A DAD of twins has candidly opened up about his battle with postnatal depression, confessing it’s something he thought only women suffered from.
Sean Szeps, from Australia, is dad to twins Stella and Cooper with his husband, Josh.
The blogger co-hosts a podcast called The Baby Bubble for Mamamia, where he and Zoe Marshall talk about all things parenting.
In their latest episode, Sean opened up about his struggles with mental health after welcoming his brood.
He said: “Before becoming a parent to twins, I assumed postnatal depression was a women’s thing.
“After all, what does the father have to worry about? It’s not like anything physical happens to him.
Mamamia/ Youtube
“I realised how misguided this myth was after I found myself trapped in a deep hole, without the ability or desire to look up and see the light.”
He revealed that in Australia it’s common to screen mothers for mental health issues, but says he feels this means fathers are “overlooked”.
Sean continued: “I didn’t know what was normal. Having kids is obviously difficult, so maybe it’s “normal” to cry two or three times a day, for four months straight.
“Not leaving the house for a week is totally fine, right?
“I can’t speak for everyone who gets hit by depression, but for me it was a cloak of heavy metal, constantly dragging me down.
“I wasn’t always sad, but I simply couldn’t imagine being happy again.
“I felt unmoored and alone. I couldn’t conceive of an exit.”
It became a struggle to do simple tasks such as showering or leaving the sofa, and he started picked fights with his husband.
Sean said: “I was, without a hint of exaggeration, in the worst state of my life.”
He added that with so much focus on mothers, sometimes the opportunity to pick up on mental health issues for fathers quickly passes.
Sean said: “Parenting is complicated and stressful at the best of times, and most men justifiably believe that their emotional state should take a back seat to their wives’.
“Then they’re pushed back into work pretty quickly after the birth of their children, and the conversation passes them by.”
He urged people to check in with fathers as well, and recognise they play just as an important role in children’s lives as their mother.
In more baby news, this woman gave birth naturally despite being a virgin as she has a condition which makes her vagina clench shut.
And this mum was blasted for giving her child an unusual name which uses Roman numerals.
We also recently shared one mum’s heartbreaking way she remembers her child who was stillborn.
