How the Royal Family Has Tackled Mental Health
There are many celebrities who are speaking out about mental health these days, not just here, but overseas as well. Over in England, the royal family has been doing a lot to raise mental health awareness as well. Both Prince Harry and Prince William have dealt with mental health issues since the death of their mother, Princess Diana, and now that Prince William is a father, he feels more committed than ever. The Royals Helping With Mental Health As Prince William told USA Today, he suffered from mental health and depression issues when he was working as an air ambulance pilot. Seeing children being hurt especially took a tough toll on him. (Prince William is now a father of three.) “The relation between the job and the personal life was really what took me over the edge,” he explained. “And I started feeling things that I’ve never felt before. I got very sad and very down…You start to take away bits of the job and keep them in your body.” From his own experiences, Prince William is speaking out about the need for better mental health resources in the work place. He understands how many people don’t want to bring their problems home with them, and will need someone in the workplace they can confide in before things get bad. As Prince William continued, he’s hoping there will be “more voices in the workplace” that can let people know that they’ve experienced the same thing. Even Royalty Have Mental Health Struggles Prince Harry and Kate Middleton have founded their own organization to help people with mental health issues. In England, there’s the old saying of Keep Calm and Carry on, but as Prince William told The Fix, “Too many people have suffered in silence for too long, and the effects of this can be devastating.” Kate Middleton said she wants people to be “thinking about [mental health] as we do our physical health.” And Prince Harry, speaking of the stigma surrounding mental issues, added, “In the past, the phrase ‘mental health’ would be translated to mental illness. But thankfully that is changing.” Prince Harry is also a veteran of the army, and he’s had to grapple with PTSD. It was bad enough when he lost his mother to an accident in 1997, but he had to bury his mother with the eyes of the world watching the funeral. “I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances.” Harry also felt that not properly dealing with the death of his mother gave him anxiety attacks. Once he joined the army, he finally confronted his mental issues head on, and became determined to help others with the same issues as well. Thankfully he realized so many others have the same issues, and it’s okay. “So many people who suffer from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, it can be from when you were younger…So many people are, you know, like slightly mental. Awesome! We are all mental, and have all got to deal with our stuff.”
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