Workplace mental health pushed to the top of the agenda

source: Raconteur
published: 23 July 2018

Increasingly, business leaders are speaking out about how workplace mental health issues, such as anxiety, affect their lives, even when they appear to be successful and at the top of their game, responsible for decisions that affect thousands of people.

Even when his business was doing well and his family life was contented, Adam Shaw struggled with his emotional problems. “I had a lot of anxiety over the business,” he says. “I got very down and my OCD just came crashing down on me.”

To the outside world, Mr Shaw was the highly successful entrepreneur behind a multi-million-pound legal services business employing 1,000 people. But behind the confident façade was a man whose life was dominated by crippling anxiety. His mental illness became so debilitating that he tried to take his own life, but was rescued by police as he prepared to jump from a bridge in Sheffield.

“There was no way out,” he says. “I couldn’t find safety, so I rationalised with myself that it was like a terminal illness and I would be in a better place.”

Read full article >