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12th May 2022
11:56am BST

Talking about how desperate he felt he says: “I didn’t want anyone to know how I was feeling at first because I was worried they’d confirm my fears that I was unfit to be a father. I wasn’t crying all the time and I wasn’t suicidal so it went largely unnoticed. "Taking the step to reach out for support takes a lot of psyching yourself up so to be turned down by medical professionals in that way was absolutely brutal for me”. After going private, Jack was put on antidepressants which gave him the mental space to be able to tackle how he was feeling head on: “Antidepressants help stabilise you but counselling is where you make forward progress. You keep talking and end up going somewhere you didn’t know you needed to go - that’s when you discover the things you’ve locked away”. In an effort to help other dads feel less alone, Jack started a parenting podcast called Loose Dads: “It’s essentially a Loose Women style podcast where four of us sit around having frank and honest conversations. We’re currently working with an NHS midwife to get more information out there on male postnatal depression. It’s a phenomenon that isn’t talked about enough”."I wasn’t crying all the time and I wasn’t suicidal so it went largely unnoticed."
The Loose Dads podcast is available to listen to on Spotify, iTunes, and the Dadsnet network.
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