David ‘Christo’ Christopher Hot Tomato radio host creates website for dads dealing with depression

A Gold Coast radio host has opened up about his battle with depression and the new platform he’s created for dads to come together and talk about their battle with the black dog.

GOLD Coast radio host David ‘Christo’ Christopher has opened up about his battle with depression and the new platform he’s created for dads to come together and talk about their battle with the black dog.

The Hot Tomato breakfast host has launched website dadswithdepression.com in a move to try and normalise mental health and have a forum for fellow dads to talk about their issues and get tips on how to get through the dark days.

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Christo from Hot Tomato has created a new platform for dads dealing with depression to talk and be open about what they're going through. Picture: Jerad Williams

Christo says it can be a lonely spot for a dad to be working through mental health issues.

“I can only speak from my own experience with depression, but there’s a tremendous feeling of inadequacy that I’m not a good parent, not a good husband, that I’m not a good work colleague and it’s all the depression talking,” he said.

“There wasn’t any avenue that I knew of that I could go to, to discuss this with other dads.

“Women tend to have their social networks, where they can talk things through. I know this from my wife who has a great network of friends, where if she has a problem she will go to them and talk through their problem.

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Christo with wife Sarah and children, Lila, 8, Jesse, 3, and Noa 5. Picture: Jerad Williams

“Whereas guys, when they tend to get together they won’t sit there and talk about how they’re feeling depressed, so this will give them an avenue to talk about that. To get it out if they need to, so they are not alone in this.”

Beyond Blue say one in eight men suffer depression at some stage in their live and one in five experience anxiety.

Christo said the idea for the site was born out of necessity after opening up about his depression on air and getting contacted by other dads and their wives asking for help, or just to talk.

“I happened to mention on the radio at one point on the show that I suffered from depression and that like a lot of people, I take medication for it.

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Christo said he spoke about depression on the radio and it has helped others to deal with the black dog.

“I don’t know what happened, but I all of a sudden started to get a bunch of messages, not only from a couple of guys asking what I took and how I dealt with it, but also got messages from women who said they think their husband is going through it.

“It has become a thing on the air where I talk about it. I don’t want to be secretive about it and the more I talked about it, the messages I started getting from ladies turned into, ‘hey, my husband has started talking about it, because you’ve been talking about it’.”

He said the forum was a place for people going through the dark moments to come to for advice or to talk to others about what’s going in their life.

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“It’s an information portal. I put up positive stuff, different ideas to help people, exercises and medications and things like that. Importantly it’s also a place for dads to go and chat and talk about depression.

“Then I thought about if they don’t want to talk about it publicly, a lot of guys don’t, so I set up a private Facebook group. The small amount of members on there are having nightly conversations about their lives and what’s going on, really supporting one another.

“In a small amount of time, it’s doing more than I thought it ever would.”

He said while he had not set a goal for the site, he hoped it opened avenues for dads to talk about depression.

“I just want to share as much information about it as possible in the hope that dads like myself that are suffering from depression have somewhere to go to talk to other dads that are going through it, so they don’t feel like you’re travelling this road alone.

“It has already brought me comfort, because I’m conversing with guys that I know are going through the same thing and worse.

“I have depression, but I don’t have it like a lot of people, mine’s not mild, but it’s not horrible either.

“It’s been really good to get online and chat with other guys.”

Visit dadswithdepression.com to connect with other dads and talk about mental health issues.