PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:00

We ultimately ended up having my son at home, which was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:03

incredibly stressful because ambulance services do not send out an ambulance

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:07

until the baby is actually crowning.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:10

I overheard the operator on the phone while I was on the phone

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:14

telling a colleague of his, "We're not gonna send out the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:16

ambulance, the baby's not here yet!"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:17

And so I was at home having to deal with my partner and had no

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:21

understanding of what was happening.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:24

Absolutely nothing made sense at that point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:26

After my son was born, they wrapped him up and the paramedics gave them

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:29

to me and they were like, "Well done.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:31

Congratulations!"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:32

And I was just thinking "Why?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:33

What am I being congratulated for?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:37

And I remember my mum was there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:38

She wanted to take a photo of me, the first photo of me and my son.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:41

I was like, I don't want to take this photo.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:42

I'm not happy at this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:44

It's such a strange photo to look at because I know what I'm

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:46

feeling inside, which is I don't want to be here right now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:49

I, I don't want to experience this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:51

I don't want to feel this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:52

And I'm almost kind of in my head going, "Why am I not feeling something else?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:00:56

Where is the love, where is the joy that I'm meant to be feeling, everyone's told

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:01:00

me I'm going to experience at this point?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:01:02

And outwardly I'm doing all the things you'd expect me to do.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:01:05

I'm, I'm pretending I'm, I'm happy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:01:06

"Yes, I'm feeling really joyful and thank you for congratulating me."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:01:10

Inside I'm like a shell, almost like there's nothing there.

VIKKI: 00:01:14

Having a baby is meant to be the most joyful time of your life.

VIKKI: 00:01:19

But for many mums and dads, it can be the hardest and at

VIKKI: 00:01:23

times the darkest of places.

VIKKI: 00:01:26

Welcome to Season 2 of Blue MumDays, the podcast for anyone

VIKKI: 00:01:31

struggling with parenting.

VIKKI: 00:01:33

All the stories shared here are from the heart.

VIKKI: 00:01:37

These are real conversations and may be triggering, so

VIKKI: 00:01:40

please listen with discretion.

VIKKI: 00:01:43

Today's episode covers feelings of suicide.

VIKKI: 00:01:47

We will also signpost you to help in the show notes.

VIKKI: 00:01:51

Thank you.

VIKKI: 00:01:53

This episode was recorded during the spring of 2022.

VIKKI: 00:01:59

Today's guest is Professor Viren Swami, ranked in the top 2% of the

VIKKI: 00:02:03

most cited scientists in the world.

VIKKI: 00:02:06

Viren is the author of over 300 academic papers and three books,

VIKKI: 00:02:10

including Attraction Explained.

VIKKI: 00:02:13

Viren is Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University,

VIKKI: 00:02:17

where he is co-director of the Center for Groups and Societies.

VIKKI: 00:02:22

He is also a adjunct professor at Perdani University, where he is Director of

VIKKI: 00:02:27

the Center for Psychological Medicine.

VIKKI: 00:02:29

Viren's research is focused on the promotion of positive body image

VIKKI: 00:02:33

in diverse cultural groups, as well as mental health literacy or

VIKKI: 00:02:37

understandings of mental ill health, including paternal postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:02:43

The latter is informed by his own experience of postnatal depression,

VIKKI: 00:02:46

which he's also written about.

VIKKI: 00:02:49

Thank you so much for joining us today, Viren - really

VIKKI: 00:02:51

pleased to have you with us.

VIKKI: 00:02:53

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: Thank you for having me.

VIKKI: 00:02:54

First of all, if we could start out and get a sense of you before

VIKKI: 00:02:58

you had your son, you know, what you were like as a person and what you

VIKKI: 00:03:02

were doing in terms of your work?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:05

Wow, that is a huge question.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:08

What was I like?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:08

I don't know.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:09

I, I, I was generally happy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:11

My partner and I had got married, I think a year before our son was born, maybe a

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:17

year and a half before our son was born.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:19

Um, I just got my, my professorship at, at Anglo Ruskin University.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:24

So life was generally quite good.

VIKKI: 00:03:27

And how did you view sort of becoming a parent?

VIKKI: 00:03:30

Were you excited?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:33

I don't know.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:34

I, I think looking back, I think it's easy to go, you know, I was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:38

fully into the, into the decision to get, to get, to have a child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:43

It was really abstract.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:44

It wasn't something concrete.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:46

To me, it was like this notion that you can have a child and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:48

yeah, that's what families do.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:50

They have children.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:51

It wasn't ever really a.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:54

Decision to me, even after my partner was, was pregnant.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:57

I don't think I really ever felt like this is real.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:03:59

This is something that's going to happen.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:00

You're going to have to care for a human being.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:02

I don't think I understood that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:04

The kind of realities of that.

VIKKI: 00:04:06

It's amazing, isn't it?

VIKKI: 00:04:08

even when you are carrying the child within yourself and you know, this is

VIKKI: 00:04:11

the experience that I certainly felt and so many people I've spoken to,

VIKKI: 00:04:14

that it does feel a really nebulous until you actually have your baby.

VIKKI: 00:04:21

You know, you know in your head what it's like.

VIKKI: 00:04:25

And I think for parents, especially during the pandemic where the fathers

VIKKI: 00:04:31

or birthing partners or co-partners couldn't actually go into see scans or

VIKKI: 00:04:37

be part of that process, it makes it even less of a reality if you, you get me?

VIKKI: 00:04:44

And were you doing your work within the field of mental

VIKKI: 00:04:48

health before you had your son?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:50

Yeah, so I, I'd done quite a bit of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:52

work on mental health literacy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:53

So mental health literacy is basically the idea of how, how non-scientists

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:04:57

understand something like mental health.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:00

What do they think it is, how does it happen?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:02

Something like how does depression happen and what are their explanations for it?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:05

So I've done quite a bit of work on mental health literacy focused,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:09

um, a lot on men's understandings of depression, for example.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:13

Not my main area of research, but I'd done enough work.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:15

I'd never done work on postnatal depression before my son was born.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:19

And in fact, if, I mean, honestly, I don't think it even, it wasn't my radar, I don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:23

think I'd any conception of it existing in men, um, prior to my son being born.

VIKKI: 00:05:29

What, what sort of instilled this interest in that area for you?

VIKKI: 00:05:33

Was it lived experience or was it the brain that fascinated you?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:39

I I, so a lot of my research is focused on mental

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:41

health in general, but a lot of the kind of work that scientists do is

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:45

often focused on understanding the scientific causes of mental illness.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:49

And we often don't think about how non-scientists understand something

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:52

like depression, because if you're understanding of, of mental ill

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:56

health is completely different to a scientist and it will also affect your

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:05:59

help seeking behaviors, for example.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:02

And one of the things we know, for example, in my own research, the kind

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:05

of early work that I did was focus on gendered behaviors and masculinities

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:08

and how masculinities might impact something like help seeking behavior.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:11

And what we know is that men often put off seeking help because of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:15

constructions of, of what it means to be a masculine individual.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:19

Um, asking for help doesn't fit with our conceptions of what it

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:22

is, what it means to be masculine.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:24

Um, so my, my kind of interest in, in mental health literacy derived

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:29

from this kind of gender binary of, of help seeking basically that men.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:33

Often put off help seeking.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:34

They often have difficulty articulating mental illness and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:38

mental ill health because they don't have the tools to communicate.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:06:42

Something as simple as saying, I'm struggling.

VIKKI: 00:06:45

It's funny because a lot of men find it difficult speaking, you know,

VIKKI: 00:06:49

going forward to their GP about physical health, and so yeah, I can totally

VIKKI: 00:06:54

understand why talking to somebody about.

VIKKI: 00:06:57

Mental health is even tougher.

VIKKI: 00:07:00

And I was gonna say, if there are any fathers listening to this podcast

VIKKI: 00:07:05

right now please keep listening because obviously, speaking to Viren and his

VIKKI: 00:07:10

own experiences, incredibly relevant.

VIKKI: 00:07:13

But I would also highlight the episodes with Mark Williams and Elliot

VIKKI: 00:07:17

Ray and also my interview with Dr.

VIKKI: 00:07:19

Andrew Mayers because all of those episodes deal with the experience that,

VIKKI: 00:07:25

that men have with postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:07:27

And it's a complete myth that men don't or are, aren't affected by postnatal

VIKKI: 00:07:34

depression or the perinatal period.

VIKKI: 00:07:36

Because actually, uh, I think the, the latest statistic is one in 10...

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:07:41

it varies a lot depending on, on how you, you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:07:44

measure something like postnatal depression, depends on the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:07:46

timeframe that you're talking about.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:07:48

But yeah, generally between eight and 12% of first time fathers will experience.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:07:52

Debilitating, um, depression, anxiety, um, often extreme stress as well.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:00

Um, and often they're not singular experiences.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:02

We often talk about postnatal depression, but postnatal depression

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:05

as well from co-morbid with anxiety and high levels of stress.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:09

Um, so there's, I suppose they're kind, kind of broader idea is that we don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:15

think about postnatal depression as affecting men because it's often a term

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:19

that we use almost exclusively for Mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:21

And I often think, you know, if we just said a dad was depressed and we don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:25

use the term postnatal depression, we would almost instinctively say

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:28

that Dad should get some help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:29

They should seek professional help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:31

But as soon as you apply the term postnatal depression,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:34

people get upset about this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:35

They think we are trying to steal.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:38

Kinda limited funding that's available for, for Mums

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:41

postnatal care, which we're not.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:43

Or they think it's something where men have already had privilege historically

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:47

and they want even more privilege now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:49

And it's not the case.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:50

I think always simply saying that these, if these issues affect men, and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:54

if to the extent they do affect men, we should be seeking help for men.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:08:57

We should be offering, offering them the care that they need to ensure the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:01

best possible chance for the entire family, family unit to flourish.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:05

And it's like saying if someone's in your family is struggling, you don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:07

want to help them because of a term, cause of, of a semantic use of a, of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:11

language is, is to me, seems really not just offensive but also quite ridiculous.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:16

Um, if you flip from that to saying a person was depressed following the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:20

birth of a child, the instinct would be we should get that person some help.

VIKKI: 00:09:25

Yeah.

VIKKI: 00:09:26

Yeah.

VIKKI: 00:09:26

And the hard reality is that there should be greater funding for everybody, and

VIKKI: 00:09:32

early intervention is so important, not just for the parents' wellbeing,

VIKKI: 00:09:37

but the wellbeing of the entire family.

VIKKI: 00:09:40

And that includes the child.

VIKKI: 00:09:42

So are you happy to talk about the circumstances leading up to

VIKKI: 00:09:45

the birth and, and the birth?

VIKKI: 00:09:47

Was it an easy pregnancy?

VIKKI: 00:09:49

Did everything go to plan?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:50

It was easy-ish.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:52

I think I'd become quite estranged for my partner quite early on in the pregnancy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:09:57

I think partly it was, didn't seem real to me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:00

It didn't seem like I was, it wasn't affecting me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:05

It was, I was excluded from the experience and that was quite difficult.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:08

And I didn't really understand it at the time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:10

I don't think I had a conscious awareness of me thinking, Oh, I'm not

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:13

part of this process, therefore I'm going to exclude myself here, or kind

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:17

of strange myself for my partner.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:19

But I think over time what did happen was that I felt increasingly,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:22

like I was not part of the process.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:25

Um, but her pregnancy itself, Was relatively straightforward.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:30

Um, the, the one complication is the right word, the one spanner in the works.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:37

We planned to go to hospital.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:38

Um, but um, we ultimately ended up having my son at home, um, which was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:44

incredibly stressful because for the, i, I dunno if you know this, but ambulance

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:49

services do not send out an ambulance until the baby is actually crowning.

VIKKI: 00:10:54

Oh my gosh.

VIKKI: 00:10:55

Really?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:56

I overheard the, the operator on the phone while I was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:10:59

on the phone telling some, a colleague of his, We're not gonna send out the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:02

ambulance, the baby's not here yet.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:04

And so I was at home having to deal with my partner and had no

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:08

understanding of what was happening.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:11

Absolutely nothing made sense at that point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:14

Um, but yeah.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:15

Anyway, obviously eventually the ambulance services did arrive.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:18

There were three, three ambulances parked outside our house, but.

VIKKI: 00:11:21

Wow.

VIKKI: 00:11:21

It's like buses!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:23

Yeah, But they were brilliant.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:25

They were loved it, and they, they dealt with everything.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:27

I remember they, they just came in and they said, Why don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:29

you put the, put the kettle on?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:30

And I thought, You're not taking this seriously enough.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:33

My baby's almost here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:35

Um, yeah, they were brilliant.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:36

I, I

VIKKI: 00:11:38

have been quite frightening.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:39

I, I don't think I had a concept of it, of it,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:42

of kind of understanding my, how, how much fear I was in at the time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:45

My, my, my wife did later say, you know, you were shouting at

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:47

the operator down the phone.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:49

And I was so apologetic.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:50

I was telling the, the ambulance screwed.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:53

Like, I wanna call up the operator just to apologize.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:55

I didn't mean to shout.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:56

And, um, but I, it was stressful.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:11:59

But I, I think that the thing for me was, once everything had settled down, I, it

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:03

was relief rather than anything else.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:04

I felt just like that's over with.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:08

And obviously they can't, because it was meant to be a hospital birth.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:11

They take you to hospital.

VIKKI: 00:12:13

right.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:13

Obviously we went to hospital eventually and there were

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:16

complications with my wife at that point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:18

Um, and so kind of initially at least a lot of the kind of skin to skin

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:22

contact was with me, um, which was strange cuz I don't think I actually

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:27

felt at the time like, like this, you know, everyone kind of says to you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:31

when you, when you hold your child for the first time, you're gonna feel

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:33

this wonderful moment of relation.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:36

And I never felt that, I never had that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:12:38

It was always kind of, if anything, numbness, it just kind of,

VIKKI: 00:12:42

Mm.

VIKKI: 00:12:43

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: I dunno what to do now.

VIKKI: 00:12:47

So many people I've spoken to for this podcast have said exactly

VIKKI: 00:12:51

the same to me, and I, I didn't feel, you know, that wonderful endorphin

VIKKI: 00:12:56

rush that you're promised to get.

VIKKI: 00:12:58

And I wonder how.

VIKKI: 00:13:01

frequent that actually is, and, and whether the norm is that you do get that.

VIKKI: 00:13:06

And it's, you know, gosh, it must be the most wonderful thing in the world for

VIKKI: 00:13:09

those that are lucky enough to get that.

VIKKI: 00:13:12

But for those of us, it's, it, you wonder if there were more realistic expectations

VIKKI: 00:13:20

and, and the narrative was slightly different and more realistic, whether, as

VIKKI: 00:13:27

many of us would struggle with, becoming a parent because I, I know I felt guilt

VIKKI: 00:13:32

when I didn't get that 'ah', moment.

VIKKI: 00:13:35

Yeah, I, I just felt numb.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:37

I, I felt guilt a lot later on.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:39

It was, why am I not feeling that?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:41

It's that question that always bugged me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:44

I remember as soon after my son was born, they wrapped him up and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:47

the paramedics gave them to me and they were like, Well done.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:50

Congratulations.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:51

And I was just thinking, I, I, Why?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:53

What am I being congratulated for?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:56

And I remember my, my mum was there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:13:57

She wanted to take a photo of me, the first photo of me and my son.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:00

I was like, I don't want to take this photo.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:02

I'm not happy at this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:03

I don't know what you want to take a photo of.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:06

And I have the photo, I've looked at it since, and I'm smiling

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:09

and you'd think this is parents really happy at this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:13

It's such a strange photo to look at because I know what I'm

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:16

feeling inside, which is I don't, I don't want to be here right now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:19

I, I don't want to experience this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:21

I don't want to feel this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:23

Um, and I'm almost kind of in my head going, Why am I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:25

not feeling something else?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:27

Where is the love, where is the joy that I'm meant to be feeling, everyone's told

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:31

me I'm going to experience at this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:33

And outwardly I'm doing all the things you'd expect me to do.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:35

I'm, I'm pretending I'm, I'm happy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:37

Yes, I'm, I'm feeling really joyful and thank you for congratulating me inside.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:42

I'm like a shell almost like there's nothing there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:45

Um, like I said, I felt relief because obviously my son was, um,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:49

the cord was wrapped around his neck when he came out and everything.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:51

And I felt relief obviously, that he was safe and he was, um, He was healthy,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:14:58

I don't think I felt anything else.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:01

I mean, obviously then we got taken to hospital and we, we stayed

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:04

there overnight and it was fine.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:06

But no one tells you this is a human child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:10

This is a human being.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:11

Obviously you are meant to know this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:13

You're meant to know your partner and you've given birth to a child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:17

There is a human being involved here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:19

But then you get packed off and you get sent home and no one comes with you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:22

No one comes to help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:23

No one tells you what to do.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:25

And everything you've been told about what it's going to be

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:27

like is completely abstract.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:30

Oh, you change the diaper in this way, or they might not

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:32

sleep at night and you feed them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:34

Yes.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:35

But once you have the baby, it's an actual, real experience and suddenly

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:40

it's not, It's not funny anymore.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:41

Suddenly it's not abstract anymore.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:44

And I remember coming home with our son and going, I, what do I do?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:48

What do we, I meant the, those first few nights, and he was a horrible sleeper.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:54

He'll probably watch this one day and think, Oh God,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:56

he's, he'll, he'll know this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:15:58

Even now, he's a horrible sleeper.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:00

He still doesn't sleep through the night.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:03

Um,

VIKKI: 00:16:03

How old is he now?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:05

he's four

VIKKI: 00:16:06

Oh god.

VIKKI: 00:16:07

That's tough.

VIKKI: 00:16:07

That is so tough for you guys.

VIKKI: 00:16:10

That's

VIKKI: 00:16:11

torture.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:12

yeah, I, I quite, we've got a routine with him now, but

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:15

yeah, he, he's not a great sleeper.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:17

Um, but those first few nights he just wouldn't sleep.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:20

And the combination of everything, him not sleeping, not knowing what to

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:24

do, learning how to make a bottle for the first time, making sure it's warm

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:28

at two o'clock in the morning, all of that suddenly becomes really different

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:33

to what you thought it would be like.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:36

It wasn't a joyful, wonderful, lovely experience.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:39

It was a horrendous, horrible experience.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:42

And it's awful to say that, but that's the reality of it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:45

What, what it was like for me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:46

I remember sitting up at two o'clock in the morning just

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:49

thinking, Why is he not sleeping?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:51

What do I have to do to get him to sleep?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:52

And he's refusing to sleep at two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:56

and often there would be nights I'd just stay up with him holding him,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:16:59

not doing anything, just sitting on the couch with him hoping he falls

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:02

asleep, uh, walking around the bedrooms, hoping he'll fall asleep continuously.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:08

No one tells you that's going to happen.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:11

No one tells you it's going to be that tough.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:12

No one talks about that kind of stuff.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:14

And if someone had said to me like before he was born, it might be really, really

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:18

difficult, you should prepare for that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:20

I might have done things different.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:17:22

I don't know.

VIKKI: 00:17:23

I think that lack of sleep, I mean it is absolute mental torture.

VIKKI: 00:17:28

My background is working at the BBC I was used to directing shoots and

VIKKI: 00:17:32

getting up early or working late into the night or pulling an all nighter.

VIKKI: 00:17:38

So I was thinking, " I've got up at three o'clock in the morning to

VIKKI: 00:17:41

go to a set, I can handle this!"

VIKKI: 00:17:43

No, nothing prepares you for that.

VIKKI: 00:17:46

It is absolute torture.

VIKKI: 00:17:49

And as well the crushing responsibility as you say, that suddenly you are

VIKKI: 00:17:55

responsible for a human life and you don't get anything as responsible as that.

VIKKI: 00:18:01

And that's what I really struggled with, especially in the early days I

VIKKI: 00:18:06

don't know if, if you and your wife had this, but I had that sense that he

VIKKI: 00:18:11

was gonna immediately stop breathing.

VIKKI: 00:18:13

So I was constantly checking on him to make sure he was still alive.

VIKKI: 00:18:18

And one, one thing that they don't tell you about, and I don't know if you had

VIKKI: 00:18:22

this with your son, the first couple of nights we had him, he would do these

VIKKI: 00:18:27

crazy jumps where he would sort of put all his limbs out and he'd be asleep,

VIKKI: 00:18:31

but he would be doing these jumps.

VIKKI: 00:18:33

And I subsequently found out that it's because when the baby's in the womb,

VIKKI: 00:18:38

they're used to have being enclosed.

VIKKI: 00:18:40

And that actually, it's quite scary for them not being, uh, enclosed anymore.

VIKKI: 00:18:46

And that's, I guess, the argument for, for swaddling them,

VIKKI: 00:18:49

why that gives them comfort.

VIKKI: 00:18:51

But it was the most alarming thing as a new parent because you just

VIKKI: 00:18:54

think, "My God, what's going on?

VIKKI: 00:18:55

Is he having a seizure?"

VIKKI: 00:18:57

And nobody tells you.

VIKKI: 00:19:01

I mean, you know, I've done NCT, like how to, physically put a nappy

VIKKI: 00:19:05

on until you have a Wriggling human

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:07

Yeah,

VIKKI: 00:19:08

it's so hard.

VIKKI: 00:19:09

And I remember my first night in hospital or like the next morning

VIKKI: 00:19:13

and being told to wash Stanley and put him in fresh clothing.

VIKKI: 00:19:18

And it's like, "but how?!"

VIKKI: 00:19:21

How you've got this thing and you've got to negotiate it over their head and

VIKKI: 00:19:24

you're scared you're going to damage them, it's, yeah it's really alarming.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:29

yeah.

VIKKI: 00:19:30

And how about your wife's experience?

VIKKI: 00:19:33

It was traumatic birth for her well.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:35

It was a traumatic birth for her.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:36

I, I think she had the experience of " I'm immediately in love with my child."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:41

The difficulty for her was I think obviously she had to cope with all

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:44

of that, kind of the lack of sleep and learning everything afresh.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:48

And I think over the first few weeks what she also ended up

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:53

having to do was to start worrying about me and why I was struggling.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:58

And I think it was a dual thing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:19:59

I think it was partly "why is Viren struggling?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:01

And "is he struggling with our child or when he's having to look after our child?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:05

We essentially kind of had this kinda shift system where I would

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:07

do some of the kind of night shifts and then she would take over.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:10

And I think for her there was a concern about "is Viren okay?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:14

but "is Viren okay to look after my child?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:16

as well.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:16

And that, that was really tough for her.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:18

I think.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:19

I think one of the difficulties when talking about my own experiences is

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:22

that it's not just my experience, it's my experience and how it

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:25

affects my partner as well.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:27

And as difficult as it was for me, it was much more difficult for her not

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:32

only having to look after her health after the birth of our child, she

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:36

then had difficulty breastfeeding and that contributed to a whole series

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:40

of, of difficulties long term as well.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:44

Um, so we were always kind of in and out hospital.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:46

The first couple of weeks Jesse wasn't eating very well, he wasn't feeding

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:49

well, so we were back in the hospital.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:51

Um, they had to put a tube down here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:20:53

I remember this

VIKKI: 00:20:54

Oh gosh, that must have been so hard to see.

VIKKI: 00:20:57

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: Those kind of things just...

VIKKI: 00:21:01

they, they told us this was a normal thing that happens to a lot of babies

VIKKI: 00:21:04

that they don't feed initially and they sometimes need a little bit of help.

VIKKI: 00:21:07

But when you have, when you kind of in and out of hospital a lot of the time

VIKKI: 00:21:10

for really quite what might to other people seem like really minor things,

VIKKI: 00:21:14

like needing help with breastfeeding or having that child's not eating, feeding

VIKKI: 00:21:18

well, becomes almost medicalised.

VIKKI: 00:21:22

This whole process, this whole process isn't so much like this joyful experience

VIKKI: 00:21:26

that we've been told is going to happen.

VIKKI: 00:21:27

It becomes almost a medicalised process of you and the clinicians trying to work

VIKKI: 00:21:33

out what's wrong, "what's wrong here?"

VIKKI: 00:21:36

Um, and for her that was really tough 'cause I think she wanted the magical

VIKKI: 00:21:39

experience of wonderful things.

VIKKI: 00:21:41

And in a lot of ways she had that more than I did.

VIKKI: 00:21:43

But if, I mean she having to go in and out hospital all the time was not easy.

VIKKI: 00:21:48

No- the most fundamental thing of keeping your baby alive is feeding.

VIKKI: 00:21:53

And that's, there are so many emotions related to that.

VIKKI: 00:21:57

And if you have problems breastfeeding, it can be really,

VIKKI: 00:22:01

really horrendous and traumatizing.

VIKKI: 00:22:03

And, there's a lot of shame and guilt felt by women who, for

VIKKI: 00:22:08

one reason or another, aren't successful at breastfeeding,

VIKKI: 00:22:12

and yet they're not to blame

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:14

Absolutely.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:15

But it's one of the biggest contributors to, to psychological

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:18

distress in, in new Mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:20

Um, but one of the other things we also know is that often this

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:23

is when, when people say like, men can't get postnatal depression.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:26

One of the kind of, one of the kind of justifications of that is often

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:30

that the experiences that Mums have, um, following birth are unique.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:34

And in a lot of ways they are.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:36

But that's not to say that the Mums experiences of, say, for example,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:40

difficulties with breastfeeding don't also affect the dad.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:42

I felt like a complete bystander.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:44

Like, what do I do?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:45

I feel completely helpless here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:48

The role of the dad is to be able to help and to fix and to do all those

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:52

things and to kind of solve the problems.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:54

And when you're not able to, It kind of makes your role completely useless

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:22:58

and going in and out of hospital, my, I just sit there going, I know I need to,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:03

to, to do something to fix this, but I don't know, I can't do anything here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:07

Um, likewise, when he wasn't feeding, sitting in hospital, I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:11

kind of thought, Well, what do I do?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:14

There's nothing for me to do.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:16

And I, by that point, I was already struggling with my mental health.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:20

I was feeling very anxious about leaving the house.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:22

I was feeling very alone in my feelings and very, I was, I was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:29

struggling to do basic things.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:30

Basically.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:30

I was, I was struggling to wake up, I was struggling to,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:32

to kind of function normally.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:34

Um, and then having to go into hospital was not where I wanted to

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:38

be at the, in those points, it was, it was really difficult to kind of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:42

say, I need to leave the house and go and support my partner at this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:45

And those experiences were really difficult and there

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:48

was a lot of shame involved.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:49

There was.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:50

A lot of shame in saying, firstly, I want some help, but not being able to say that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:55

But then also at that point when my son was struggling to say I'm also

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:23:59

struggling, felt really selfish.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:01

It felt like this is not the time to say anything.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:04

Um, so it becomes internalized.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:07

Um, I don't think I, I don't think I had an awareness that I was struggling

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:11

with my mental health at that point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:12

Then I think if you'd asked me how to say everything's great,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:24:16

that's what all parents go through.

VIKKI: 00:24:18

Mm, Just tired.

VIKKI: 00:24:20

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: Just tired, just exhausted.

VIKKI: 00:24:22

And you know, since then we've done research on this.

VIKKI: 00:24:24

And one of the, one of the findings that we had, well, one, one of the

VIKKI: 00:24:27

studies that we had, we presented a case of postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:24:31

In one case we told participants this is a mum, and this, the second

VIKKI: 00:24:35

case, we told them it's a dad.

VIKKI: 00:24:36

Completely identical cases, experiences of depression here.

VIKKI: 00:24:40

But we didn't use the word depression, we simply asked participants to say,

VIKKI: 00:24:43

"What do you think is going on here?"

VIKKI: 00:24:45

And when it was a mum, about 90% of participants thought

VIKKI: 00:24:47

this is postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:24:48

They knew it.

VIKKI: 00:24:49

And with the dad only about 30% said it was postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:24:52

The top answer was tiredness and exhaustion.

VIKKI: 00:24:55

So even the way we view a dad experiencing psychological distress

VIKKI: 00:24:59

in the aftermath of a birth is to say, this is not postnatal depression.

VIKKI: 00:25:03

We don't use this term for dads.

VIKKI: 00:25:05

We use the term exhaustion.

VIKKI: 00:25:07

They're simply tired, which is not a mental illness.

VIKKI: 00:25:09

Being tired is not a mental illness.

VIKKI: 00:25:11

Just our language around this is really difficult as well.

VIKKI: 00:25:14

And that was the term I would use for myself.

VIKKI: 00:25:16

I was tired, I was exhausted, but I wasn't struggling mentally.

VIKKI: 00:25:19

I wasn't, I didn't require help at that point.

VIKKI: 00:25:23

Did you try and speak to your wife, 'cause she could obviously

VIKKI: 00:25:28

tell something was going on- did you communicate with each other?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:32

No, um, I was closed off by this point.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:35

I, I think there were points when I was really struggling.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:37

I, I would just be sitting in bed crying and not understanding what was happening.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:41

And often this was hidden.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:42

I wouldn't do it in front of her.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:44

I, I think I tried as much.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:45

It's not possible to hide depression when you're living with someone, particularly

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:49

those circumstances, but I think I tried to hide it as much as possible.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:52

Um, and I mean, to be honest, I think if, if you saw me, I, I was still

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:25:56

going to work, for example, and I don't think any of my colleagues would've

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:00

known that I was, I was struggling.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:02

I went to work, I was functioning.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:04

I'd go to the gym occasionally.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:05

None of my, none of my friends there would've known anything was wrong.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:08

Um, and also because kind of after you have a child, I dunno

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:15

if this happens to everyone.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:16

I certainly kind of became, not, estranged is not the right word.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:19

I just didn't see the close friends I had as often as I did previously.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:22

And so there were no lines of communication to say, Are you okay?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:28

Are you struggling here?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:29

Um, I think I, I chose intentionally not to talk to my wife because

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:35

I think it wasn't about me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:37

And I made that decision quite early on.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:40

This process isn't about me, it's about my son.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:44

And I can, I can look back now and I'm a really big advocate of supporting

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:48

the family unit now, but at the time it was "I need to support my son.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:52

My son requires care, not me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:55

My wife requires care, not me".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:26:57

Um, It wasn't so much of not being deserving, it was a case of "I'm

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:03

not the one that requires help, cuz there's nothing wrong with me".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:06

Um, and if there's nothing wrong with me, then why are you asking me if I need help?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:11

Um, if I'm able to go to work, if I'm able to go to the gym, if I'm able

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:14

to sit up at two o'clock sometimes and at night and look after my

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:18

son, that means I'm functioning.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:19

I'm not dead.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:21

And I, I, if you look at the research, a lot of men, a lot of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:24

men who are postnatally depressed talk about the same thing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:26

They talk about this experience of "if I'm not suicidal, if I'm not dead at

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:30

this point, then I'm okay and I can just wait for better days to come.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:34

That experience of joy, it will come.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:36

I just need to wait this out.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:38

The tiredness will pass, the exhaustion will pass, and at some

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:41

point things will get better".

VIKKI: 00:27:44

Do you have a message to men who are sort of feeling that at the moment?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:51

It often doesn't get better.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:53

Um, we know for example, one in 10, one in 10 men who experience

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:27:57

depression will commit suicide.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:00

Um, and it's not just about men themselves.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:02

Men who are postnatally depressed also take it out on their families.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:06

They experience much higher levels of anger towards their

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:09

partner, towards their children.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:11

They're much less likely to do simple things like read

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:14

and play with their child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:16

Um, and the, the effects on the family are devastating.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:20

Postnatal depression in men is much more likely to trigger postnatal

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:23

depression in Mums, it's also much more likely to affect the cognitive

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:27

and and linguistic development of their child, how they develop as children.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:33

The statistic I, I find often, The one that's most worrying to me

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:37

is this one about men not reading to their child when they're, when

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:41

they're postnatally depressed.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:42

To me, it seems like such a given, that's what we do with kids.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:46

We, we read to them, we teach them how to read and we play with them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:50

If you're postnatally depressed, you haven't got the ability to do that because

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:54

your ability, abilities worried about how, whether or not you're going to kill

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:28:57

yourself today, your, your thoughts are always committed to "how do I work out

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:02

whether I'm going to survive today?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:04

And if your thoughts are continuously consumed by those, those thoughts

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:09

of survival, you haven't got the head space to play with your child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:15

You haven't got this head space to, to engage with your child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:19

And there's the idea of waiting for things to get better.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:21

Things don't get better on their own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:22

Depression is like that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:24

Depression wants you to get worse.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:25

It never gives you opportunities to get better.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:29

It takes away so much.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:31

It takes away so much from you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:34

And it doesn't give you the space ever to be who you are.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:37

And I think if you think it just gets better on your own, it never does.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:41

It never does.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:43

Um, and there are lots of places people can get help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:47

There are, your GP is a good person to talk to.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:50

There are all kinds of mental health services to talk to, Talk to your partner.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:53

If you haven't got anyone else to talk to, talk to a friend.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:56

Um, don't do what I did.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:29:58

We just wait for things to get better and they never did until I finally

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:01

had to go and talk to someone.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:03

Actually, I didn't even want to go and talk to someone.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:05

My wife forced me to, she literally dragged me down the road to the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:09

GP and my GP sat with me for five minutes and said, "Viren, you can't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:13

just keep going on like this."

VIKKI: 00:30:15

When she told you that you were going to go to the

VIKKI: 00:30:18

GP with her, how did you feel?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:21

I felt angry.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:22

I felt angry that someone was trying to say that something was wrong with me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:27

I didn't have the words.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:28

I, I think had I known that postnatal depression was a thing that affects

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:31

men, at that point, I think I might have been much more open to going

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:34

and talking to someone about it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:36

But because it wasn't a thing, it wasn't a real thing or real condition- I always

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:39

had no awareness of it at the time was I had, I had internalized to myself that

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:44

this is, there's nothing wrong with me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:46

Um, despite everything I was experiencing, despite all the clues, despite all the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:51

feelings I was having, um, I didn't think I, I didn't think I'd required help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:30:57

And even then, like going to the GP just felt like I'm just gonna

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:00

take up and waste their time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:02

Why am I going to see the GP?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:04

I do remember one time asking for help and it was with a health visitor.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:07

We'd gone one of the normal checkups, I forget which one it was.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:10

It must have been about a year or maybe a year and a half in.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:13

Um, and you go for these checkups and you sit with a health visitor, you've

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:16

got like five minutes with them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:17

And often the conversation is with the mum.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:20

And I remember this conversation taking place with my partner.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:23

I'm just kind sitting there going, "Okay, I'm here.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:27

What do you want?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:27

What do you want from me?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:28

Nothing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:29

Okay.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:29

Sit in the conversation.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:30

And there were conversations about her mental health.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:32

And I remember this one time I just piped up and said "I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:35

think I might need some help."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:37

And health visitor was - I'm not blaming her in the least, 'cause I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:40

think it's a lack of time, it's a lack of training, it's a lack of information

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:43

about how you talk to men - and she just went, "You don't need help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:31:46

You're the dad."

VIKKI: 00:31:48

What?!

VIKKI: 00:31:49

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: Um, "get on with things.

VIKKI: 00:31:50

You're the rock of the family".

VIKKI: 00:31:51

And I went, Yeah, I am the rock of the family.

VIKKI: 00:31:53

I'm never gonna bring this up ever again in my.

VIKKI: 00:31:57

And in fairness, I said it as a, almost as a kind of joke like I'm having, I'm

VIKKI: 00:32:01

struggling too, and it's not her fault.

VIKKI: 00:32:06

I think health visitors in this country are not trained to talk to dads.

VIKKI: 00:32:10

They're not.

VIKKI: 00:32:10

They don't receive training, and if you haven't got the training to be

VIKKI: 00:32:13

able to understand when a cry for help is a cry for help and not a

VIKKI: 00:32:17

joke, then you're going to miss it.

VIKKI: 00:32:21

They also don't have time if you've got five or 10 minutes to have a conversation.

VIKKI: 00:32:24

And often men need a lot more time to be able to vocalize

VIKKI: 00:32:27

something like depression.

VIKKI: 00:32:29

And particularly if men don't have the words to be able to say, I am depressed.

VIKKI: 00:32:33

They're not quite, they're not going to say that.

VIKKI: 00:32:34

They might say, I'm feeling very angry.

VIKKI: 00:32:36

I'm drinking much more.

VIKKI: 00:32:37

Or I'm going to the gym and spending time out the house a lot more than I used to.

VIKKI: 00:32:41

If you are trained to pick up on those things as cues to depression, and you're

VIKKI: 00:32:45

much more likely to have conversations with men that might go like, Okay,

VIKKI: 00:32:48

you might be postnatally depressed, we should think about getting you some help.

VIKKI: 00:32:52

So I don't blame her at all, but that early experience made me

VIKKI: 00:32:56

think, I don't talk about this to help to health professionals.

VIKKI: 00:33:00

They will shame me.

VIKKI: 00:33:01

They will make me feel like something's wrong.

VIKKI: 00:33:03

Um, and so I came away thinking, I don't want to have these conversations

VIKKI: 00:33:07

with, with GPs or anyone else.

VIKKI: 00:33:09

For anybody in the medical profession listening to this,

VIKKI: 00:33:14

those words can be so damaging.

VIKKI: 00:33:17

You know, and I'm so thankful that you're, you are here, you know, you're here and

VIKKI: 00:33:24

you're chatting to us, but for other dads, that could be the difference between...

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:33:30

yeah.

VIKKI: 00:33:31

...life or death, and words matter.

VIKKI: 00:33:34

And understanding matters, and it's very, very hard when

VIKKI: 00:33:38

everybody's resources are stretched.

VIKKI: 00:33:40

Everybody's so short of time.

VIKKI: 00:33:43

But I do understand that fathers and co-parents in the long term plan

VIKKI: 00:33:49

are going to be screened and that there are plans for that to happen.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:33:54

In the NHS long term plan, it's fathers of whose partners

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:33:56

have had a history of mental illness.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:33:58

Um, so it's not all fathers.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:01

Um, someone like me would still be missed in this net.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:05

I would not get routinely screened.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:06

And I think the key is to routinely screen all parents, not just Mums,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:11

not just dads whose partners have had a history of mental ill health.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:16

I think, I mean if you look at health visiting, for example, a

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:19

lot of the kind of history, the tradition of it is focused on Mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:23

And you might argue that's the way it should be.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:25

But dads are playing much more of an early role, a much earlier

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:28

role now in family parenting.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:31

And you can make an argument that health visiting should be about

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:33

helping the family flourish and helping the family to do the best

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:37

that they can rather than just Mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:39

And I think for me, had that conversation been had quite early on, not in a jokey

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:45

way, not in a way that made me feel invisible, not in a way that made me

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:49

feel like this wasn't the place for me, I think I might have been much more open.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:53

I don't know.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:54

It's possible I might not have been, but it's possible I would've

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:56

gone, "actually, you know what?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:34:57

I'm going to think about this a bit more and maybe think about whether I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:00

need professional help at this point".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:02

It took my wife two years of living with a depressed individual before-

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:06

I think more or less two years- before she dragged me to the GP

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:10

and before someone actually said, "this requires care.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:13

This is not something you can deal with on your own".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:16

Um, but up until that point, this idea that I could just get better on my

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:21

own was, was the, the dominant one.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:24

Um, actually not even that, It wasn't getting better on my own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:27

It was, "there's nothing wrong for me to get better from".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:30

Um, so conversations with my wife were often argumentative.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:35

She would be, "You need help" and I'd be "I don't need help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:38

What are you trying to say about me?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:40

Um, "what are you saying about my ability to parent to be a father,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:43

if you're saying I'm mentally ill."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:44

Um,

VIKKI: 00:35:46

Mm,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:46

And obviously in the back of my head as well,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:48

there was the, the worry that if I really was mentally ill, I, my

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:35:51

son would get taken away from me.

VIKKI: 00:35:54

Which is a very common worry, isn't it?

VIKKI: 00:35:57

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: Didn't want to lose him.

VIKKI: 00:35:58

I didn't want to be away from him.

VIKKI: 00:36:00

Um, yeah.

VIKKI: 00:36:04

Did you ever worry about your relationship with

VIKKI: 00:36:07

him in terms of his care?

VIKKI: 00:36:08

Did you ever feel that you could be a danger to him?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:15

I don't think so.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:16

I, I think if anything, I think it was more that I wouldn't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:19

be there to care for him.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:20

I think there were points when I thought "am I going to, to be

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:25

here to see him when he's four?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:27

Am I going to be able to, to see him grow up?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:30

And it was that, that worried me more.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:33

Um,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:37

there were points when I was unnecessarily angry.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:40

I wouldn't take it out at him.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:41

I'd just be angry at everything.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:42

Angry at the world, angry at my partner, angry at life in general.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:50

And you don't want to be in that state when you're with a

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:52

one year old or a two year old.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:53

You don't want to be angry.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:55

And if I wasn't angry, I'd be crying.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:57

And again, I didn't want my son to see that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:36:59

I know he wouldn't have any conception of it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:01

He probably doesn't remember this now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:02

But I didn't want him to see that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:03

I didn't want for him to see this, this horrible person who's broken

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:07

down and crying all the time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:09

I remember sitting with him a couple of times when he was really young, when he

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:12

was one or just a few weeks old, and I'd pick him up and he'd start crying and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:17

I'd start crying, "Why'd you hate me?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:20

That was the feeling I had, like, "Why'd you hate me?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:22

That you'd cry every time I'd pick you up?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:24

And obviously it's completely irrational.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:27

It's an irrational thought, now I can see that, but at the time you don't know it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:31

At the time it was like "even my son doesn't love me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:34

My son doesn't need me here".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:35

And I think that was the most difficult thought I had.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:38

It was, "My family don't need me".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:40

And when you, When I started thinking that, at least when I started thinking

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:43

about "my family don't need me here", it was very easy to go from that to,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:47

"Well, I should just kill myself.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:50

What are you hanging around for?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:52

My wife will take care of my son.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:37:53

She's much better at this than I am."

VIKKI: 00:37:56

Did you at your lowest have suicidal thoughts?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:01

I look back now and yeah, I did at the time I,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:03

I don't think I would've admitted to myself they were suicidal.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:07

Um, there's always a way of justifying, there's always a way of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:13

rationalizing it as completely normal.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:17

Um, you can be sitting in bed just thinking, "I should just kill myself now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:23

They don't need me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:24

They won't know the difference.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:26

I don't make any difference here anyway".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:28

You're sitting in bed thinking those thoughts and just going,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:31

"These are just thoughts."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:32

And that's the way of rationalising it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:35

That's the way of saying "these are not real things that are going to happen",

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:39

but then they're also horrible thoughts and this makes you feel worse, and that

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:42

cycle of just continuously fighting with your thoughts and ... much later, when

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:48

I was in therapy, I told my therapist, like, when I was feeling this form

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:51

of depression, it felt like you were in a kind of mist and you're having a

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:38:57

conversation, but you don't know who you're having this conversation with.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:00

And the conversation is always one sided because the person who's, who's

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:04

talking back at you is saying "you're a horrible person" and you have got

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:08

no defense to that 'cause everything that you're experiencing in your life,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:12

everything that you're going through, shows you that you're a horrible person.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:17

That you can't support your partner, you can't support your

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:20

child, you can't love them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:21

In fact, I don't think I loved my child until much, much later.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:25

And I didn't have that feeling of I need to care for this

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:29

person because I love him.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:30

I need to care for him because he's a baby and he requires care.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:33

But I didn't care for him in the same way.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:37

And I've, I've often thought, I've often thought this to myself much later

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:41

on, it's like, "Why didn't I love him?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:44

What was missing in me that I wasn't able to love him at that point?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:49

And you know, people say to you "You'll grow to love him."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:51

Absolutely.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:52

You grow to love your children, but that should be the norm.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:55

We should be able to have that conversation, not shame people for

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:39:58

not immediately loving someone else.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:00

As adults we talk about love as something that develops, something

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:03

that grows between two people.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:05

You don't just turn up and go, "I love you" now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:08

And with a child, it's somehow different with a child, you're told if you don't

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:11

love your child immediately, there's something absolutely wrong with you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:14

You're not a human being.

VIKKI: 00:40:15

And yet they're a stranger aren't they?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:18

Yeah.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:19

They are a stranger.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:21

And I think it's doubly difficult for dads because they don't have the experience

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:25

of bonding with the child in the womb.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:26

They don't have the experience, particularly in the first couple of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:28

years of breastfeeding or even being in close contact a lot of the time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:32

I went back to work after six weeks and a lot of the time was my

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:35

partner was looking after our child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:37

Throughout the day, I come back and I do some parenting in

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:40

the evening, and that was it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:41

There's no opportunities really to bond.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:44

And a lot of dads say the same thing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:40:46

It's not until the child begins to interact, they begin to form a bond.

VIKKI: 00:40:51

I mean the fact that you had six weeks off is actually unusual

VIKKI: 00:40:55

'cause so many dads go back to work like one or two weeks after.

VIKKI: 00:41:00

And the thing is as well, by the time, you know, a lot of dads come home from

VIKKI: 00:41:04

work, It's bedtime for the baby and you know, the last thing the mom wants

VIKKI: 00:41:10

is, is for dad to come in and throw them up in the air when they're trying

VIKKI: 00:41:13

to get them settled for, for bed.

VIKKI: 00:41:15

It's so, so tough.

VIKKI: 00:41:17

What was the turning point for you?

VIKKI: 00:41:19

What made the difference in terms of your recovery?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:23

My wife wrote me a letter.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:28

I've still got the letter.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:29

I, I keep it, I, I don't want to frame it because it just reminds me

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:33

of where I was, but she wrote me a letter just saying, "Jesse loves you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:37

He wants you to be here with him."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:39

I don't think until that point, I realized how bad I was and how estranged

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:47

I was, not just from her, but from him and how I wasn't being able to

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:52

be a dad because of my depression.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:41:58

I think up until that point, there'd been a kind of, the, the kind of conversation

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:02

in my head was, "everything is fine.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:04

Everything's okay", but until someone says to you "because of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:08

what you're going through, you're not being the best parent you can".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:15

Until I internalised that for myself and that's when I think it

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:18

clicked that something was wrong.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:20

But even then, I struggle to, to ask for help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:23

I struggle to want to receive help because I felt like if I went to my GP, I'm going

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:27

to be wasting their time because I know what they'll say- "This is not depression.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:31

You can't be depressed following the birth of a child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:33

You should be joyful.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:34

You should be happiest moment of your life."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:37

And then the other turning point was actually going to see my GP and I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:41

sat down with her for five minutes.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:43

She's got 10 minutes in total to see me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:46

And I said, "This is what I've been going through".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:48

And she said "Viren, why didn't you come see me earlier?"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:53

And I think for, for someone in a position, especially after my kind of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:57

experience with the health visitor for someone in a position of healthcare

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:42:59

to say to me "This is depression."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:03

And to not make a deal about it, to not...

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:08

not make it about being shameful to kind of go, "This is what

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:11

a lot of people experience.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:13

There's nothing wrong with experiencing this", and to ask for help for this should

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:18

be the norm, not the other way around.

VIKKI: 00:43:20

And, and crucially, it's not your fault.

VIKKI: 00:43:23

It's not something you've brought upon yourself, and I

VIKKI: 00:43:27

think that's the hard thing.

VIKKI: 00:43:28

You know, it still feels, gosh.

VIKKI: 00:43:31

I mean, there's been a lot more talk about mental health over the last

VIKKI: 00:43:34

couple of years since the pandemic, but there, there still is, you know, huge

VIKKI: 00:43:39

amount of shame and stigma involved.

VIKKI: 00:43:42

What would you say to any dads listening now who are relating to

VIKKI: 00:43:46

what you are saying, but have so far been too frightened or in denial

VIKKI: 00:43:53

or unwilling to seek support?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:55

I think a lot of men who are depressed often

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:57

think they can do it on their own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:43:59

Um, and this is a common thing we see with a lot of men when they internalise this

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:04

and they talk about their masculinity and how it's almost feminine to ask for help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:10

I often say to them, You know what?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:12

What's the most masculine thing you can do is to look after your family, to

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:16

care for your child, to care for your partner, and to be able to do that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:20

Sometimes we need to ask for help.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:23

Sometimes we don't know what the difficulty is that we require help

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:26

with, and sometimes just having a conversation is the starting point for

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:32

a different journey that you go on.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:36

I've often said there isn't a single pathway into care.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:39

There are lots of different pathways into care, for one individual that might just

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:42

be having a conversation with your partner and saying "I'm struggling with this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:45

I don't know what to do here".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:47

For another man, it might be about going to have a conversation with the GP and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:50

getting medication, for someone else entirely it might be about entering into

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:53

a period of psychotherapy for a while.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:44:57

I don't prescribe a format or a route into recovery, but that is

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:01

the most important thing, that you can't fight depression on your own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:06

Depression is something, it's, it's debilitating.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:11

And if you don't receive help, if you don't get help, the likelihood

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:16

of recovery is, is minuscule.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:18

It doesn't get better on its own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:19

It never does, it's not how depression works.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:22

Depression ultimately is here to take your life.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:26

I've talked to lots of men about this and often the difficulty is that first step

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:30

of getting help and, and being able to take that first step is really difficult.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:36

And often they need an impetus.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:37

They need to see that something is detrimental.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:40

And like I always say, you know, obviously at the time I was the same.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:43

But looking back, I know now what I didn't know then, which is that if you keep

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:48

going down this route of non help seeking, what will eventually happen is that

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:54

it will take its toll on your partner.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:56

It will take it toll on your children.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:57

And that's not what you want.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:45:59

Even if you frame this in the most positive masculinist way you can,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:03

you want to be this strong man.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:05

The strong man cares about his family.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:08

The strong man looks after his family.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:09

And if you don't want to get help, you are showing signs of weakness.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:13

Cause you're not caring about the people who require care.

VIKKI: 00:46:17

I think that's incredibly powerful and I think, yeah, you know, I think

VIKKI: 00:46:23

Mark Williams puts it as the quicker you get help, the quicker you recover,

VIKKI: 00:46:28

and that's so important for the family.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:31

True.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:32

I do think, though, I think there's also this idea, which I don't think

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:35

I, I necessarily believe that once you are in care, everything gets better.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:39

It took me a very long time to get to a place where I was able to parent my

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:43

child in a way that I was happy with.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:45

Um, it's often not a linear process either.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:49

You don't just go into care and suddenly everything's wonderful and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:52

you're on a trajectory towards...

VIKKI: 00:46:54

God no!

VIKKI: 00:46:55

It's, it's like a jagged line, isn't it?

VIKKI: 00:46:58

And

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:46:59

Horrible periods when even when I was in therapy, I...

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:47:04

what's the word I'm looking for?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:47:05

...fall back down and pick yourself up.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:47:08

And even in therapy, I was still suicidal for a long time.

VIKKI: 00:47:14

and that's actually a normal -not, necessarily the suicidal

VIKKI: 00:47:17

ideation- but it's normal have good days and then bad days.

VIKKI: 00:47:24

And I was lucky because I was able to go to the Cedar House support group,

VIKKI: 00:47:28

and I remember there was times when I felt so great and it was like, "I don't

VIKKI: 00:47:32

need to be here anymore, I feel great!

VIKKI: 00:47:34

I don't have a problem anymore.

VIKKI: 00:47:35

You know, everything's rosy!"

VIKKI: 00:47:37

And then a week or two weeks later, I would be back to rock

VIKKI: 00:47:42

bottom, except I wasn't rock bottom, I was a little bit better.

VIKKI: 00:47:46

And you find that the bad days start gradually -and it is a gradual

VIKKI: 00:47:54

thing- get less and less -either less and less in in terms of the

VIKKI: 00:47:58

time or in terms of the intensity.

VIKKI: 00:48:01

But it is you know, it is a very jagged line and that it's okay,

VIKKI: 00:48:06

you're not, going backwards.

VIKKI: 00:48:08

Just think of the long game.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:10

That's a very difficult thing to to see when you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:12

are, when you're consumed by thoughts of now and how horrible you are now.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:17

It's really difficult to set that aside and look to see "if I get

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:21

care, I'll be better in the future".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:23

I think the one thing I would say is even though that that's not a linear

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:26

process, it's not a straightforward process, you're in a safer space.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:29

For me, as soon I was doing psychotherapy, I was in the safer space for

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:31

myself, for my child, for my family.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:33

And like you say, you take one step every single day and today

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:37

is better than it was yesterday.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:39

And that mist that I talked about, it suddenly begins to evaporate, and you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:42

realise you're having this conversation not with anyone else, with yourself.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:46

It's been yourself this whole time telling you that you're a horrible person.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:49

And I think once, once you've got to that point, whether it's through medication,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:53

whether it's just through talking, talking to a friend or a partner, or

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:48:56

talking to a psychotherapist, you suddenly realize these thoughts were completely

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:01

irrational and they weren't my fault.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:04

And I think that's probably the really important thing, that even though you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:07

are depressed, it's not your fault that you're depressed, never is your fault.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:12

And you can blame your brain, You can blame your neurochemistry,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:15

blame anyone else you want.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:16

But until you get to that point to say, "This is not my fault, what I've

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:20

gone through", things don't get better.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:23

And you'll always have this continuous argument with yourself in the mist sitting

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:26

there going "I'm a horrible person.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:27

I'm a horrible person".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:30

And I think that's why for me, psychotherapy was really important.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:33

It provided a scaffold to say, "Let's look at this in a rational way.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:37

Let's understand this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:38

And here you are safe".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:39

You can have these conversations in a way that you're not having a conversation

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:43

with this invisible person in the mist.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:45

You're having a real conversation with someone , and they

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:48

helped you rationalise it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:50

I think one of the really important things for me in psychotherapy was

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:54

having a conversation where someone said, "You're not a horrible parent."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:49:58

I think for the first time I suddenly went, "This is possibly true.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:03

I'm not a horrible parent.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:04

I can actually do this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:05

I'm a good person, I'm a good parent."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:08

...I remember taking Jesse into therapy once because she wanted to see how

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:13

we interacted, and obviously it's a stilted interaction because you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:15

know, someone's watching you play.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:18

And she said, "You know what Viren?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:19

It's not the worst I've seen.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:20

I've seen people who can't even do basic playing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:25

And you're doing that, you're doing that here."

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:29

And I think in my head, I'd set up this goal, this ideal that I had to be the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:32

most wonderful parent in the world.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:34

And often you don't, you just need to be there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:37

And obviously suicide, it's like depression takes that away from you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:42

You're not there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:46

And I think once you start getting past that, and once you start, once you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:49

know you're on the road to recovery, things get slightly better and you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:52

suddenly got more time to play and you're suddenly more time to, to want

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:50:56

to read and interact and do fun things with your child and your partner.

VIKKI: 00:51:05

And they don't have to be Instagram friendly 'going out and doing these

VIKKI: 00:51:09

incredible activities' and, you know, having mud kitchens in your back garden.

VIKKI: 00:51:14

It's just the small things and those pockets of time, and even if it's five, 10

VIKKI: 00:51:20

minutes of just properly focusing on what they're doing, you know, that is caring.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:26

Yeah.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:26

The one thing Jesse remembers- he doesn't remember much, obviously he was one and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:30

two- he sometimes says to me, "Daddy, I used to sleep on your chest a lot".

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:33

And I'd say, "Yeah, you did."

VIKKI: 00:51:35

Aw!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:36

But that's what I would do when I wanted to cry,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:38

I would put him on my chest and I'd have a cry and he'd fall asleep on me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:43

But is those little things that seem to matter more to him than all the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:48

wonderful things you might be able to do!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:52

Yeah.

VIKKI: 00:51:54

How do you feel about how you are doing now as a dad?

VIKKI: 00:51:58

How's your relationship with Jesse?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:51:59

Oh, I, I don't know when it happened.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:02

At some point I just fell in love with him - it grew and it grew and it grew

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:06

and you burst with love for your child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:10

I think for me, the other big thing was after psychotherapy finished,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:13

I went into a parenting class.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:14

It was kind of a continuation of, of psychotherapy.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:18

I was the only dad there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:19

There were I think maybe like 12 Mums and I was the only dad.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:22

And I'd turn up, I forget what day it was, Tuesday mornings I'd go, and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:26

it was just "This is how you parent.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:28

This is how you play with your child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:29

This is how you engage with your child at this age" and for me it was, "yes!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:37

I wish someone had told me this stuff before!"

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:41

Just things like basic parenting, how you set boundaries, how you reward, how

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:46

you play, how long you should play for.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:49

And it was, I think like an eight week course.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:51

And it was brilliant.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:52

It completely changed my outlook on how I go about things.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:52:56

Um, I came away from that course just feeling much more confident as a parent.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:01

And I think coincidentally, probably around that point, I think I started

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:05

to feel a connection with Jesse.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:07

Also by that point, by age two he was much more interactive and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:10

he was much more, um, engaging.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:15

I still remember being fearful of taking him out on his own without anyone else.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:21

Not so much worried that I would do anything to hurt him or hurt myself,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:24

but just the anxiety of stepping out.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:27

'Cause for a year and a half I hadn't done it.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:28

I'd been so anxious about taking him out on my own.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:32

And that wasn't just about anxiety around him, it was anxiety about me.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:36

I, I struggled a lot of the time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:37

I had to go to work and going to work was a 20 minute process.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:40

It was put your foot outside the door, put your foot outside the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:44

door and you can, you can do this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:45

And then walk, walk to the tube station, Keep walking, keep walking.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:48

And I, continuous conversation.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:51

I remember taking him out for the first time.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:53

I forget where we went.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:54

It was probably just to the park or something.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:56

And for me it was just, Oh, I can do this.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:53:59

This is doable.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:01

And yeah, I love him now, to bits."

VIKKI: 00:54:04

You were just telling me about your first trip to the cinema together.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:07

Yeah, that was right in the middle of my depression.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:08

I remember we went to see, to see, like I said, the eye lift

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:11

dogs and he was still a baby then.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:13

Now we to cinema.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:15

Favorite thing in the world, not necessarily mine.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:18

Cause you have to watch horrible cartoons

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:20

all the time.

VIKKI: 00:54:21

What I find is when you're doing something like that, you know, when he is

VIKKI: 00:54:24

a bit older, you can easily have a nap.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:27

no, I,

VIKKI: 00:54:27

yeah

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:28

that one.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:29

Um, but he's got this thing where he'll go, "Dad, wake up.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:32

You've fallen asleep!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:33

You need to keep watching!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:35

So he's like the sleep police.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:38

But yeah, and my local cinema's got these reclining seats as well,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:54:42

so you can have a quick doze!

VIKKI: 00:54:44

Brilliant, and, you've got all the goodness to come of actually

VIKKI: 00:54:48

going to see movies that you're both excited to see together I actually I

VIKKI: 00:54:52

took Stan to see 'Live and Let Die' the Bond film, which is my favourite ever

VIKKI: 00:54:56

Bond film 'cause uh, yeah, I'm showing my age now, Roger Moore was my Bond.

VIKKI: 00:55:00

And, uh, Stan really loved it and it's so exciting when you

VIKKI: 00:55:03

get to share those things.

VIKKI: 00:55:06

But for anybody listening, especially if they've got you know, a baby is, look

VIKKI: 00:55:12

into your local cinema because I was lucky in that I was able to, to go to the

VIKKI: 00:55:16

Picturehouse and they had something called Big Scream, and that was an absolute

VIKKI: 00:55:21

lifeline for me when I was struggling with postnatal depression because it meant you

VIKKI: 00:55:26

could actually do something for you as an adult, as a person, as an individual.

VIKKI: 00:55:32

But it was like going to the cinema, but if you needed to do a nappy

VIKKI: 00:55:36

change in the middle of it, or if your baby was sick on you, it was fine.

VIKKI: 00:55:39

If, if your baby started crying, you could take them out.

VIKKI: 00:55:41

But it was actually somewhere you could go and get a nice coffee, you know,

VIKKI: 00:55:45

a bit of cake if you wanted a treat.

VIKKI: 00:55:48

And yeah, you, you felt yourself again for that period of time.

VIKKI: 00:55:53

And yeah, a lot of cinemas are doing it now.

VIKKI: 00:55:55

And, for me, it was a game changer.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:55:58

Yeah.

VIKKI: 00:55:59

But, um,

VIKKI: 00:56:01

Wow.

VIKKI: 00:56:01

I could talk to you for hours Viren.

VIKKI: 00:56:03

Did it make any difference having the life experience, but also the

VIKKI: 00:56:09

professional, academic side of things, because when I go through bouts of

VIKKI: 00:56:15

depression and anxiety, I know rationally in my head, these are just thoughts.

VIKKI: 00:56:20

But when you are sucked into that world, you can't it.

VIKKI: 00:56:24

It's, you can't snap out of it.

VIKKI: 00:56:26

It's all consuming.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:27

If you wanted an example of someone who

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:30

has all the professional training, all the professional knowledge, and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:34

still struggled I'm that person!

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:36

I mean, you'd think I'm the last person who'd experienced depression

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:39

following the birth of a child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:41

Especially, I've done the work, I've done the research, I understand

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:44

this, I understand all the kind of issues around masculinity and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:47

asking for help, and I struggled.

VIKKI: 00:56:49

It's indiscriminate.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:50

We've just done some recent work in fact, showing that

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:53

the potential to be depressed after the birth of a child exists in everyone.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:56:58

And what we mean by that is the period after the birth of a child is

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:01

incredibly stressful, and those triggers are often triggers for depression.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:07

And this idea that anyone can be immune, whether it's because of

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:10

your gender or your age or your class or anything else is nonsense.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:14

Everyone has the potential to be depressed.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:16

And particularly if you're going through an incredibly

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:18

stressful period of your life.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:19

If you don't have support, if you don't have care in the world, if

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:23

you don't have basic things that you might need to support yourself

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:26

as scaffold, you will struggle.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:30

The flip side to that is nothing shameful about that.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:33

It is an experience that so many people go through and to ask

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:38

for help isn't a shameful thing.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:40

it is in fact the most powerful thing you can do precisely because

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:46

it's not easy to ask for help, and it's not easy to get help.

VIKKI: 00:57:51

but it is, it is there.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:52

It absolutely is And I think one of the things

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:55

we also find is that a lot of the time once men are given the space

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:57:59

to talk, they often do want to talk.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:01

It's just that these spaces are often closed down to them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:04

They're often either invisible or they're not provided because we

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:08

think that men don't need them or men themselves don't think they need them.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:12

I think it's easy to blame society and easy to blame health

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:16

services and it's, It is true.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:18

I mean, if you look at health services, historically and

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:20

traditionally, a lot of kind of postnatal care was directed at mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:23

It's starting to change, and they're kind of in my local area, for example,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:27

there are stay and play services, mainly aimed at dads for example.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:31

That's beginning to change, but I think it's still often kind of this,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:35

this, this presented as this binary.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:37

We've got services for mums and we've got some new services for dads.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:41

And we're not talking about this holistically.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:43

We're not talking about the family unit as a whole.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:45

We're not talking about helping one individual who's struggling within that

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:48

family unit because their struggle will impact the rest of the family unit.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:53

I think that's what's missing still.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:55

And we're still talking about care for dads or we're

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:57

talking about care for Mums.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:58:59

We're not talking about care for families and that's what's needed.

VIKKI: 00:59:03

Yeah.

VIKKI: 00:59:04

And well, whatever your family looks like, you know, because so many, so

VIKKI: 00:59:09

many families in 2022 and so many families in Britain aren't, aren't the

VIKKI: 00:59:13

classic 'mum, dad, and 2.5 children'.

VIKKI: 00:59:17

And when you are talking about risk factors,

VIKKI: 00:59:20

if you look at communities like the LGBTQ plus community, same sex families and

VIKKI: 00:59:27

trans families that often they, they do not have the support networks around them.

VIKKI: 00:59:32

They don't have family support and we absolutely should be talking holistically.

VIKKI: 00:59:39

And I think what you were saying about the parenting class sounds brilliant

VIKKI: 00:59:42

because for any job you get training and the most important job we can do as human

VIKKI: 00:59:47

beings is to raise the next generation.

VIKKI: 00:59:49

So why aren't we

VIKKI: 00:59:50

getting

VIKKI: 00:59:51

better training for

VIKKI: 00:59:52

that?

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:59:53

I, I think that having gone through this And, come out the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 00:59:56

other side, I think the two things I would say that would make the biggest difference

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:01

almost immediately, one is routine, routine screening of all new parents.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:05

Not just Mums, and not just Mums, not just dads whose partners may

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:08

have a history of mental illness.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:09

I think all parents should be screened for, for mental illness

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:12

or, or risk of mental illness following the birth of a child.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:15

The other is, I was almost gonna say mandatory parenting classes, but I

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:20

think that would be a bit much, I think the offer of parenting classes in the

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:25

same way that a lot of local areas offer NCT as their first port of call.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:30

I don't think that should be the first port of call.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:32

I think maybe even combining NCT with later parenting classes, I think had

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:37

I had the tools to understand how to parent before I became a dad, I think

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:41

I had been a much better position.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:43

I think my, my expectancies and my reality of my lived experience,

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:46

there would've been very different.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:49

Having to learn on the job was tough, and having to learn on the job when you're

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:53

struggling with conversations in your head about depression are even tougher.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:59

Yeah.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:00:59

I think parenting classes are brilliant.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:01

I think everyone who is struggling, particularly if you're struggling

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:05

to find that emotional bond with a child, parenting classes are

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:07

brilliant and helping you understand what is a bond at that age.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:11

To expect a child at one or two to love you in return is probably

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:16

too much, but you can begin to understand how they love you.

VIKKI: 01:01:21

Yeah.

VIKKI: 01:01:21

Yeah.

VIKKI: 01:01:22

And, and

VIKKI: 01:01:22

how small things

VIKKI: 01:01:23

can make a big difference

VIKKI: 01:01:25

that, you

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:25

with them for 10

VIKKI: 01:01:26

you.

PROFESSOR VIREN SWAMI: 01:01:26

difference.

VIKKI: 01:01:27

Yeah.

VIKKI: 01:01:28

Yeah.

VIKKI: 01:01:28

And it it doesn't have to be a big gesture.

VIKKI: 01:01:30

It doesn't have to be a grand event, it is just little things,

VIKKI: 01:01:33

you know, Just even speaking to your baby when they can't understand you,

VIKKI: 01:01:37

that's great because again, it's all helping their cognitive development..

VIKKI: 01:01:43

You know, Thank you, thank you so much for, for being so brave

VIKKI: 01:01:48

and open in sharing your story.

VIKKI: 01:01:50

It's moved me to tears, , as you can see, I've been like

VIKKI: 01:01:55

trying to do, uh, subtle sniffs.

VIKKI: 01:01:58

Um, yeah, I mean it's been so powerful and, for any parents out there struggling

VIKKI: 01:02:05

please, please speak to somebody.

VIKKI: 01:02:07

You are not alone.

VIKKI: 01:02:09

You will not be the first person to have said these things.

VIKKI: 01:02:14

Um, and, you know, help is available and it really does make a huge difference.

VIKKI: 01:02:20

And for any dads, I would put you immediately to Fathers Reaching Out

VIKKI: 01:02:25

and to Music, Football, Fatherhood..

VIKKI: 01:02:27

Both organizations were set up by dads who were feeling exactly

VIKKI: 01:02:31

the same as you are feeling now.

VIKKI: 01:02:32

So, uh, you are in a very, very safe space.

VIKKI: 01:02:36

But Viren thank you so much for your time today and, yeah, looking forward to

VIKKI: 01:02:41

catching up with you in later years to know about which amazing films you're

VIKKI: 01:02:46

taking Jesse to, I mean Isle of Dogs.

VIKKI: 01:02:48

That's a pretty good start!

VIKKI: 01:02:49

It was a good start.

VIKKI: 01:02:50

It's been downhill from there.

VIKKI: 01:02:52

Probably not by his standards though.

VIKKI: 01:02:53

I

VIKKI: 01:02:53

Yeah, you've got a lot of crap to cover.

VIKKI: 01:02:57

I've been there.

VIKKI: 01:02:59

Thank you so much.

VIKKI: 01:03:00

if you've enjoyed this episode of Blue MumDays, please like and subscribe.

VIKKI: 01:03:05

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