By Casey Neill
David Corduff fought through two severe bouts of depression.
The beyondblue ambassador told the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce awards breakfast on Friday 23 March that he now walks side by side with the illness.
He manages it, rather than trying to get rid of it.
Mr Corduff urged the Punthill Apartment Hotel Dandenong guests to check on colleagues who they notice aren’t themselves.
“Ask the question. It could save their life,” he said.
His mother suffered post-natal depression and anxiety. It wasn’t until 1984 that he realised he’d inherited the mental illnesses.
Mr Corduff had a wife and three young kids to support when he was made redundant.
He secured a new job but found he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t himself.
His wife sent him to a GP who diagnosed him with depression and referred him to a psychiatrist.
Medication and therapy got him back on track but years later, helping an employee who was struggling similarly sent him on another downward spiral.
Mr Corduff’s boss told him to “manage him out of the business” and dubbed the employee a liability.
He was dismissed when he refused.
He landed a new job easily but depression had claimed his confidence and concentration. He was asked to resign.
“What I hadn’t told him at any stage was why I wasn’t functioning,” he said.
“One of the things I’d never done was share how I was feeling.”
Mr Corduff co-founded Gateways, a men’s group for retrenched middle-aged executives susceptible to depression, and mentored white collar criminals on their release from prison.
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