The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep 165 Dads Don't Cry With Peter Hanlon

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

In this episode we talk about grieving the lost of your child with Peter Hanlon. Expect open and vulerable conversations.

Just start straight into it. So obviously we're speaking about that. But obviously, let's go back to how the podcast actually became a thing. So you just tell me a little bit or tell the listeners a little bit about AILA. Yeah, so Aila was born. No, it's okay. I've seen people see her name and they go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She was born November, 24. 8 pounds 13. Healthy is going to be. no issue whatsoever very very chilled out baby so Ayla translates it's an Irish name it means little fiery one I see that and I loved that as

yeah like she was far from it so chilled out and so relaxed I'm supposed to give you the short version we spend a lot of time down the west of Ireland so around La Hinch went down there for Christmas Great place to go surfing yeah sea swimming surf and nothing like that

especially in the winter where it's a big quieter and came home in January the intention of gone back to work and got home on a Monday and on the Thursday we decided well the Wednesday the kids wanted to go for a walk up to Hill of Tara and just outside an avon typical winter sunset red and yellows and purples in the sky I was too busy with work so I said we couldn't go Thursday similar weather and they wanted to go again so I'm a three-year-old and a a 10 year old as well so Kara wanted to go so I said okay we'll go myself Sarah my partner and Kara and Ayla we went up for a walk around the hill

that's what it was we were just going for the work we got back to the car and took Ale out in a sling she was on Sarah and she had gone white in colour so take her out her slang running to the cafe there start down CPR on her caught an ambulance lucky enough there was a doctor on the hill yeah he heard Sarah scream from the back of the car

and ran down the hill he came in and helped me it was 19 minutes and the ambulance arrived long as 19 minutes of your life I'd imagine or was it just like you know it's only when you reflect on the day itself and you think about it as a whole it all happened a lot shorter than what you'd

think so that's a lot shorter than what you'd think So that's about 5 o'clock in the evening. By 1838, she had passed away. And we had made it from the Hill of Tara into Temple Street Hospital. They'd worked on her there. And to me, that seems like five or six hours. But it's not even two.

So that's probably where the podcast goes. Well, at that stage, you don't know what to do. Someone passes away. And it's not the natural way of things where a baby that's healthy eight weeks and two days old passes away when you're gone for a walk. What's going through your mind at that stage

when you're doing CPR? Keep her here. That's all you're thinking I will do absolutely anything to keep her here. But there's probably a tiny bit of you that knows that she's gone. And I don't want to go off topic but when I was younger,

when I was younger, the house that I lived in, you go into the living room and to the left of the living room was the stairs they came into the living room they went up the stairs to your bedroom and I always when I was younger I'd wake up having this nightmare of a child lying in a coffin

in the sitting room and I'd crawl down the stairs and people around the corner to see was there a child there and I always picture I have a younger sister I always pictured that it was my sister and the strange thing is now the house that we live in in an avon has the exact same layout

and I had to do that walk and part of me I don't know what I believe and what I don't believe but part of me believes that that's what I saw like all that time ago like that I'm walking down into that sitting room and I'm saying now we didn't have Aela in a coffin she was in our buggy

laid out in the house but it's a very very vivid image that I would have carried from childhood the whole way has that changed your perspective on an afterlife or anything like that or made you think about... I don't know what I believe about the afterlife, but you have to believe that there's something there. And someone who I probably get most comfort from is that my granddad's 94.

And you don't expect it from a 94 year old man to be able to sit down and talk to you about a child dying because most people didn't the nicest way possible, brush it under the carpet and try to move on, because it makes people uncomfortable. Of course. And he would talk about, of his 94 years, he, has had many brilliant summers or winters,

but he says you never have a great year, you never have a great couple of years, you always have a great part to a year. So we said there has to be something more after this. It can't just be this life and then you're, and then that's it. But I don't know, I take comfort now in certain things. Yeah.

And maybe that's what it is and that comfort helps you. Yeah. Can you explain to me a little bit about what happened that day? Like, what was she diagnosed with her? So, essentially, it came back a sudden infant death syndrome. Okay. So she'd fallen asleep and just forgot to take a breath. Okay.

That's how it's ascribed to it. But sudden infant death... How rare is that? It's not that rare anymore. Yeah. Like, a lot more kids pass away than what you're reading. The difference is they now have names. So when COVID comes in, if a child passes

and they had COVID, and they might have had whatever disease. So potentially, Aila had a disease, but they don't know what it is. Yeah, it's all put under the same blanket until it's actually diagnosed. Until they can prove anything. It's basically saying,

we can't tell you that she had anything. Like, she was in a sling that day. So a big part to us was, did she smother while she was on Sarah but where the comfort and known that that didn't happen so sudden infant death means basically they can rule out a lot of things

so they can rule out the fact that you didn't smother her there was nothing wrong with her lungs there was nothing wrong there's so. I imagine that's such a horrible thing for a parent to go through to even be doubting whether you know yeah and look from my point of view

I never questioned once that she smothered like I said we had been at Le Hinch the week beforehand we'd walk the beach Sarah had her dry robe on and had Aela in her sling there And I take a camera everywhere with me So I have pictures of them in a hinge I have pictures on the hill of thara You could pretty much merge them on top of each other

And you wouldn't know the difference So there was nothing wrong I would imagine there's parents out there Who've gone through similar situations With their child And they were like because they never got an answer They're questioned themselves to Well you question yourself regardless

Should I have went on that walk that I had work to do And I said now I jump out of work and I go for a walk. If we didn't go for a walk, what had it happened at home? Would it happen a week later, a month later? Yeah. How do you deal with that constant questioning of, you know, decisions that, you know, are out of your hand, essentially? I, again, I think I bring it back to, like, I get comforted and known that there's nothing we could have done. So it could have happened anywhere. And even if it had it happened in the hospital. Yeah. They reckon there's a 15 to 30 second chance of. Yeah. getting someone breeding again like in that situation what um could you just maybe even kind of explain or describe or try to describe what like the next couple of days

and weeks were like for you and family um the next few days were tough it happened on a tourist we we Sarah wasn't in the hospital when she'd go home to the other kids my first my parents have come from Dunlary to Navan and then come back so she's at home I'm in the hospital when she passes away and you're in a position where you're trying to give Sarah enough hope to travel from the house to the hospital So essentially you're lying to her to tell her look keep she's hanging in there where I knew she wasn't hanging in there And then you're trying to manage the hospital as well so the hospital obviously have their bit to do They told us that Sarah could hold on to her as long as she wanted to but like within 15 minutes of Sarah getting there was like we need to take it now Come back tomorrow

we actually stead in my parents house that night got up the next day to go to the hospital she was gone from the hospital they took her for the autopsy already so we waited from the thursday evening when we saw her through till the monday when she came home that's hard because she's just gone she's physically taken away and you know she's somewhere in dublin is she in crumlin is she in temple street she's getting this done but you've been promised that you could see her on friday morning you've made the travel you've gone to go in to see them and then suddenly it's taken away way from you and you're not seeing her. And then the misinformation that you get

between the Friday and the Monday of she'll be home on Saturday night. Now it'll be Sunday morning. No, it'll be Sunday evening. No, it would be Monday morning. Eventually get her home. You're probably a little bit lost until, like, I don't know,

if you've ever had to arrange a funeral. But, like, I've never had to do one before. So, probably the night shining armour is the, funeral director when he comes in. He's guiding him in terms and then suddenly he takes over communicating with the hospital. And it takes a little bit of the weight off your shoulders. Sarah's a teacher.

So she organized like the prayers and stuff for the church. But apart from that, like you're on autopilot. You're just going through the motions. You don't really know what's happening. Probably for me it's a little bit easier than from Sarah. Like we had a routine at home. with two other kids in the house where I was basically looking after the 10 year old and the three-year-old and she looked after Aila so the night of the day of the funeral and we

got home I'm putting the kids to bed and she's sitting on the sofa which would usually be her routine of feeding Aela getting a change getting her ready for bed and then I come back down the stairs and she's sitting there with a ache and pain in her arms with no baby in her arms and trying to pull back from breastfeeding so sitting in a church with lettuce leaves in our bar trying to dry up the milk she's producing and so from a body point of view

she's really feeling it and probably from a man's point of view you're trying to keep together to keep everyone from that own inside so when does your grief come into it then do you think august I can put my finger on it on August exactly so August so she passed away on the she passed away on the 9th of January 2025 and in August was when Sarah started to do

things again so I had had a few problems with my body where I was feeling pains I had never felt before I gone to I had actually gone I got an MRI on my ankles I had to see a specialist about having an operation done. People were looking at me like it was crazy. I was going around with a protective boot on and there was nothing broken or anything. And I actually went to an energy healer. I still go to him now.

But I went into him with a protective boot on and he stood over me. You'll probably laugh and I tell you this, but he stood over me and he belched for a good hour and 40 minutes, taking all the energy out of me. and I got up and I walked 20 kilometres the next day but in August in particular

it was when Sarah started not to become herself because I don't think she'll ever go back to the person she was but started cooking cleaning getting out of the house a little bit and it was like she was giving me permission to let my grief come out and that's when she went away for a week

and it was probably the darkest week that I had I had gone out for a couple of drinks that week with some friends, something I hadn't done in eight months. Then coming home to an empty house and you suddenly realise, okay, it's really, really quiet now. Because they're all gone. For the last eight months before that, do you think your grief was almost suppressed? I could feel it in certain parts of my body, but it wasn't coming out. So, for instance, it was always my left ankle.

But I remember going to see the energy healer one day and I hadn't been to any therapist for about three weeks. and he said to me straight away, you haven't spoke to anyone in a while, have you? And I said, no. And he says, is there something wrong with your chest? I said, I actually went to see a doctor during the week about it. And he says, all that tension is sitting across your chest now. And that was it.

He just sat and put his hands on me. And again, the release of that and walking out the door now and a half later. And this is stuff, had you said any of this to me before losing either? I would have laughed at you. I wouldn't have... Because you didn't know any matter. Yeah, you just sort of think, like, what can he do?

What's he doing? Standing here and... Yeah. So, in regards to your grief now, what does it look like? Part of me thinks it hasn't come up yet. Part of me thinks... There's still a lot in me.

There's still a lot, but... And you can tell when you do certain things, the release that you get from it. and you can tell if you don't do anything, the difference in your, like, the tension and your body and my ankle in particular where grief would sit. Because even with my ankles, I broke my right leg in four places. But it was my left leg I kept going into the hospital with.

And then it was explained to me that if you split your body down the middle, all your female relationships sit on the left-hand side of your body and all the male relationships sit on the right-hand side of your body. So it picks the weakest spot on whether it's the female or the male side and that's where it's going to go. So I've never had a problem with that foot ever. And now I would find if I don't go to council, if I don't record an episode or the podcast with someone,

if I don't have my time with Aela or discussing Aela, that's where it starts to really pull at me. So do you think the podcast and that, well, let's, will you explain maybe how the podcast actually came to, Yeah, so. Trudis. Yeah.

We went to, after 10 weeks, so we were quite quick in terms of going to get support and going to get help. After 10 weeks, we went to Barrettstown in Caldera to a family bereavement camp. So we're there with about 25 other families of people who've lost kids and didn't want to go. Serious idea. That's usually the way it is with stuff like that. It's the woman's idea and you just go along to keep everyone happy. Best thing you ever did. the end.

You go back three times across 12 months. What goes on in there? So you got basically the easiest way to describe it is Santa Parks with therapy. Minus a swimming pool. There's a lake. You can't swim in the lake. But that's it.

Like that's it. They come and they take the kids off you. Yeah. You're putting the cottage. Two cottages basically. attached with a kitchen in the middle and that kitchen is only really for socialising so you'll have one family on one side another on the other so we were matched up with a family had lost little boy 11 years ago now two-year-old

on Christmas Day and probably the best thing that happened to us because they were 10 years on and we were 10 weeks on so you can suddenly see how to live again or you can get a little bit of hope and go they're smiling and laughing over there like and it's okay for them to smile and laugh So the camp essentially has worked out where the kids are brought in to see a therapist as a group. They're asked, has anyone lost a brother or a sister? And all the hands go up and suddenly they're all, they all have something in common. And things take off from there.

From the parents' point of view, you'll do men-only sessions, women-only sessions, and then you'll do a men and women session with therapists in the room with you, where you'll just have a chat. And that's probably the start of the podcast. It's that first men-only session I sat in. What did you learn from that session? I left and just told myself, I can't be that angry.

I cannot be the anger in that realm of people who were two, three, seven, 15 years on. Just you could feel so much anger in the realm about their loss. And I came out and I said

I didn't want to be angry. Now I've been corrected since to say you have to get angry at some point. It's just how does that anger come out? Yeah. So that's probably a key thing. But one of the other parents that I met there, he was back as a helper.

So if you go through the camp, you can put your name down, you take a year off and you can come back and you work with the therapist to support the other parents. Yeah, which is a healing process of itself. He views it as that's his time with his daughter then. When he comes back each weekend and he gets to talk about her all over again. Yeah, yeah. He had thrown the idea of the podcast to him. He thought it was brilliant. obviously the name

Dads Don't Cry the main focus was going to be on dads unfortunately dads don't like to talk as much as MAMS there's there's the potential issue Yeah so it's evolved Essentially it's evolved

I've had parents contact me that are single parents There is no dad involved and the child has passed away And who might they tell them they can't tell their son or daughter's story So it has evolved I think people will know them straight away even through going through that is like oh this is a parent who is grieve and loss of it yeah um i've had a little bit of hate mail from one person saying like you know it's called dads so stick with dads and i'm like it's not that simple 70% of the people who are listening are women

yeah um the majority of men who come on it's because their wife has told them you should go on there so well what do they say it's like if you don't want to get criticized don't do what he do yeah yeah so look I've done a couple of radio interviews and I've done a couple of newspaper articles and I always felt with the, especially with the radio that, like I was told I would have a certain amount of time

and then when it came to going live it was like we've got to cut it back to 15 minutes. 15 minutes wasn't enough for me to talk about either. And that was probably the push then that I needed. I thought, well, people need longer to speak about their kids. The biggest fear is a grieving parent is that your child would be forgotten.

because it feels that way often. And you need, there needs to be vulnerability in the room. They need to feel safe to actually open up about their grief to you. My conversation, when I'm speaking to someone, they might be telling me about their son and I'm talking about my daughter. It's a conversation that goes both ways. Which is a beautiful thing about a podcast versus a very kind of structured radio style interview.

Yeah. So yeah, I went back to Barrett Sound the second time and one did that said to me basically, where's your podcast? Still haven't heard it. So did you say after your first time down there, you were like, oh, I'm going to start a podcast? I said, I had this idea and I threw up by him and he said, brilliant idea. So I actually went home, journaling wouldn't be for me.

So I find if you're writing something down, it's going in the bin, in my opinion. I know it works for certain people, but for me it just doesn't work. So I started recording. Month by month, I recorded how I was feeling. I would write it down and chat it out then to myself. and on Father's Day I went to release it and I'm also part of a group called Falicon Fathers a social group for bereaved dads and this Saturday before Father's Day I had met with them and everything got a little bit too much and I went home and deleted everything so

it wasn't until October then when I actually went back and what do you think the thought process was when you were deleting it was it like who's going to listen to it self-doubt yeah yeah yeah much of putting it out there could it be better yeah Could it be different? Who's going to want to listen to me just talking about it? I suppose the idea then of just wanting other people on because who am I to give anyone hope when at that stage I wasn't even 12 months into it?

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. So to be able to sit down with someone that's lost a child 10 years ago and talk to them and for me to sit there and actually question, I'm asking them genuine questions about how do I get to where you? How do I enjoy life like you enjoy life now? Yeah, you're not trying to give the answer, you're just going through your own process

and the listeners coming along for the ride essentially. And look, it's flipped by the girl on. She only lost her daughter four months previous. But again, it was a space for her to come and understand that, okay, he knows sort of what I'm going through. I can sit and I can have a chat about it. Yeah. What have you learned about?

about grief from not only your own loss but from listening to other people it's just so different yeah so so different and I think it's grief will challenge relationships not just not just marriages or partners or but your relationship with your kids your relationship with your parents with your friends have you found that to be true about yourself yeah yeah yeah I did a cousin of mine lost a baby nine years ago, 14 months old. And I've done a lot of time to, I've had a lot of time to reflect now. And it would have been someone who I traveled a lot with, who I went out a lot with. And then I moved to Australia for six and a half years and I came back.

So we'd sort of drifted a little bit. And that's when he had lost his baby when I got back. And I met with him two months ago at a funeral. And I said to him, like, I didn't do enough for you. But now I can say that now. I have zero expectations of what people do for me because of what I've lost because of it. But circles of friends change.

And they'll never go back to being the same. Your relationship with your parents can change. I had great expectations for my mom. But she'd never lost anyone. In her 60s, she's never lost. She's never lost a brother or a sister or a parent. What would she know about losing someone? But I had this great idea that she would be brilliant

and that my dad would be useless. And yet it's the opposite. Because my dad has lost both his parents and he's lost his sister. He still doesn't understand what it's like to lose a child. But he understands what a loss is like. And to understand that people are different. So for me, like I said, Sarah, probably didn't do anything for a good eight months.

After three weeks, I got on the plane and went to England to watch a football match. But I went because I needed the headspace. I couldn't tell you what score it was, who scored. I couldn't tell you anything about today. All I could tell you was I enjoyed the 40-minute flight over with just some music in my ears and with my own thoughts. I enjoyed sitting there, even though I couldn't tell you what was happening. And I enjoyed just that little bit of downtime that day. and that that will be my outlet now

is going to a match and just a bit of quiet time and I suppose what you can kind of gather from that is you can't really have expectations of how someone's going to grieve. You haven't got a clue. Everyone is just so different. Yeah.

Yeah, like I just Sarah struggles to put herself in situations now where our neighbour had a baby the day that Ayla passed away So Ayla passed away at 20 to 7 and they had a baby at 7 o'clock. Two days later, I went up to their house with a bunch of flowers. I didn't tell Sarah, I was gone. I just went, got flowers and called in and I wanted to see the baby.

Sarah's only recently seen them. So over a year old now the baby is and she's gone to see that baby. Just triggering parts. And then there's, like I said, about the circle of friends, you make these new friends because you've lost the baby. We've been very lucky that we've welcomed the new baby. we've welcomed the new baby into the world in December, another little girl. Was that scary?

Yes and no. We want to be totally honest, we can say as a man, no. But as a woman, yes. Because it's not my body that's changing. I probably denied that we were pregnant until a month beforehand. And we had to start making decisions about names. I just kept doing what I was doing. Like, it's Sarah's body is changing.

She, I suppose when the baby arrived, my view was always, we've had Thomas from a previous relationship and then when I met Sarah it was miscarriage. Then we had Kara, miscarriage, then we had Ayla. So I thought this time, well, it'll be a miscarriage and then we'll hopefully be able to have another baby after that. But miscarriage shouldn't happen. So we got by that point. You're thinking, okay, we've got by 11 weeks where usually she had the miscarriage. Now what we have to do is have the baby and get past the eight weeks. weeks and two days that Ada was here.

Was that on your mind the whole time? That's on your mind. Yeah. That's the hard part when the baby arrives. But as a man, that nine-month period where the baby's not here and it's not your body changing. And you're not feeling the kicks and the movements. I can only imagine what it was like for her. I suppose another question I wanted to ask is, like even in terms of the interviews that you've done and the conversations you've had with other parents,

parents, like is there any conversations or things that stand out to you or stories that have stood out to you that have really been maybe change your perspective or just really hit home or? I think all them do. You know, it's the techniques that you pick up on. So I've gone off and done a couple of courses just like with the Irish Hospice Foundation and conversations with the parents who are further on as well. When they talk about the child, they talk about that child's life as a whole. Whereas you find someone that is recently bereaved, and when I'm talking about recently, I mean maybe two years or so,

they can be very quick to jump to the death. How the child passed away. And I'd one girl come up and unfortunately her, a couple of days before her daughter's 12th birthday, she took her own life. And there's a fear there for a parent like that, that that's how your child is remembered. Whereas if you think about someone that you've lost

and every time you think about something or you speak about, and I would often ask people to do this when I'm talking to them, I ask them to draw a circle on a page. So we're just having a conversation like this. There's no notes, there's no script. And as we go, I say, every time you tell me something new,

just draw a circle on the page. And then at the end, they have a page that's full of circles. And I just say, see, that small circle in the middle. middle. That's the one how your daughter or your son died and that stem as a person and a whole because you hear people passing away and that's how people remember them sometimes as though did you hear about the girl that this happened to or that happened to

or and like there's more to it than how they passed away like they whether it was eight weeks and two days that they were in your life or whether it was they never actually came into the world living they still have an impact on your life. You know what and that even just reminded me there of when I was even going through your form and you were talking about her smile And you know talking about her smile and not her death Is that so is that something you learned through experience as well? Oh definitely look it's very easy to say don't think about how she died like how she died is It will always be marked

Oh, it's tremendous we haven't been back up to hill of tar it's ten minutes from the house It's one of Sarah's favorite places in the world and we haven't been able to go back up there I love photography. If there was a good sunset or a sunrise, that's where I go and I haven't been able to go there. Do you think you'll ever be able to go back up there? It's funny, last August, I was at my sister's 40th and I drove home.

I wasn't drinking, so I drove home and I pulled off the motorway one stop early and I drove up there and I parked at the gate. I didn't get out of it. car and I drove home then from there and it was I don't know what time I was home. And the next morning Sarah got up and she went out to go for a walk or whatever. And she came back and she said, you'll never guess where I just went. And I said, I just drove up and I parked.

And I said, where to park? And she told me. And I said, I was there last night. But I've said several times, well, we go and the answer is now. I think it's going to be something that I just have to do. Yeah, I was going to say, is that something that you'd like to do together, but I don't know if it would work. Yeah.

I don't know if it worked. There's an element when you're in a relationship. of supporting each other. So Aila's first birthday in November, we went to go for a sea swim together, killed each other the whole way over, killed each other when we got there. And in the end, I just said,

you go for your swim, I'll go for a walk. And when I come back, I'll go for swim and you can go for a walk. So there's probably certain things you have to do by yourself. You think the image is great of let's do it together

and get through it together. But sometimes you have to do it yourself. I suppose another question I wanted to ask on the back of that is even advice for, people you know people who are in a marriage in a relationship and the dynamic of like trying to keep that relationship together while also both grieving the loss of a child I would imagine that's very difficult for people really hard and one of the first things we were

told was there's a high chance your relationship is going to end now that you've lost a baby wow so that's probably just the statistics probably show yeah now i've gone back to to a therapist and said to them, what do you think of this? And they've explained, well, there is a high chance that, but usually if your relationship is ending, isn't that a terrible legacy to leave a child, to say, we've broken up because of, because of your debt.

So if it was going to end, it was going to end. It was going to end regardless, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I get to. But communication is key. Like, there's so many times, like, yeah, we're at each other, but I think it's really hard

because you're cutting your own mind and your own grief and then you're thinking, like, you want things done your way. So I'll give you an example of, when I talk about August, I went to a really, really dark place in terms of,

like, the house is empty for a week, so it was just me there. And I remember Sarah came back and me saying, to what everything I have done for you. And here I am drowning, and all I want is for you to pull me up and you can't do it.

But that's not a fair expectation for me to have. Like, I'm thinking, okay, I've pulled you up and I keep pulling you up, but you can't pull me up this just this one time I need it. So my advice would be try to understand the other person.

You're not trying to keep scores. No, no. There is no score. Yeah, there is no score. And like, who's to say? My darkest days might be ahead of me. Like, she might be past, or is it?

We don't, like, nobody knows, but, like, I'm grateful she's being there and I'm grateful everything that she's done and she continues to do it. Like, I want to go and do a podcast. Off you go. there's never even a question of how long you be where you be like people turning up at the house and staying until two or three in the morning

like there's never been a question about it's like if that's what helps you you do it um trips away with the bereaved dad's group yeah that's fine you go like you don't need me there you just go and you enjoy yourself and so that's what you need you just sometimes you don't need the actual support you just need the approval to say you're going to do what you have to do that's enough support the chance to breathe almost yeah yeah that makes sense um there's a lot of questions that i'd probably want to ask i suppose i want to leave it with um for anyone who's kind of grieving now at the moment do you have any advice for them who are is have just recently gone through a similar situation to yourself like what

i would say reach out reach out and get the help and sometimes that help won't come and the form of a therapist or a counsellor sometimes it'll come in finding that community that's there of similar people and the hardest part is the first step like i've mentioned the bereaved dad's group that i i turned up to do sports photography for them when they were playing a match but they thought it was just a photographer so the next day the next game they had i went and it's five meters of type on both ankles 43 trying to play a match that i'm not meant to be playing in and but i continue to play with them now a year later and I'm still playing with them I've got to travel to England with them to play the English there's a brave team in England so we

played the English team gone to Chicago and October to play but that's I would look forward to it now monthly I meet them and that's sort of my outlet and so many people contact me and say should I go or should I not go and I would say just go once and then maybe take a step back or you get added into the WhatsApp group there's 137 dads in it at the moment so everyone's going to welcome you so just mute the channel yeah

come back to it in two days and say thanks lads that's it and after that take it at your own pace but like therapy is brilliant if you can find the right therapist

but you will also have therapists saying come back to me in six months yeah come back in six months you're not ready to talk yet if you've gone through any bit of a trauma

PTSD the only way I always describe it as the kid's book because of we're going on a bear hunt and they come across all these activities where they come to a storm

and they can't go over and they can't go under if they have to go through it they come to a forest, the swamp. Grief is the same way trauma is the same way you can't go over

it, you can't go under it, you can't just park it there you have to go through it at some point and the longer you keep it locked up that harder it will be just find somebody you can talk to. Can we leave a boy

plug in your podcast because I think it would be obviously someone's going to be listening to this who probably need it so where can they go to listen? Anywhere you usually get them yeah anywhere you usually get them

if you're looking to talk and I always say the people if they want to have a chat and they don't want to be on the podcast I'm happy to sit and have a coffee or have a chat or if you want to come around to one of the groups or whether you're a a mom or a dad

Sarah organizes bereaved ma'am yoga classes as well so she does them maybe a couple of months so the next one of them is June if anyone's interested and again like there's some people there who have their they've lost a child and their mother has lost the child so the two don't come along together but again it's not about even with the dad's group it's not about sitting and it's not 20 men in the change room talking about their sons or daughter it's just about known who you're with but yeah dads don't cry at gmail.com or any any of the apple spotify dad's

on Crowie Podcasts, same on Instagram as well. Everything's open on it. So again, feel free to drop a message. And yeah, I'm happy to have a chat anytime.