Sadness and grief are natural human emotions which can get triggered according to the circumstances. But clinical Depression is defined as a common but serious mood disorder. It affects even the most mundane of our day-to-day activities such as sleeping, eating or working. It is a condition which can affect anybody at any point of time without prior notice. But fortunately, it is treatable with professional help.
Addressing the contemporary issue of mental health, Prince Harry confessed about his struggle of coming to terms with the death of his mother, the late Princess Diana of Wales. Breaking the usual royal tradition of staying silent about personal issues, he courageously talked about his condition.
“For a lot of my 20s, I was a problem,” he candidly confessed.
He also revealed that he had come “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions.” He struggled till his late twenties to come to terms with his mother’s tragic death in a car accident. He didn’t realise what was happening to him for a long time. He went into a shell and “shut down all his emotions” for nearly 20 years. The continued suppression of his grief eventually led to “two years of total chaos” after 20 years of feeling nothing.
Like many people, for a long time, he was ignorant and in denial about his condition. “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?” he said.
He pretended that life was great until he started to receive counseling and faced his problems. He shared,
“All of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront, and I was like, there is a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with.”
Prince William, his elder brother, supported him and even encouraged him to seek professional help. He told him: “Look, you really need to deal with this. It is not normal to think that nothing has affected you.” Encouraging everybody to break the stigma of mental health, Prince Harry said, “The experience I have had is that once you start talking about it, you realise that actually, you’re part of quite a big club.”
Mental health issues are not very apparent to the naked eye, but that doesn’t mean one should ignore them. Seeking help is always advised.
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