Roman Kemp has revealed that he has been suffering from "really bad" panic attacks over the last year following the suicide of his best friend.
In August 2020, Joe Lyons - the producer on Kemp's Capital breakfast show - was discovered dead at his home after taking his own life.
The news blindsided Kemp, who had no idea that Lyons was feeling low, but spurred him on to become a campaigner in the area of youth mental health, particularly among men.
"Over the last year I developed really bad panic attacks," Kemp told The Times. "I was suffering a lot with walking into the radio studio and reliving that day again every day.
"I would have this kind of traumatic thing where if I was on the radio and I heard the door open to my left, I would go back to that point where I looked at my exec producer and she told me he was dead. I had this anxiety feeling hanging over me."
Kemp went on to produce an acclaimed BBC Three documentary about the subject, and also released the book Are You OK?, but as a consequence he has now become fearful of having to routinely discuss the issue of suicide.
"I get panic attacks if I go into parties because I'm worried about people coming up to me and talking to me about suicide," he admitted.
"The toughest thing - and I knew the risk of opening up as much as we did in that doc - is that on a weekly basis I'll have a random person in the street come up to me and tell me about their struggles. Then you have to leave that conversation and try to not take it on.
"For the same reasons, I don't open my DMs on Instagram because there are so many people that reach out to me and talk to me about 'I thought about ending my life yesterday'.
"I'm someone still going through therapy myself. I take an antidepressant every day. I've got to learn to accept my own thoughts, not someone else's. It was worth it to tell Joe's story I still think. I hope so."
Click here for more information on Joe's Buddy Line, a charity set up in aid of Lyons which aims to get young people talking about their mental health.
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