What if asking for help is not only difficult, but also unsafe?
Oregon quarterback Dante Moore recently wrote a letter to Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. ESPNit’s early in his college careerhe found himself struggling to keep it all together. At 18 years old, with hopes of leading a major Division I football program, he grew up depressed. At the same time, his mother was undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.
“The pressure and expectations … felt overwhelming,” she wrote. “Watching him endure chemotherapy while I was trying to focus on school and football was challenging me mentally and emotionally. In ways that are hard to put into words.”
What he was navigating wasn’t just pressure. It was a nervous system carrying similar danger signals – on the field, in it personand in his family. Moore said asking for help “as a young black man and an athlete” was like “an uphill battle.” It requires “vulnerability and trust,” he said.
As a quarterback, he felt a tremendous burden to keep what he was going through to himself. “I have to be a leader, stay calm and take responsibility for my team.”
We may feel the same obligations as parents, partners, coaches, therapists, managers, or leaders.
There is a growing number of conversations about athletes speaking out about mental health in sports. But there’s something else in the story that isn’t talked about that much.
As social mammals, we evolved to connect with, care for, connect with, and trust others in good times and bad. Under cultural norms, we naturally tend to ask for help when we struggle – up to a point. Built into our biology is the need to be seen, heard, understood, and ultimately accepted, even in difficult times.
Sharing what we’re going through with a trusted teammate, coach, friend, or support system isn’t just helpful. This is part of how we recover. It is in this way that the nervous system restores a sense of security and connection. This is how we heal.
But not all of us believe that we feel safe. Not all of us believe that it is safe to trust others. As the pressure builds and we go deeper into defensiveness, retreating can also become natural.
Communicating with others, even allowing ourselves to be seen, may require more resources than we have available. During true distress, the nervous system may shift into a metabolically conservative state—reducing pain, conserving energy, and conserving what’s left. So it hinders our ability to get the help we need.
This is not a deliberate decision. It is an adaptive strategy for survival.
So we pull back. And if we reach out for help or someone comes to help, we can become so closed off that we inadvertently cut ourselves off from the people who are trying to help. Our voice, our face, and the signals we send body language he can handle so much separation that it becomes difficult for others to stay engaged. When this happens, we can retreat into isolation.
The more pressure a man like Dante Moore is under, the more flexible he can be to withhold the help he needs. The fact that he was able to reach out suggests access to the physiological level endurance and believe that not all of us are in the most difficult situations in life.
It’s not just a matter of courage or will power. It’s about the internal and relational resources available to the nervous system at that moment. Help may be there, even knocking on our door, but our systems may be so depleted or unreliable that we cannot open the door and let help in.
It helps us understand that awareness and access to mental health services are not enough. We also need to consider the individual’s current situation and capabilities.
There’s another twist to Dante Moore’s story: the real and potentially negative consequences of being honest about mental health struggles in highly competitive, performance-driven cultures like the NFL.
There may be risks to playing time, contracts, reputation, sponsorships. leadership roles and how we are perceived by coaches, teammates or ownership.
So we are left with a paradox.
Things that need to be regulated by the body, including connection, expression and vision, can feel unsafe in an environment where performance defines belonging.
Even as organizations encourage athletes to speak out and mental health resources expand, a deeper question remains: What will happen to me if I do?
Will I lose my competitive advantage? Will I still be trusted as a leader? Will it affect my decisions about my future?
These concerns are not unreasonable. Research shows that athletes are often hesitant to seek help stigma, fear concerns about how being perceived as vulnerable and disclosure might affect their position.
In high-performing cultures where comparisons and evaluations are constant and results really matter, these concerns are grounded in reality.
So we adapt. We withhold, question, and delay seeking help, not because we don’t value mental health, but because we recognize the dangers of being open.
This dynamic does not apply only to professional athletes.
It manifests itself in leadership environments, corporate culture, high-level academic settings, and any hierarchical system where performance determines value.
We tell people to ask for help, to be open, and to bring their full selves. But the environment often means something else under our words.
Delivery. Don’t fall back. And by all means, don’t let your personal struggles get in the way of your work.
And the body listens.
“What made the difference in my life was the support,” Moore wrote. “The support of my friends, the love of my family, and access to the resources I need to get better.”
The conversation around mental health is moving in the right direction.
Athletes like Moore are speaking out and sharing their stories. Organizations are responding and resources are expanding.
But a deeper question remains.
In a competitive culture where performance dictates and yesterday’s performance is not good enough today, can anyone feel safe enough to be trustworthy and honest?
Until we answer this question not only psychologically, but culturally, the paradox remains.
And many continue to bear the burden of mental health in silence.
This brings us back to what this moment is asking of us.
We need to continue these conversations and expand awareness of what goes on in the minds and bodies of our most famous champions and acknowledge their experiences in our own.
Second, even when help is available, accessing that help takes more than courage or willpower. It requires a level of resilience and trust that not all of us can use, especially when our resources run out or trust is broken.
And finally, until we acknowledge the real consequences of expressing our struggles and weaknesses in a competitive, competitive, performance-driven culture, many will continue to carry what they experience in silence.
As Moore noted, “Learning how to take care of my mental health has made me a better leader, teammate, and student. I know what it means to struggle in silence. I also know what it means to be supported and come back stronger. That support saved me.”
