americans."

Ham recognized the stigma around mental health while growing up in the Black community. The subject didn't get a lot of attention, he said, but there was a sense that people with problems were "crazy" and therefore treated differently.

After the murder of Floyd, Ham saw comments on social media from friends who seemed indifferent to suffering in the Black community and unwilling to consider why people might be rioting.

"I hit rock bottom," Ham said. "I was at home … sitting on the stairs and I was just thinking about the things that were said. And everything in me just wanted to go and break everything in my house. I was just angry. And when you're angry, you want to — even if it's your own stuff, even if it's your own community — you want to express yourself."

One year later, Ham still wasn't feeling like himself and decided to meet with a therapist. They talked about the enduring trauma of racism in America. And Ham described the continuing sorrow over the loss of his mother, despite all the family's prayers.

The conversations drove home the importance of honesty.

Ham needed to express his frustrations, he said, to be comforted once again by his religious faith. And to be strong for teammates and family he needed to acknowledge the emotional challenges.

"I just put on a mask — and I was trying to be OK when I wasn't," he said. "So, therapy helped me be able to voice that — to be able to say what I was feeling. I wasn't necessarily seeking answers from anybody. I just needed to talk. I just needed to say it out loud."