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Today, I started a new Twitter list after a previous Dad I’ve interviewed (@danscott77) asked me about PPD dads on Twitter. I realized I was not aware of any dads on Twitter who could offer support. And what better way to reach out to new dads than through Twitter. It’s concise, quick, and community based. (Click here to see the list. By the way, Dan’s awfully lonely there!)

If you’re on twitter, tweet me @unxpctdblessing to let me know you want to be added to the #postpartumdads list. There is an inactive Postpartum Dads Project Twitter account I’m holding off on using until I get a lap top that doesn’t crash at the mere thought of having to open TweetDeck or Seesmic. I’m hoping for new hardware in January or February so keep watching!

And if you’re not familiar with Twitter at all, I apologize for the Twitterese. Really, I do.

This past week, the country of Germany mourned the death of footballer Robert Enke. Details were sketchy at first but as they emerged, the portrait of a man so shaken by the dark stigma of depression he felt he had nowhere to escape to but to the arms of death became tragically clear.

In 2003, Enke was first treated for depression. 2006 saw the loss of his natural daughter to a rare heart condition. Yet still he refused treatment even as the son of a sports psychologist, carrying knowledge with him that help was within arms reach. His wife even stepped in to help with transporting him to training. She rallied around him to help him heal as they journeyed forward after the death of their natural born daughter. Eventually they adopted another daughter. The adoption brought with it a common fear faced by many adoptive parents. Enke feared losing custody of their new child, spurring new excuses for Enke to remain silent. He could not bear the thought of losing yet another child.

Post Adoption Depression Syndrome (PADS) is not as uncommon as one would think. It is certainly not uncommon given the history Enke had behind him although any adoptive parent faces the risk of developing PADS after adoption. According “Post Adoption Depression – The Unacknowledged Hazard” by Harriet White McCarthy over at Adoption Article Directory, 65% of parents she polled admitted to experiencing Post Adoption Depression but sadly, only 8% of these same parents had even been told about the possibility of PADS. This leaves an unacceptable 58% gap of uninformed parents.

While not as severe as some of the Postpartum Mood Disorders birth parents may experience, PADS is not something to be ignored either. Contributing factors can be unexpected coping behaviors from children as a result of abandonment or neglect, lack of instant bonding, medical complications, language barriers and lack of not taking enough time to adjust to the adoption. Natural parents may typically take anywhere from two to six weeks to adjust to the birth of a child. Adoptive parents should take the same amount of time to help alleviate the stress of the life change as well as cope with the additional stress of any travel associated with their adoption. It is not natural to expect to pick up your child on a Saturday only to return to work on Monday. Time should be allowed for bonding and family development and in this author’s honest opinion, even more time should be allowed for adoptive parents.

One of the biggest barriers to treatment for Post Adoption Depression Syndrome is the fear of losing custody of the child for which these parents have fought so hard to push through. Essentially these are parents who have literally applied for the job and gone through several hoops while seeking approval. To admit depression is to admit failure – much as if someone were to apply for a job, get the phone call, go into work and realize they were in way over their head. In the corporate world that wouldn’t go over well.

In the footballer’s world, admission of failure either physical or mental is also a big blow. The fans in this sport are harsh and would tear a player apart if he weren’t the perfect picture of both mental and physical strength. Beyond the loss of his first daughter, his previous issues with depression and his fear of losing his second daughter because of his depression, Enke also carried the weight of portraying a perfectly strong man to the world outside his door. Tragically it turned out to be too much for him to handle on his own.

Men are expected to be indestructible pillars of strength and often doubly so once fatherhood zooms into the picture. It is okay to not know what you are doing. It is okay to ask for help. In fact, knowing when to ask for help is a sign of courage.

Enke’s suicide note indicated he had withheld information from his loved ones and caregivers during the last few weeks of his life so he could carry out his plan. If you or a loved one are thinking of suicide, please call a suicide hotline and talk to someone. If you think you may see signs of suicide in a loved one or even in yourself, click here for a list of signs. Remember, not all signs have to be present in order for suicide to be a possibility. Also be particularly watchful as a loved one begins to heal from depression. Often it is when they begin to improve that suicide occurs because they are finally well enough to carry out their plans. It is also important to note here that men are four times more likely to be successful with suicide attempts than women despite making less attempts, according to Dr. Thomas Insel over at Depression: Out of the Shadows Ask an Expert.

Whether it’s a Postpartum Mood Disorder, Post Adoption Depression Syndrome, Paternal Postnatal Depression or just regular depression, remember that there is hope. There is light. There is another way out. You deserve hope. You deserve light. You deserve to live all the days of your life to the fullest. Do not continue to suffer alone. Reach out for help. It’s only a question away.

Go check out this new dad’s story over at Momversation. It’s a very honest, insightful, and brave look into the storm through dad’s eyes.

I’m sad he hasn’t taken time to deal with his own emotions surrounding the storm but certainly can relate. As my husband worked through addiction recovery I was often placed on the back burner. This is not healthy. The healthier I am, the better care I am able to provide for those around me. (think apply the oxygen to self before others)

Please don’t forget to take care of yourselves in the midst of the storm, dad. We moms need you to be at your best so we can be at ours.

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Back in April, Newsweek published an article by a dad who had experienced depression after the birth of his son. This dad’s name is Joel Schwartzberg. He’s got a new book out, The 40 Year old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad. After a recent interview on a blog I regularly read, The Collective Inkwell, I snagged him for an interview here. I hope you’ll enjoy his honesty, his wisdom, and his strength.

Thanks for sharing, Joel.

Tell us a little about Joel Schwartzberg, the guy. What would he be doing on a typical Friday night if he had it to himself?

I’m all about comfort, so it wouldn’t be much different from how I’d spend it with my wife and our five cats: relaxing on our soft couch, checking email, watching reruns of “Law & Order” and eating something delicious she made. Though, to be fair, if I was by myself you’d have to substitute a slice of eggplant parmigiana pizza for my wife’s inspired cooking. It’s not exactly glamorous, but it is me.

In your Newsweek article, Slouching Towards Fatherhood, you open up about your depression after the birth of your son. In the piece you mention a realization of depression years after it occurred. How did this realization put life as a father into perspective for you?

Realizing I had suffered from depression (and wasn’t just a naturally “bad dad”) gave me the inspiration and confidence to rebuild my personal dadhood from scratch. Before then, I felt paternally-challenged, handicapped as a dad, a total fathering failure. Now, as I define my dadhood based on my own standards and expectations, I don’t fear failure. Parents are not perfect; failure is a crucial part of the process of becoming a better parent.

Depression looks different when it happens to a guy after the birth of a child. What did depression look like for you? What are some signs and symptoms other men and their loved ones should learn to recognize? What can partners do to help if a loved one is sinking into a deep depression?

The clearest symptom of my depression was the way I grasped desperately for moments of self-indulgence, most often with food. I would savor opportunities to leave the house “on an errand” and get big fat cheeseburgers. I think I outpaced my son 10-1 in terms of weight gain that month alone. Eating fast food was a secret; it even felt like cheating, but it also felt like one of the few parts of my individual identity that wasn’t obliterated by parenthood. When men start keeping secrets from their partners, something is amiss in the relationship; someone’s needs are not getting met.

I’m not a psychologist, but my advice for women partners is to understand that some men need to retain a semblance of their pre-parenthood lives, and that need should be supported and nurtured as much as possible, as well as openly discussed. Also, a marriage needs to be pro-actively preserved, not martyred, as it gets rocked by the wrecking ball of sudden parenthood.

The perpetuated myth of the typical male as a stalwart statue resounds pretty deeply within the modern psyche. Have you experienced any backlash as a result of sharing your experience with depression? How have you coped with those who have harshly judged your experience?

Depression in men — dads in particular — is often taken as a sign of weakness and cowardice. People have told me I needed to just “man up”, but I think it takes a lot of courage to admit vulnerability, and dealing with emotions openly is ultimately healthier than burying them. I’ve had people call me some pretty nasty things, but just as many men and women have approached me with similar stories, and found my writing to be “gutsy.”

I feared a backlash from women with PPD because women have a biological, umbilical connection to their kids; Dads just have to hold on tight. So who are we to claim post-partum depression? But women who’d suffered from PPD had some of the most supportive responses to my writing.

My reaction to those who called me a “crybaby”, “weak,” and a “terrible excuse for a man” is simply to say: I had difficulty accepting sudden fatherhood — the biggest upheaval in life –  and I’m owning up to it. I also overcame it, love my children, and have a great relationship with them now.

This goes against the grain because it doesn’t fall into one of the top three father stereotypes: Deadbeat (Gosselin), Lazy (Romano) and Super-Dad (Cosby); the guilt of not living up to that last impossible expectation can be really destructive, but slipping into a lazy parenting role is also a disservice and a missed opportunity to
connect with your kids in a really meaningful way.

It’s my current wonderful and honest relationship with my kids that gives me faith that I’m doing the right thing as their father. I’m a more genuine dad for having been completely honest with myself.

List three things which made you smile or laugh today.

1. A news report about a stray cat that was stuck under the hood of a
car during a long road trip, but survived and escaped injury. I’m sure
it had a grudge; I believe cats are the only animals capable of
holding grudges.

2. Having my mechanic not only look at my flat tire without an
appointment, but also shuttle me to the train station so I wouldn’t
have to walk in the cold.

3. Getting handed a slice of mud pie for a colleague’s birthday party.
I love office parties.

As a result of the depressive episodes both my husband and I experienced after the birth of our second daughter, we have begun to talk with our children about depression in an age-appropriate manner. Have you spoken with your oldest son about depression yet? If not, do you think you will in the future and what do you see that conversation including?

I’m very fortunate that my kids are very bright and open with their emotions, so we talk about a full range of feelings. They’re too young to grasp the concept of clinical depression, but they understand confusion, sadness, and frustration very well, as we deal with those feelings almost every time I see them.

I don’t plan on advertising my depression to them, but I hope when they’re old enough to read and understand that essay in particular, they’ll see the value in being honest with oneself, and how writing can play a part in that process.

I do talk to them openly about anger-management – both theirs and mine. These discussions help me help them, and help them see me as a complete human, not just as a parent. I think it’s good for older children to see their parents as people, not just parents.

At the Postpartum Dads Project we believe Postpartum Mood Disorders are a WHOLE family thing. What kind of support, if any, did you have during your depression after the birth of your son? How do you think your level of support at the time affected your recovery? What can new dads do to build a supportive network around themselves?

My ex-wife is a psychologist and quickly diagnosed me as having PTSD following my son’s birth. It’s certainly possible I had PTSD, but my main problem in those early days was the decimation of my identity. I coped with that by draping myself in denial – which in retrospect only extended my depression.

I’m not the type of person to have a close circle of friends, and I wasn’t honest enough with myself or others to make use of that kind of support system anyway. My parents are very “right and wrong” kind of parents, so I did not turn to them either. Ultimately, it took time, therapy, and – frankly — divorce for me to recover.

I feel new dads really need to share experiences, not just advice, with each other. One of the reasons I wrote the book was because it was something I needed when I got divorced. Finding legal tips online was easy; getting comfort less so. With no divorce whatsoever in my family history, I needed to know I wasn’t alone.

I’m still inspired by other dads who talk about their difficulty with sudden parenthood – sometimes they whisper it to me. What we need is compassion and understanding.

Your depression ultimately led to your divorce. Would you share with our readers what the inside of a divorce looks like? What helped you survive and thrive during this difficult time?

My depression definitely made me harder to live with, but — to my eyes — my ex wife’s abandonment of our marriage for parenthood caused the divorce. While our actual separation was fairly calm, the inside of a legal divorce is an ugly place where justice and fairness collides with feelings and justifications, but the outside can be peaceful if the two parties realize that civility does not require agreement or even understanding.

My kids actually helped me cope with the divorce by showing love for me as an individual, outside our former family context. When they live with me, it makes me feel like a father. And that’s a wonderful, fulfilling feeling.

What is your absolute favorite thing about fatherhood? Share with us a quick story about one of the funniest things one of your kids has done.

My favorite thing to do with my kids – and the least expensive — is go to Kmart. They hang on to the big red shopping carts while I take sharp turns, go on shopping list scavenger hunts, stack bottles of Dad’s favorite black cherry sparkling water, gawk at the massive display of Halloween costumes, and run up the down escalators. It never gets old.

Last but not least, let’s say you have just a split second to give some advice to a struggling new dad before he jumps in a cab. What would you tell him?

Be the dad you are, not the dad people in your life or in your television expect you to be.

In a nearly four and a half minute segment the anchor and a male pediatrician discuss male postnatal depression quite thoroughly. Some great suggestions and information are given.

Click here to view the video.

Joel Schwartzberg, author of a new book The 40-Year-Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad, opens up about his experience with male postpartum depression in an interview over at The Collective Inkwell.

In April, Newsweek published an article by Joel in which he detailed his experience. He was surprised at the subsequent backlash he received as a result of opening up.

I’d like to commend Joel for opening up and sharing his story. Not many men speak up about depression after childbirth. While women are finally finding their voices (and using them), many men still find themselves in dark when it comes to admitting there are issues associated with the birth of a child. According to Joel, “Fathers are told all the time to just “man up” in the face of conflict, but this is a very invalidating and antiquated perspective. We are still humans, still individuals, and our worlds are no less rocked by parenthood than mothers’ are.”

If you’re a father who has experienced depression after the birth of a child, I want to encourage you to “man up” and open up to let other dads know that it’s ok to feel that way. The more open men are about their emotions and feelings the better off they and their families will be.

Thanks, Joel, for speaking up about such a tough topic.

This past June, Richard Shaw, M.D., a Packard/Stanford Child Psychologist, studied post traumatic stress disorder among parents of premature infants in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit. The results showed that regardless of severity of the infant’s condition, all parents showed very similar symptoms. Many of the parents responded to this traumatic beginning by over-compensating for their child’s health by taking the child to the doctor more frequently.

Most notable though, for this blog’s focus, was the results of the father’s response. It seems that at four months the maternal reaction would be balancing out but the father’s response would be hitting the wall. More often than not, the father would have a more intense reaction than Mom. Shaw theorizes the reason for the delayed response is Dad wanting to stay strong for Mom.

This particular piece of research hit home for me. It was at about four months when I was finally putting my life back together but my husband’s own life seemingly crumbled before my eyes. He became increasingly irritable, argumentative, did not want to talk, was using marijuana more and more. He also quit his job just three weeks before our daughter’s cleft palate surgery which was scheduled when she was 5 months old. While I did not yet have the strength to pull it completely together, I found myself having to do so. He sank into a very deep depression and we had to pull each other up even with surgeries swirling around us. Remember that even if the forward progress is slow, it’s forward progress.

The key is to communicate. Let her know you’re struggling. Listen to her concerns. Share your concerns. Many NICU’s across the nation have access to a Social Worker. Ask for support and find out if there is a support group available at the hospital. Peer support is as invaluable as family support. Train family members to care for your special needs child so you and Mom can go out to get coffee. Gradually work your way up to a movie. Some communities have respite care available for worn out parents of special needs children as well. And please don’t forget to ask for in-home nursing.

When you are blessed with a special needs child don’t forget to take extra special care of yourself. Because the healthier you are mentally, the better chance your child has at really thriving in life.

Facing fatherhood can be a pretty daunting experience. Suddenly you’re thrust into the spotlight as you play your role as the happy expectant dad. It’s all good until you get to the hospital and suddenly there’s this screaming little creature in your arms. Mom’s asleep because she just gave birth and is understandably exhausted.

There you are. Just you and the little one. Some dads, just like some moms, are naturals. And then there are the rest of us. Those of us who just don’t know what to do or worry that baby will judge us if we don’t put the diaper on right. (FYI, they won’t. Heck, they won’t even remember!)

Guess what, dads? You’ve got help on your side!

The folks over at the New Fathers Foundation started a program called Boot Camp for New Dads quite some time ago. This program is run by dads for dads. They teach all sorts of cool stuff – from how to take care of baby to how to help mom right after she’s given birth. Guess what? You’re not helpless. There are things you can do to help even if mom is nursing.

You can check out the Boot Camp for Dads website by clicking here. And you can read about some new dads who took the class by clicking here.

You’re not alone. And you’ll do just fine.

Canadian researcher Aline Drapeau of the University of Montreal published a study back in February which examined the typical mental-health seeking habits of a group of men and women.

Turns out men are less likely to seek help for depression or other light to moderate mental health issues than women. Normally this type of behavior is attributed to cultural differences but this result crossed cultural boundaries. Researchers surmised this behavior may be due to social gender expectations. Men may fear being stigmatized and exposing feminine emotions by seeking out help for mental illness issues. Researchers also discovered professional anchorage may have something to do with the desire for seeking mental health care.

The reason this particular study is so important is because although women have a much higher rate of suicide attempts, men have a much higher rate of successful suicide. If men were more comfortable with seeking help their suicide rate would drop. Men are more likely to use violent and agressive methods of suicide which may account for the vast disparate in completion rates between men and women. Women are also more likely to talk things through with friends and loved ones than men.

The key point to take away here is that if you are male and struggling with depression please seek help. You owe it to yourself, your family and your loved ones. Mental health services exist for everyone and should be completely confidential. If you wonder about your rights as a mental health patient you can click here for a copy of your rights.

NPR recently did a story regarding the effect Depression has on the entire family. This piece led to the discovery of an organization called “Families for Depression Awareness.”

Founded by a woman who’s brother committed suicide after several attempts to get him help, the organization is dedicated to raising depression awareness for family members. They encourage full family involvement in recovery which is something the Postpartum Dads Project also encourages.

One of the family profiles at Families for Depression Awareness centers around Postpartum Depression. You can read it by clicking here.

Whether it’s your wife or yourself struggling with depression after the birth of a child the two of you owe it to your child(ren) to heal and support the struggling partner. This enables your children to see your dedication to your partner and teaches them the invaluable lesson of not giving up when the going gets tough.

Please take a moment to check Families for Depression Awareness. Know that you are not part of the problem even if your wife is shouting, yelling, and arguing with you for no apparent reason. It’s the PPD talking. You are part of the solution. Offer to take the baby. Encourage her to take time for herself. Research about Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders so you better understand what her world is looking like right now.

More than ever, your wife needs you front and center. Her world has crumbled around her and you are her rock. It’s ok for you to be quivering too. Let her know that. Most often I felt better when I knew my husband was struggling too. It let me know I wasn’t alone. I’m not suggesting you lie to her – just be honest about how things are going for you as you travel the long road back to recovery with her. Honest but not accusatory. Honest but not hateful. Honest but not spiteful. Honest and Compassionate. One day she will thank you. It may not be right now. It may not be tomorrow. But she will thank you down the road. And she may or may not cry while doing so.