Welsh TV presenter Matt Johnson has spoken about his mental health challenges and ongoing efforts to care for his wellbeing. Matt Johnson, 40, has been involved with the NHS Wales ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign to speak about depression and the struggles he faced during his early career.
He's also shared the "true pain" he feels following the deaths of Love Island presenter Caroline Flack and Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon - two of his close friends who took their own lives after their own mental health problems.
The Caerphilly star has been publically open about his battle with depression and how he came close to taking his own life in 2009. Since then, he has become an ambassador for MIND and other charities to keep the conversation going on ways to help with mental health. He identified a shift when he began to understand how he was feeling by opening up to others and praises doing "the little things" such as exercise, getting out in nature and journaling to continue to empower his body and mind today.
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Speaking to WalesOnline, Matt felt that generational hardship, economic and financial factors played into his mental health as well as millions of others. He said: "I know people still in those areas that struggle with mental health because they haven't got the tools that they could have available." Matt is passionate about ensuring tools to cope with and explore mental health are available for those in need of help. He added: "I've been very fortunate to progress, have lots of therapy, and be able to talk more about this situation.
“To tell my story, it's taken a long time to properly understand it, and then to being able to provide practical tools that could help people alongside the Welsh Government... it was a defining moment in the progress of my own mental health journey.”
In 2013, Matt decided to speak publicly about his depression in an interview with a national magazine and then in conversation with his colleagues on ITV’s This Morning. However, Matt feels that he's only recently come to understand where his problems stemmed from and is truly "safe" talking about it. He said: "I never regret anything. But, if I was to give my younger self some advice, if I could have gotten out of that, I should have because I wasn't ready to talk about it. I hadn't really talked about it with my parents up until then, or anybody. But such as my life, I feel like the experience pushes me to learn about myself a lot."
In 2017, Matt made a documentary for S4C, Iselder a Fi, to encourage discussion about mental health. He said: "The documentary for S4C was just the start of my process, and I would like to go back one day and just almost like on an iPad, spread it out, just to get into it a bit deeper. Looking back on it, I felt like it was something I needed to say, but I didn't really know how to say it then. But I think the production company I worked for really helped me and was a brilliant part of my therapy."
He added: "I didn't know when I did the documentary that I was safe and it was a risk for me doing it. Now I do things and I know I'm safe. I've done a lot of work in my feelings and going back to the depths of why I felt that way, and also a lot of work in grief with my friends taking their lives. I now know I'm going be okay if I have a bad day. I know I'm going be okay if I take a chance and it goes wrong - I'm not going to feel that way. I genuinely believe that.
"Looking back on that documentary, I'd like to do another one, maybe in three years, which will be the 10-year anniversary and just like just go into certain elements and go deeper [into it], knowing that I'm safe."
Speaking on those he lost to suicide, he shared that its taken him years to wrap his head around his friends Sophie Gradon and Caroline Flack taking their own lives. He said: "They were very close to me and its taken me years to really try and wrap my head around it. It's true pain knowing as well what the mindset of a human goes through when they're in that moment. To know what my beautiful friends went through is genuinely heartbreaking." Matt added that although more is being done for mental health checks for reality TV contestants, more mental health tools should be available for other professions too.
In the last 12 years, Matt has "spent thousands" on wellness retreats and therapy to access tools to help with his mental health. He said: “When I was feeling suicidal, I was desperately depressed for a few years. If I had known what I know now, I wouldn't have been in that situation. The awareness wasn't as good then, there weren't campaigns like this left, right and centre, led by men and women - the landscape of mental health has completely changed. " Matt added that "there's still lots more to do" when it comes to raising awareness.
Matt now uses his platform to share all the knowledge he gained over the last decade to help others - like the “Robin Hood of wellness” - sharing the tools he learnt for free. He said that knowing practical mental health tools that can be used in day-to-day life, as a matter of precaution, would have prevented him from being in a situation where he contemplated taking his own life.
Matt started an Instagram account called The Checkin Co and also posts on his own social media to get people talking about their mental health. He said: “I go to a retreat for myself and learn tools or a technique or something that helps me and I want to share it. The check-in was the most profound thing I learnt very early on in the quest to understand myself a bit more. The power of the check-in to say three words to share how you feel in that precise moment in a group, on your own, in a journal or on the internet, without anybody being allowed to fix you or tell you what to do - I found the most liberating thing in the world.
“I never really knew about how I felt until that retreat. I had so much fear about being a man and not being able to show my feelings, and I was suddenly with 15 other guys sharing my feelings and didn’t have a choice - it was like electricity being put through my body.”
Matt described having the same feeling when starting to write his future book. He shared that it will be autobiographical, with the basis being on what he’s learnt from the tragic events in his life and the tools he uses to help his mental health. He added: “I want people to read it and be informed, but also come away with practical tools that they can utilise themselves.”
Matt is now working with the NHS Wales ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign, which aims to encourage and enable people to prioritise and improve their health. The collaboration with Matt aims to remind people to take care of their mental health and signpost to services such as CALL, the mental health helpline for Wales.
There are small things that we can all do help protect our mental wellbeing, including:
- Taking breaks away from social media
- Getting outdoors and connecting with nature
- Being kinder to yourself
- Staying connected with, and talking to, friends and family
- Doing things you love
- Getting enough sleep
But if you’re struggling then it’s important to talk to someone about how you’re feeling – it can be a friend, colleague, or family member, or you can call the Mental Health Helpline, CALL, for confidential mental health support. Call 0800 132 737 or text ‘help’ to 81066.
If you’re aged 16 or over living in Wales and are experiencing mild to moderate anxiety, depression, or stress then you can access a free online therapy service through SilverCloud without needing to go through your GP.
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