Supporting someone you love through mental health struggles can be complex and multi-layered, and until you’ve been through it, it’s difficult to fully understand. Speaking recently on The Great Company podcast, Alex Jones admitted that she "found it really hard" at times to take what has become her best advice for those who are around someone who’s struggling.
The One Show host reflected that she’d thought she’d been depressed in the past - "but then I saw it and I thought, no, I haven’t". Her husband of almost 10 years, Charlie Thomson, has dealt with his own mental health issues and Alex is adamant that "you *have* to let go of judgement".
This advice can be easier said than done and the presenter confessed, "I found it really hard. I had to bite my tongue so hard from saying, ‘Come on, but… Come on, let’s go for a walk, come on’, you know, and I said to a friend, ‘Come on, let’s go for a drink, don’t be so ridiculous’."
Reflecting on her plea now, Alex was quick to admit she hadn’t understood what they’d been going through and "that’s [her] own failing". The person hadn’t been able to get out of bed "let alone put some clothes on and go for a drink".
Podcast host Jamie Laing reassured Alex that her steadfast commitment to her husband when he was struggling was admirable and spoke volumes. For her, running away or not facing things with Charlie was never an option.
She said, "I’d never run because we’ve made a deal. And we don’t run from each other. We face it all head on. And we have faced a lot of fun stuff, and we’ll face really hard stuff. And, you know, this will be life, that *is* life. It’s up and down. The other thing is, if you know that person, you know that’s… it’s an illness, it’s not them."
Highlighting the complexity of mental health once more, Alex added that if she saw it again in a family member or friend she still doesn't know "whether [she’d] do the right thing". However, she knows she now understands it more than she did.
Alex Jones’s candid remarks are incredibly personal and her advice will likely resonate with many people, whether they’ve been the one struggling or been supporting someone who is. Her husband Charlie, with whom she has three children, experienced a harrowing health ordeal in 2023 which Alex has also spoken about in the past.
"It's my husband's own story to tell, so I won't go into detail, but he suffers with his mental health and we've just been through a really bad period where, bless him, he had Lyme Disease and then he had viral meningitis. Lots of things happened recently," she declared on the How To Fail podcast.
"Charlie's super fun, but he became a shadow of himself. He was so ill, he really went downhill fast mentally," Alex explained. "And again I found myself at a loss thinking ‘Oh my God, I don't know what to do here’. We all talk a good game, but do we actually know how to help people?"
If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s mental health, you can contact MIND on their support line on 0300 102 1234 (open 9am-6pm Monday to Friday) or visit www.mind.org.uk
