July 20168MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACEBy Dennis C. Miller, President & CEO, Dennis C. Miller AssociatesFounded in 2004, Dennis C. Miller Associates is a consulting firm specializing in Board Governance, Leadership Development, Strategic Planning/Advisement, Board & CEO Coaching services to Non-profit organisations.One of the reasons most of us work hard is to enjoy a better life. If we're lucky, we enjoy our work, too. Unfortunately, too many people invest significant time, energy, and money to earn an education and build a successful career, only to find that they are unable to find the joy in living. The irony might be amusing if the reality wasn't so tragic. Depression is a global epidemic; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 350 million people around the world are suffering from depression, and more than 800,000 people die from suicide each year. In fact, the WHO considers suicide prevention to be a `global imperative', and developed Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020 as a comprehensive response involving research, advocacy and policy initiatives. For me, and for one in four people around the world, mental health is more than statistics. You see, at the age of twenty I checked myself into a psychiatric institution, the culmination of a rocky childhood in a dysfunctional home. I had just barely earned a high school diploma, and there wasn't a four-year college anywhere that would admit me. By the time I reached twenty-four, my abusive father threw me out of the house. I lived at the YMCA and a boarding house with other transients, supporting myself by cleaning bathrooms at a local hotel. With ongoing treatment, I was able to turn my life around. I focused on earning an education, beginning where I could, with an open-admission community college and kept at it until I graduated IN MY OPINIONPhi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University and then with honors from Columbia University master's program. I worked my way through various posts in the healthcare industry and at forty-nine, was appointed President and CEO of a major medical center. The stigma surrounding mental illness com-plicated my career and sometimes my symp-toms. Depression and other mental illnesses are rarely `cured', the way other ailments are. Rather, with professional help and sometimes medication, patients are able to manage their illness over time. As I moved up the manage-ment ladder, though, I felt great pressure to keep my treatment under wraps. Well no more secrets for me. It is time to recognize that depression is not a character flaw. Dennis C. Miller
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