A Halifax man whose life fell apart after a sex scandal in January has returned to public life — with his own crisis management company.

Michael Kydd resigned from his jobs as an instructor at Mount Saint Vincent University and as president of Merit Nova Scotia after he admitted to having a sexual relationship with one of his students.

Kydd said it was a consensual relationship and the 38-year-old woman had asked him for an intimate photo. Glen Canning, who campaigned against cyberbullying after his daughter died, tweeted the photo.

The ensuing scandal drove Kydd to consider suicide.

"It was the shame. The embarrassment. The knowledge that someone would exploit a situation where they had no business being involved in in the first place. That was absolutely devastating to me, because this was a private matter, this was a solicited matter — I will tell you that," he said on Wednesday.

It is an absolutely horrific and brutal process to be shamed the way I was shamed. - Michael Kydd

"Anyone who's gone through the public shaming the way I went through it — the way others have gone through it — contemplates [suicide]. At that moment, when it's the darkest, you really believe no one is there to help. The only thing I could think of was my two children and I just could not ever do anything to hurt them."

He credited a friend in his hometown of Hamilton, Ont. with giving him a place to regroup and keeping him safe.

Public shaming

Many friends suggested he pursue a long-dormant dream of opening a communications firm called Chardin.

"I think a lot of people could learn from my example with respect to just being honest, up front, telling the truth and really helping people understand the ranges of emotion a person or persons goes through in a crisis situation," he said.

"I still think about it every day. But at the same time, I'm a new person: redefined, reinvigorated and refreshed."

As for the January incident, Kydd offered no comment on Canning or his former student, other than to say there are two sides to every story.

"In a small community like Halifax where your reputation and name are your currency, to have something like this, I felt that the incident would ruin my career. And it did."

He credits Jon Ronson's book, So You've been Publicly Shamed, with teaching him to recover. "It is an absolutely horrific and brutal process to be shamed in the way I was shamed; it will have a lasting effect on my life," he said.

Kydd said he's asking for a second chance. "I think if we as a community, instead of criticizing all the time, actually embrace people and give them that second chance, I think we'd be a far more happier place to live in," he said.

Kydd wore distinctive glasses throughout the ordeal, and said he recently resumed that look with a vintage pair of 1959 Mexican Faiosa frames. They're the type Buddy Holly wore, and that's no coincidence.

He's been a fan since he was ten.

"He was always told that he'd never make it big, he was always told he was too dorky looking and he wasn't Elvis," Kydd said. "He persevered and knew he had a talent. For me Chardin Consulting — which is an anagram of his real name, Charles Hardin Holley — is that spirit being channeled through me. I'm the same way.

"I've got knocked down, I got kicked, I got spit on, but I'm a good east-end Hamilton boy, and we always get up."