“Morning Joe” co-host and Know Your Value founder Mika Brzezinski has spent much her career teaching women the keys to confidence, realizing their potential, communicating effectively and advocating for what they need, whether it’s a higher salary or work flexibility. But even the award-winning journalist struggled with advocating for herself at first.
“In terms of asking for help, or asking for time off, I learned — by almost losing everything — that asking for leave would have been so much less painful for myself and my family,” Brzezinski recounted to her “Morning Mika” co-hosts on Friday.
All of the “Morning Mika” co-hosts responded to recent research from ComPsych that revealed mental-health related leaves of absence in the workplace have surged 300 percent from 2017 to 2023, especially among women. The mental health service provider found that these types of absences rose 33 percent in 2023 alone, with women accounting for the majority of that number due to factors like increased anxiety, relationship stresses and depression.
“Women tend to white-knuckle our personal problems,” Brzezinski said. “I think we’re worried about being judged, presenting anything less than a perfect 10 … and I promise you, men don’t think that way.”
But the ComPsych research suggested a shift from the traditional burnout culture, where more women are asking for — and receiving — time away from the workplace to address their mental health needs. “I would argue we need across-the-board mental health leave and also maternity and paternity leave across the board,” Brzezinski added.
She cited gymnast Simone Biles as a leading figure who took a mental health leave after stepping away from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Since then, Biles has come back on top, winning a record ninth all-around title at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, this month and securing an automatic place in the U.S. Olympic trials ahead of the Paris Games.
“You don’t need to be a star athlete to step off the work-life balance beam,” Brzezinski said. “You can take time off, and then yes, you can come back bigger and better.”
From running, to walking, to crying
Brzezinski shared her own struggle to ask for a mental health leave at a critical point earlier in her career. “Turn back the clock about 10 years,” Brzezinski recounted. “I’m hosting ‘Morning Joe’ — early and long hours — my parents are both having a lot of age-related illnesses, two teenagers presenting their own set of challenges, and a divorce was in my future. And the only thing that I did every day for a sense of normalcy was run.”
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Eventually, Brzezinski realized her daily running routine had turned into walking — and then crying. “During that time where I was just really, really worn down, exhausted, having trouble sleeping and dealing with multiple dynamics going on in my life … I just couldn’t run, my legs couldn’t do it,” she said. “So I was walking the streets of Bronxville, New York, crying every day.”
Then, a perfect stranger approached her on the street and intervened. “This guy drives up to me, pulls up, pulls down his window and he goes, ‘Hi! My name is Peter, and I’m a therapist. I’ve been seeing you every day crying and you need to know that it is not OK to cry that much and not deal with it — you should get some help,” Brzezinski said. “It was one of those moments where you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m wearing this on the outside.’ I had been an imposter on the show, an imposter in front of my kids, an imposter trying to deal with the disappointment I felt I was giving everybody.”
Brzezinski did seek mental health support after that encounter, in addition to sleep medication and embracing mindfulness. “I talked a little bit to my boss at the time about needing a break here and there and slowly but surely, got the help I needed to pull myself back together and be strong for the challenges ahead,” she added. “But I think I should have taken time off long before that moment.”
A tooth and a boot
Former White House press secretary and “Morning Mika” co-host Jen Psaki recounted her own mental health epiphany when she was serving as spokesperson for the State Department.
“I was on a trip with Secretary [John] Kerry, when he was secretary of state, where I had run so much … that I had fractured bones in my foot,” Psaki recalled. “It took a friend of mine saying, you need an X-ray, and you also need a boot on your foot. So, I’m on this trip, it’s in war zones … I have the boot on my foot and my tooth fell out because I had a temporary crown in my tooth that I had not taken care of.”
Psaki continued: “I was in a war zone somewhere or a conflict zone, I had a tooth in a baggie and my foot was in a boot and I was thinking, ‘What am I doing?’”
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She admitted her fear of missing out prevented her from taking better care of herself mentally and physically. “I didn’t leave the trip, I just kept plowing through it and it’s taken me years to look back at that story and recognize that’s not helping anyone,” Psaki said. “It would have been better for everybody on the trip if someone else had been on the trip, who could be present.”
‘I can’t run this meeting’
For longtime Hillary Clinton aide and MSNBC contributor Huma Abedin, she too endeavored to plow through every challenge while working in the White House, until one day she needed a pause.
“For me the big moment was when I had my son,” Abedin recounted. “I remember coming back to Washington with my infant baby because there was this big, big strategic meeting which I normally would have run.”
Abedin painstakingly pumped breastmilk at her hotel beforehand and showed up to the White House with her baby the next day to introduce him to First Lady Michelle Obama and participate in the State dept. meeting. “I was so excited, I was just worried that he might vomit on [the first lady],” Abedin recalled. “In all of this, I didn’t realize that I had left my milk at the hotel.”
When she called the hotel, they had thrown out Abedin’s breastmilk, which was all her infant was eating at the time. “I remember going into [Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff] Cheryl Mills’ office and I was shaking in my boots saying, ‘I can’t run this meeting, I don’t even know what to do,’” Abedin said. “The only way I can make it through this meeting is to feed my child.” And that’s exactly what she did. “Sure enough here I was with [National security adviser] Jake Sullivan … and a bunch of men and Hillary and I nursed my baby,” she said. “In the end, it was fine.” For former chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris, Symone Sanders-Townsend, who now hosts MSNBC’s “The Weekend” in addition to co-hosting “Morning Mika,” her mental health breaking point occurred when her father passed away. “My dad died in 2017 unexpectedly, he had a stroke at the gym of all places and then two weeks later he was gone,” she recalled. “I did not take time off, I went right back to work for all of the reasons that we all pushed ourselves — I don’t want anybody to think I can’t handle it, I’m fine — and I was pushing myself very hard for months.” Sanders-Townsend admitted she didn’t realize it at the time but she was suffering from depression and didn’t want to be alone or give in to grief. Then one day, she got a call from a friend while she was at the airport. “I answer the phone and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ and she said, ‘Girl, I heard your daddy died, are you OK?’” Sanders-Townsend recalled. “I just break down crying at the airport and the lady next to me goes down three seats over.” That friend urged her to see a therapist and get help, as did a mentor of hers shortly thereafter. Sanders-Townsend eventually found a therapist. “That’s when I found out that I was depressed and I had been depressed for about a year,” she said. “I was fighting, making the decision every day to get up out of the bed and every day was a struggle.” She remembered feeling the same way during a portion of her time at the White House, where she worked through the Covid-19 pandemic. “When I decided to leave the White House, it was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make because I loved my job, I loved the people that I worked with, I loved the president and the vice president … but I looked up that summer and needed to make a decision if I was going to go into my wedding like this, or if I needed to take a step back for my mental health.” When she spoke to Vice President Kamala Harris about her decision to step back from the office, it was met with support. “She completely understood what I was saying about my mental health, about being tired, about enjoying planning my wedding, enjoying going into my marriage,” Sanders-Townsend said. “I just remember powering through when my father died, and my breakdown and depression, and I never wanted to go back to that place again.” Through their lived experiences, each of co-host confirmed the critical lesson that women must be their own self-advocates to ensure lasting success: ask for what you need, build relationships and work for the long-haul.
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