Advice for dads needed

[Kdad23]

My wife is angry with me because she feels I’m distant, she’s angry because she feels alone & unsupported. And yet, I feel all the same things and she doesn’t see it... I know I’m not being a good dad at the moment, I know I’m not being the man I should, but with this crushing weight of depression, upset & frustration I feel like half the man I normally am.
When my son cries & I’m holding him I don’t feel anything - not good or bad, just nothing but exhaustion & blankness. I can’t help him until someone helps me.
The last few weeks have been amazing, and watching him grow already is inspirational, but I’m worried that I’m not connecting with him now because depression & anxiety are stopping me. I’ve always thought anxiety was a load of rubbish, but now with the pressure of his arrival I feel a restricting & limiting anxiety which stops me sleeping, makes me angry with no cause, and snap for no reason. I know I need help, and I keep saying I’m struggling, and yet it falls on deaf ears appeal after appeal. My wife can’t support me, because she doesn’t see it hurting me, although when she does it’s a snap reaction or an unnecessary escalation. I hate being this way, but how do I fix it?
I don’t want to work, I have no real appetite, I am drinking far too much. I even googled paternal postnatal depression & left it on my phone on the off chance she would see it & ask me about it. But she doesn’t, she just thinks I’m being rude & distant because I want to be. But that’s not fair, I want to be a family, I want to want to be with them - I want to fix this... I’m not sure my body or mind can take much more of this unless something changes - please give me some advice!?

You need to get to the GP.

Your wife realistically probably won’t have the physical or mental energy to support you and she is not the professional that you need.

You need to see your Gp and tell them everything you’ve written above, and ask them for some help. Then you need to sit your wife down and explain it all to her too. Ask someone to watch the baby for an hour or two if possible and really talk to her. Tell her how you’re struggling, tell her you’ve seen the Gp and what help they’ve offered and explain what you’re going to do next.

Leaving things for her to find, read, understand and connect back to your behaviour is an unreasonable expectation to have of your wife at the moment. She is probably feeling very similar to you, and you’ve said yourself you’re struggling to support her and the baby, if you can’t do it, it’s unreasonable to expect her to be able to do it on top of becoming a new mum and recovering from birth.

Get some help, then talk to her. She’ll be reassured by the fact you’re taking steps to improve things, she may even feel encouraged to seek some additional help too, and if you can come through this together your relationship with each other and with your child will be so much better for it.

There is male equivalent to post natal depression. It's rarer in men and so it's not discussed often. You must speak with your GP as soon as possible.