{"id":369545,"date":"2025-12-25T15:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T15:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/369545\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T15:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T15:35:06","slug":"dr-alex-george-looks-back-a-dying-friend-told-me-to-throw-myself-into-things-more-love-island-came-into-my-mind-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/369545\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Alex George looks back: \u2018A dying friend told me to throw myself into things more \u2013 Love Island came into my mind\u2019 | Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex George in 1996 and 2025<\/a>Alex George in 1996 and 2025. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Grooming: Emily Dhanjal at Arlington Artists. Archive image: courtesy of Dr Alex George<\/p>\n

Born in Carmarthen in 1991, Dr Alex George is\u00a0a former NHS doctor, an author and a mental health campaigner. After studying medicine at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, he worked as an A&E doctor in London before joining the cast of 2018\u2019s Love Island. In 2021, he was appointed the UK government\u2019s youth mental health ambassador. He\u00a0is\u00a0the author of five books; his latest, Happy Habits, is out now, with Am\u00a0I\u00a0Normal? published on 15 January.<\/p>\n

Mum loved to make outfits for special occasions, and Christmas was no\u00a0exception. It was an important time of year for our family; she was determined for us to experience the magic of tradition. It would have been a small, intimate day in Capel Dewi in Carmarthenshire \u2013 just me, my parents, my two brothers and my grandmother.<\/p>\n

I was a happy, sensitive boy, with a very vivid imagination. But a few years after this was taken, I started to have friction with the school system. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is not yet part of the framework of diagnosis for ADHD, but a lot of us find it the hardest part. It meant that criticism from teachers and friends \u2013 even when they weren\u2019t actually rejecting me \u2013 would cripple me. I\u00a0was constantly living with the feeling of not being good enough and not fitting in. I\u00a0struggled to concentrate in class. Once, I remember asking absent-mindedly if Santa was a man or woman, and the teacher went so ballistic that the teacher next door heard and came to comfort me.<\/p>\n

Much of what I\u00a0witnessed during the pandemic can\u2019t be repeated; it\u2019s too horrific for most people to handle<\/p>\n

Eventually I got put into a separate classroom, one for kids who were struggling with varying levels of disability. Mum had to come in and say: \u201cI know Alex is pretty bright, so what\u2019s going on here?\u201d In front of me, the teacher replied: \u201cI just think we need to lower our expectations of Alex in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

While I will never forget that moment, it gave me the determination to prove them wrong. All I needed was\u00a0an incentive. In fact, when it came to my GCSEs, Dad said he\u2019d give me \u00a3100 towards a car for every A I got. Money was tight at the time, and Mum was cross with him for making that promise. But it worked. I\u00a0got straight As.<\/p>\n

I watched a lot of 24 Hours in A&E growing up. After I graduated in 2015, I\u00a0went to work in King\u2019s College London \u2013 the same hospital featured in\u00a0the show. It was intense, but it was\u00a0my dream job, and I was content. One day, I got a message through a\u00a0dating app from a TV producer who said: \u201cWe\u2019d love to talk to you about coming on Love Island.\u201d I declined, and laughed it off. But they were persistent. Around the same time, my friend Freya Barlow, a fellow medical student, got acute myeloid leukaemia. She had multiple rounds of chemo and a bone transplant. She didn\u2019t have long to live and said: \u201cAlex, you\u2019re so capable. I want you to throw yourself into things more. I can\u2019t continue my life so please live yours.\u201d I don\u2019t think she meant Love Island, but it was the\u00a0thing that came into my mind. I\u00a0went for an interview and was offered a\u00a0place in 2018. I said yes. At the very least, I\u00a0thought it could be a holiday for a few weeks.<\/p>\n

Being put into the spotlight was overwhelming. But it was nothing compared with the pandemic. I was working in A&E at University Hospital Lewisham at the time. Much of what I\u00a0witnessed can\u2019t be repeated; it\u2019s too horrific for most people to handle. The\u00a0number of people dying was huge,\u00a0and constant, but I also had to tell families: \u201cYou can\u2019t come in to say goodbye to your dying wife, who is 30. Here\u2019s an iPhone so you can talk to\u00a0her instead.\u201d I had that conversation hundreds of times. That is not a normal way of looking after grieving people. We couldn\u2019t provide the level\u00a0of care necessary and it made\u00a0me\u00a0feel like the devil.<\/p>\n

Because I was working in the pandemic, I hadn\u2019t seen my family for a long time, but I was due to go to Wales to visit them in the summer. A week before, I got a phone call from my dad, and my whole life changed. My 19-year-old brother, Lly\u0302r<\/a>, had killed himself.<\/p>\n

I was diagnosed with OCD recently and am being treated for that. I wouldn\u2019t say my mental health is perfect, but I am much more functional<\/p>\n

During those first days of shock, I\u00a0had to grab our family in freefall. If\u00a0I\u00a0hadn\u2019t, my parents would have ended up dead or sectioned. They were like children, unable to function. I\u00a0was\u00a0minus 100 in terms of my stability, but I had to take the lead. I\u00a0spoke at the funeral. I took my mum out in the car for three hours a\u00a0day so\u00a0she was out of the house. She needed time away from Dad so they wouldn\u2019t make each other worse.<\/p>\n

Two days after Lly\u0302r died, I wrote to\u00a0my manager and said: \u201cI\u2019m going to carry on writing my book.\u201d She wrote back: \u201cYou\u2019re insane, you\u2019ve just lost your brother.\u201d I wasn\u2019t doing it in a\u00a0callous way; I was in a black hole and trying to cling on to things that would make me feel normal. What I really needed was to accept that nothing would be the same ever again. Now I\u00a0know that the only relief I\u2019ll get from grief is death. It sounds crazy, and I\u00a0really do want to live, but when I look at my parents, I feel jealous that they are closer to that relief than I am.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, I sat down in my hairdresser\u2019s and looked in the mirror. I realised I had completely lost myself. I was 20st but mostly what shocked me was my eyes. I thought: \u201cI don\u2019t even know where Alex is any more.\u201d I was campaigning and working too hard and drinking a lot more than usual. I was trying to numb myself. So\u00a0I needed to change something. I\u00a0put\u00a0down the bottle, and went for a walk each day, which is how my podcast The Stompcast<\/a> started.<\/p>\n

As well as sobriety I realised I needed exercise and therapy. Since then, I\u2019ve had ups and downs \u2013 I was diagnosed with OCD recently and am being treated for that. I wouldn\u2019t say my mental health is perfect, and it never will be, but I am much more functional.<\/p>\n

Being in nature with my dog Rolo is the most beneficial thing. I also ride my motorcycle, take antidepressants, listen to classical music, and am careful about who I\u00a0spend my time with. I don\u2019t watch the news too much because it can be\u00a0triggering.<\/p>\n

I have realised that while I can\u2019t bring my brother back, I can try to help\u00a0others. Mum does, too \u2013 she has put her amazing costume skills to good use and raised lots of money knitting for charity.<\/p>\n

The day after my brother died, my friend drove me to Llansteffan beach. It was a busy summer\u2019s afternoon. As soon as I arrived, it\u00a0felt as if the crowds parted. Everyone seemed to fall silent; they all knew what had happened. I walked through them, and when I turned back, life had resumed. The kids were playing, waves kept rolling in and out, the birds kept tweeting. And in that moment, I\u00a0realised that life goes on. The sun will always shine on Llansteffan beach, and we are all just grains of sand.<\/p>\n

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline<\/a> on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org<\/a>, or text HOME<\/a> to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex George in 1996 and 2025Alex George in 1996 and 2025. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-369545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}