The former Love Islander turned mental health campaigner and podcast presenter tells the Mirror why we’re dealing with grief all wrong in Britain, and reveals how his late diagnosis of ADHD and OCD has been liberating
Love Island isn’t the typical stomping ground for a doctor in emergency medicine, but Dr Alex George is far from a run-of-the-mill medic. Awarded both a doctorate and an honorary degree in recognition of his campaigning work supporting youth mental health, he has worked as everything from a government youth mental health ambassador to a TV presenter, with his own BBC1 show, Dr Alex: Our Young Mental Health Crisis.
His candid sharing about his grief, following his brother Llŷr’s suicide in July 2020, aged just 19 – a loss that turned his world upside down – and his own diagnosis of ADHD. followed by OCD, have also won plaudits from his 2.1 million instagram followers. The author of four bestselling books, and presenter of the podcast Stompcast, Dr Alex – who has a new book, Am I Normal?, out now – says the British approach to grief needs to change.
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Dr Alex, 34, who lives in London, says: “In this country, we tell people that when someone dies they’ll get over it eventually. “We try to move on immediately after the funeral. If you’re still sad months, or heaven forbid years later, it makes you think, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ There’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll never get over the death of my brother, and that’s okay. Do you ever want to get to the place where you’re like ‘I’m fine he’s dead – I’m cool with the fact my brother killed himself?’ I’m certainly not going to ever get to that place.”
He also disputes the concept of ‘five stages of grief’ – denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance – developed in 1969 by Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying. He says: “It’s one person’s theory, derived from studies on the terminally ill. It doesn’t, in my opinion, take into account the shock and utter horror I felt when I took the phone call from my dad to tell me Llŷr had died.
“When someone dies, people believe the end goal is acceptance and peace with their loss, rather than realising that grief is a fluctuant state of experience. Some days you’re happy, some days you are sad. Some days you’re laughing about the funny stories, other days you’re crying because you really miss them. That’s actually normal. Never getting over someone dying is normal.”
Dr Alex says the expectation was for him to move on after Llŷr’s funeral. He says: “The flowers came, everyone messaged saying, ‘I’m so sorry’, the funeral happened… and then everyone goes quiet and just kind of waits for you to get over it. ‘Give them a couple of months and they’ll be fine’, they think. And that creates an impossible task.
“People were scared to say his name. What I really needed was someone to say, ‘Okay we’re going to talk about him and keep him alive’.” Struggling to deal with his loss, Alex turned to drink. He says: “I was either working really hard or drinking. I tried to suppress my grief with alcohol and it came out in depression. I was overeating and not exercising. I just wasn’t looking after myself. I was 21 stone. I was a ball of stress and had a breakdown.
“At rock bottom, almost three years ago to the day, I sat in my barber’s chair. They said, ‘What do you want today?’ And I looked in the mirror, into my eyes, and thought, ‘I don’t know where to start’. I was completely lost. I didn’t recognise myself. I was in such a mess.”
Fortunately, Alex realised his alcohol abuse was masking something else. Recognising his symptoms of neurodivergence, he sought help and in September 2022 was diagnosed with ADHD, followed by OCD in 2025. He is also being assessed for autism. Dr Alex says: “I’ve used alcohol all my life to both medicate myself to be ‘normal’ in social situations and round off anxiety, and then, later, to numb grief and pain.”
Fortunately, after his experience in the barber shop, Dr Alex vowed he would change. He says: “I didn’t drink again. I started walking every day. Slowly but surely I turned things around. It’s taken time but I’m in a much better place now.”
During his four years as the government youth mental health ambassador, Dr Alex worked closely with the charity YoungMinds to improve and provide funding for mental health support teams in schools and helped to pioneer early support hubs, which he’s now calling to be rolled out nationwide. And his book, A Better Day, a mental health handbook for young people, won Children’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Looking back, Alex now recognises that ADHD affected him growing up. It meant he lost concentration in class at school and was very sensitive, making him a target for bullies. He says: “One teacher said, ‘I think we need to lower our expectations of Alex a little bit.’ That comment made in front of me caused a lot of pain.”
Determined to prove them wrong, he carved out a successful career in medicine. But he is saddened by how many neurodivergent children go undiagnosed. He says: “A child by the age of five with ADHD on average has 20 000 negative comments or experiences, because being neurodivergent creates friction and people don’t like it. ‘Why can’t you concentrate like the other kids?’ It creates this feeling that something is really wrong with you and it perpetuates.”
With NHS estimates that around 2.5 million people in England have ADHD, Alex continues: “People say we’re overdiagnosing ADHD now. I say that’s not true – we know more now and these diagnoses can change lives, helping children to understand themselves and adults to understand them.
“If I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was six, seven, eight years old I would have had a very different experience at school. I’d have managed my own emotions much better. I would use the techniques that are beneficial, and maybe had medication. I definitely would never have drunk alcohol, and would have gone on to probably have had much happier teenage years and 20s.
“I was very lucky that I had support from my parents and lucky, too, that I ended up in a career that worked for me.” Alex goes as far as to describe ADHD as a “superpower” when he was a busy A&E doctor at University Hospital Lewisham in south London – working on the frontline during the pandemic.
He says: “Stick me in A&E, with lots of patients and fast-paced things going on, it’s dopamine heaven to me. I’m amazing in that environment. I was a very good A&E doctor, because I could jump between cases, I could focus then go on to the next thing. It was brilliant for me. But stick me in an office for six hours and I can’t function, I’d probably get sacked.”
While Dr Alex believes society was built for the neurotypical, he says being diagnosed has changed his life. He says: “We need to empower anyone with differences, because actually everyone has their strengths and if you get people in the right place, they can flourish. It’s like being planted in the wrong field versus the right field at the right temperature – all of a sudden you’re thriving.”
*Dr Alex George is the author of Am I Normal? Published by Octopus Books, 15th January, £22
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