Aled, from Bangor, Gwynedd, began to experience depression which affected all areas of his life.
“I felt like I had no motivation to do anything, I wasn’t happy about anything,” the 40-year-old said.
“It sounds really awful, but it felt like I just didn’t have it in me – from dealing with the nightmares – to have that emotional bond [with Bea].
“You see the perfect Instagram family – that’s what I tried to portray to everybody. I thought by acting that way, eventually that would come.”
But it didn’t, and in October 2021, when Bea was just six weeks old, Aled left the house one morning with the intention of ending his life and “eliminating the problem”.
“I started to overthink this and really focus on, I am the problem. I could see everybody was starting to feel down, because of me.”
Aled had previously seen a GP, been diagnosed with adverse childhood trauma and prescribed diazepam, an anxiety medication, but did not feel it worked for him.
He said the only thing that stopped him going through with it was the memory of Sullivan “snuggling up” to him in bed that morning.
So he went to A&E and was met by the police, but felt more could have been done to address the root cause.
“I know the NHS is overstretched and I know we have a massive backlog of people struggling with mental health in this country.
“But what happened following that is not good enough. The system is broken.”