'I felt a lot of shame': Radio producer Jack Post reveals he struggled with post-natal depression after his son's birth

Becoming a parent turns your whole world upside down, and while it's the most special time for some couples, for others it's not. 

Radio producer Jack Post, who many would recognise from the Hamish and Andy podcast and The Christian O'Connell Show, admitted he suffered from post-natal depression after the birth of his son Gordon. 

During a chat on The Imperfects Podcast he opened up about the experience and why he felt so much shame around it initially. 

"I absolutely love being his dad, but there was a period of a few months or up to a year that I couldn't say that. After he was born, I had post-natal depression," Post explained. 

Watch the video above.

The conversation started after Post pulled out a card prompting him to talk about a moment of shame. 

"There's a lot I can say about that, and thankfully I can say it with a bit of perspective now that I don't associate this story with shame anymore," he said.

Post explained that Gordon was born healthy and perfect, but he wasn't. 

"The shame of feeling – as the dad – that you are the one that can't cope, when you watch your partner go through so much during pregnancy and labour and being a new mum, that there's so many demands on, I felt a lot of shame," he said. 

"It's something in time I've learned to separate the shame of it from, though, and now I'm comfortable saying that I had postnatal depression and that men can get it." 

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Post admitted things hit their worst point three months after Gordon was born. 

"The thing I heard a lot before becoming a father is this child will be born and you'll hold them in your arms, and you'll feel a love that you never felt in your life," he recalled.

While he was expecting to have this big special moment, it didn't come, and instead it was "unsettling" to see his son who looked so much like him. 

"Something in me was saying, 'This isn't right, there's something not right'. His health was fine. I certainly wasn't feeling broken open with love," he said. 

"I remember saying all the right things, 'I love him, he's so perfect'. But inside I was like, 'Maybe I need to wait for this connection to come because I'm not feeling what I'm meant to be feeling'."

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Post said he tried to bring it up with his wife Bianca, at the time he said he didn't have the same connection to their son that she did, but he knows that was a bit of a cop out.

He wanted to badly to be a great dad, but it wasn't until he reached out for professional help that he got through the post-natal depression.

Post hopes anyone else who's feeling this way feels like that they can talk about it, and find someone they can communicate with.

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