Strictly star James Jordan on ‘horrendous’ grief after losing dad to brain tumor

GMB: Strictly's James Jordan discusses death of his father

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With the final episode of Strictly The Real Full Monty on ITV tonight (December 14), former Strictly Come Dancing professional is taking to the dancefloor with fellow professional dancing wife Ola Jordan. The star revealed that his decision to take part in the show was to honour his father who died of a brain tumour at the age of 67, leaving James in a “very dark place”.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain this morning James said: “My dad passed away in March and I was asking to do it initially but the thought of stripping naked wasn’t something I was thinking about.

“But after chatting with Ola and thinking about it, I decided that it was something I wanted to do in memory of my dad.

“It is all about raising awareness of cancer and to make sure you go and get yourself checked.

“And that’s the reason why we all strip. It is basically to say to people, ‘If we can do this in front of millions of people, you can go to the doctors in privacy and get yourselves checked too.'”

For James, taking part in the Full Monty challenge was more than just raising awareness. Since the day he found out that his father was going to die he started to grieve.

“I was grieving for a year and then we lost him and then you start grieving again. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever been through,” James explained reflecting on losing his father.

“Until you go through it yourself, you don’t know what people are going through and it’s absolutely horrendous.

“And listening to all the stories and everyone that was part of the show was kind of like a bit of therapy for me.

“As I had lost my dad recently, I’m not going to lie, I still find it hard today to talk about.”

The toll his father’s death had upon him also affected his wife Ola, whom he didn’t really talk about his dad to.

“It still feels really fresh, so for Ola, we don’t speak about it at home, I don’t talk about it, it’s bad maybe, but I don’t want to.

“I don’t want to speak about it because it just upsets me all the time, so for her today to go through that was quite hard.”

The Mayo Clinic explains that losing a loved one is one of the most distressing experiences people face and for some people, the complicated feelings of grief do not improve even after an extended period of time.

This is known as complicated grief or persistent complex bereavement disorder and can cause individuals extreme difficulty.

The site continues to explain that although all individuals process grief differently, complicated grief can feel like a heightened state of mourning that keeps you from healing.

Common symptoms and signs to spot in others include the following:

• Intense sorrow, pain and rumination over the loss of your loved one
• Focus on little else but your loved one’s death
• Extreme focus on reminders of the loved one or excessive avoidance of reminders
• Intense and persistent longing or pining for the deceased
• Problems accepting the death
• Numbness or detachment
• Bitterness about your loss
• Feeling that life holds no meaning or purpose
• Lack of trust in others
• Inability to enjoy life or think back on positive experiences with your loved one.

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These intense emotions can also start to affect you physically with individuals experiencing:

• A hollow feeling in your stomach
• Tightness in your chest or throat
• Oversensitivity to noise
• Difficulty breathing
• Feeling very tired and weak
• A lack of energy
• Dry mouth
• An increase or decrease in appetite
• Finding it hard to sleep or fear of sleeping
• Aches and pains.

It is crucial that in these circumstances individuals seek medical advice, especially if they start to feel anxious. Getting this help can help you overcome grief. The NHS are able to offer support for a variety of mental health conditions, and recommend talking to a friend, family member or professional counsellor.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a common way to process these feelings and is the most successful treatment to help manage mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The NHS also recommends these six steps to try in order to feel happier and more control of life’s ups and downs:

• Manage stress levels
• Enjoy yourself
• Boost your self-esteem
• Have a healthy lifestyle
• Talk and share
• Build your resilience.

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