Letter from the Founder: Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

It was established in 1949 to highlight the importance of mental well-being, reduce stigma, and promote access to care.

We have made great strides in prioritizing mental health, primarily by hearing people speak openly about how therapy, treatment programs, and support systems have helped them. Increased access to care through insurance coverage and the rise of mental health conversations on social media have also contributed to greater awareness and acceptance.

Grief, however, is one area of mental health that is often misunderstood.

Grief is a natural response to loss — death-related or otherwise. We grieve the death of loved ones, but we may also grieve infertility, divorce, estrangement, loss of health, identity changes, financial hardship, or life transitions that alter the future we imagined for ourselves. Grief is not a weakness or a disorder; it is evidence of attachment, love, meaning, and hope.

For most people, grief gradually changes over time. It does not disappear, but people often learn how to carry the loss while slowly re-engaging with life. There is no “correct” timeline for grieving, and healing rarely happens in a straight line.

Recently, conversations around grief have expanded with the inclusion of Prolonged Grief Disorder, a diagnosis added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) in 2022. Prolonged Grief Disorder refers to intense, persistent grief symptoms that continue well beyond what is culturally expected and significantly impair a person’s ability to function in daily life. Symptoms may include profound longing for the deceased, difficulty accepting the death, emotional numbness, identity disruption, isolation, or feeling that life has lost meaning.

The addition of this diagnosis has sparked important conversations in the mental health community. On one hand, the diagnosis may help individuals access treatment, insurance coverage, research, and specialized support for debilitating grief that feels unrelenting. On the other hand, many grief professionals and bereaved individuals worry about pathologizing a deeply human experience. Grief is not something to “fix,” and there is understandable concern about placing timelines or clinical expectations on mourning.

Both perspectives hold value.

Mental Health Awareness Month gives us an opportunity to remember that grief deserves compassionate attention, whether or not it meets criteria for a diagnosis. People who are grieving often do not need reassurance that they should “move on.” More often, they need space to tell the truth about their pain without judgment, comparison, or pressure.

Supporting mental health also means becoming more grief-informed as families, workplaces, schools, and communities. It means recognizing that grief can affect concentration, sleep, relationships, motivation, physical health, and a person’s sense of safety in the world. It means understanding that grief is not limited to funerals and anniversaries — it can emerge in everyday moments, milestones, and unexpected reminders.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, we encourage conversations that make room for the complexity of grief. Healing does not always mean “getting over” a loss. Sometimes healing looks like learning how to integrate loss into a life that continues forward while still honoring what mattered deeply.