WE know him as the tough-guy adventurer who is either climbing Mount Everest, racing to the South Pole or running a marathon through the desert.
But Ben Fogle has revealed how the stillbirth of his son Willem in 2014 turned him into a control freak — and eventually led to the mental health breakdown he suffered last year.
The 51-year-old TV presenter, whose shows include Countryfile and New Lives In The Wild, said: "A number of years ago, my wife and I lost a son, who was stillborn.
"And it's amazing how you deal with a loss like that.
"My wife Marina was very raw with her emotions.
"Mine were much more measured.
"It doesn't mean I felt it any less, but I probably kept them within.
"And one of the big things that happened to me was that I became obsessed about control, because I'd lost control there.
"I was actually in Canada when it happened, and I had to take a flight to get back.
"I didn't know if my wife was going to survive.
"It was like one of the periods in my life, I've had a few, when I had lost all control.
"And what my brain, this amazing thing, did was it made me absolutely obsessed about control.
"And I wanted to control everything.
Ben, who has son Ludo, 15, and daughter Iona, 13, added: "I wanted to control how happy my children were.
"I couldn't bear it if they weren't happy.
"But you can't. You can give hugs and kisses.
"But if a child is sad, you can't just magic happiness.
"And I think when you try to control things when you are in the public eye and in modern life, that's really, really difficult.
"And that for me was also one of the problems. It was like a clash.
"A perfect storm of circumstances that all culminated together. I think it was a perfect storm.
"I think what happened in 2023 is that I overdid it.
"I was being over-stimulated, I was absorbing too much, I was doing too much, I was expecting too much of myself.
"It was losing control of my emotions.
"It was that lack of control that eventually led to a point where I had to press the pause button."
'DOOM SCROLLING'
Ben, whose symptoms included crippling paranoia and anxiety, was then diagnosed with ADHD, and said that one of his first remedies was to delete social media apps from all his devices
Speaking for a forthcoming episode of the High Performance podcast, he added: "It was definitely a chaotic period that I haven't completely got over."
Asked what the first warning signs of him not being well were, Ben, who first found fame on 2000 BBC One reality show Castaway, said it was when he was about to head to Antarctica for a month recreating the journeys of explorers Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton.
He said: "On the lead-up to that — it was over the Christmas period, I left on Boxing Day — I was agitated.
"A bit like if you have a dog and you see the dog walking in circles.
"I felt restless and sick. I didn't want to go and I couldn't really put my finger on why I was feeling that way.
"Now in hindsight I realise it was probably what is sometimes described as a panic attack.
"I probably should have not done it. I did it. I loved it.
"It was an amazing, amazing experience. I then came back and I was almost over-elated.
"My emotions were see-sawing up and down. There was almost too much elation.
"That was the point of these sort of yo-yoing emotions that in hindsight I realise were my body saying, 'Do you know what, you just need to slow down, stop being hard on yourself'."
Explaining what made him seek help, he added: "It was lots of tiny little alarm bells. It was a period of moments.
"I just realised I needed to do something and to ask someone who perhaps was more knowledgeable in this field.
"I saw a psychiatrist to kind of explain what I was feeling, how I was struggling a little bit.
"I think the whole thing probably lasted in its kind of storm-like period a couple of weeks.
"And then I'd say it took quite a while to kind of clear that up — a couple of months probably. It's probably an ongoing thing.
"I deleted social media apps from all my devices.
"Like everyone, I was doom scrolling.
"I think there's an assumption — because of what I do, I'm constantly out in the wilderness, I'm constantly extolling the virtues of living in an analogue world, of switching off — that I am somehow completely immune to that.
"But I spend an hour coming into London on the train, scrolling and looking and looking at the news."
Now he tries to avoid his phone on trains and leaves it behind when he is running or walking the dog.
He has also cut back on work, turning down offers he would previously have accepted.
And he spends an astonishing ten hours every day outside, even when the weather is freezing.
He said: "I live in the countryside.
"I've got lots of dogs, we've got horses, and I am probably outside, let's say, of a 12-hour conventional day when I'm home, we and the family are outside probably ten hours of that — even in the winter with torches out."
- Ben Fogle's full interview can be heard on the High Performance podcast on Monday on all major platforms.
- Ben is touring the country in March and April speaking about his life and travels in his show called 'Wild'.
Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme – Sun Club.
Post a Comment