Star of The One Show Alex Jones previously opened up about her husband Charlie Thomson’s health and being worried that she’d “lost him”.
The Welsh presenter married insurance broker Charlie in 2015. Since exchanging vows, the pair have welcomed three children – sons Teddy and Kit and daughter Annie.
However, appearing on the How To Fail podcast earlier this year, Alex revealed that her husband Charlie “suffers with his mental health“.
Charlie’s health problems resulted in him becoming a ‘shadow of himself’
The 47-year-old presenter explained that, at the time, Charlie had been going through a lot, dealing with Lyme Disease followed by viral meningitis, and she watched him “fall apart”.
I found myself at a loss thinking, oh my God, I don’t know what to do here?
“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.
“Charlie’s super fun, but he became a shadow of himself. He was so ill; he really went downhill fast mentally,” she said.
“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?”
‘I thought I was losing him’
While her husband came out the other side, Alex feared that she was “losing him”.
“I thought I was losing him, as in not actually losing him. But I thought, oh my God, where is he? I can’t see him,” she explained. “I was looking at him and I’m thinking, I’m looking and hearing somebody who’s not my husband.”
Alex has admitted that she doesn’t always understand Charlie’s mental health problems. However, she is happy to have open conversations with him about it. She said she listens to “lots of podcasts where depression is discussed at length” to further help her understand.
Alex also confessed that she felt pressure to balance everything while her husband was unwell as she revealed the impact it had on their young family.
She said: “You feel the pressure because suddenly you’re the breadwinner, you’re the parent who is functioning. Just life admin is now your responsibility, plus the person you love most is falling apart in front of you and you’re trying to piece them together without proper understanding of how best to go about that.
“I think it’s worth sharing because it knocks you for six as a family – not just the person going through it, but the person that then has to deal with the fallout of the whole thing. It’s full-on.”
View this post on Instagram
Charlie’s treatment
Alex admitted that the couple are “lucky” as they were able to seek help for Charlie more quickly by paying to go private.
She shared: “I think the only way to approach it is professional. I said: ‘What I found is, probably the first step is we need to go to the GP. Then these are the people, I’ve got three options for you, do you think you want to ring any of these people and have an initial chat??'”
“And he was like: ‘Well this person sounds a bit more like somebody I could open up to.’ And me taking the legwork out of it for him is what saved it in the end,” she added.
The One Show airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on weekdays at 7pm.
What do you think? You can leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know.