There has been a lot of discussion about the death of Princess Diana over the course of the last twenty years. However, there has been very little discussion about how it affected most of the family. Prince Harry has been something of a controversial figure over the course of his life. However, recently, he has opened up about how his mother's death had a profound effect on him in subsequent years.
A Quiet War Inside
People might now wonder about the implications of this, at least as far as how it affects what people know about Prince Harry. People are curious if this is one of the reasons why he has appeared to have been something of an unstable person over the course of his life. On the other hand, many people care much more about the broader implications of Prince Harry's struggle with depression. This is a revelation that is opening up more of a discussion related to mental health issues in general.
People all remember the mental health awareness campaign that the royal family promoted back in 2016. It's always positive to see people with such influence trying to talk about such an important issue. They can use their influence in order to really help society at large come to terms with important problems, since so many people listen to, and heed, so many things that the royal family says. They might as well use that influence positively and the indication is that they are. His struggle is big news.
However, in this case, there was a personal reason behind the mental health campaign. Prince Harry has been trying to process the cognitive effects of grief for around twenty years by this point, and so mental health is a topic that is important to him. Prince Harry sought treatment over a decade after Princess Diana died but a lot of the underlying problems remained unresolved as time continued onward.
How Prince Harry Feels
Prince Harry has said that his condition was certainly severe and that he felt as if he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown at various points. His brother and other loved ones managed to help convince him to get the therapy that he needed, and this truly made all the difference in terms of how his life turned out over the course of the next decade. Support from loved ones made a difference and it helped him.
Part of mental health awareness is about getting people to understand that taking a pill or seeing a therapist does not constitute immediate solutions to the problem. Depression, anxiety, and similar mental health issues have to be solved on an individual level as well. There isn't going to be one fix that will work for all people.
Prince Harry managed to find his own solutions to the problem. Other people suffering from the same conditions will need to do the same thing, and their solutions will probably be completely different from his. All that matters is that in the end, those who are feeling depressed or oppressed seek the help they deserve.
What Prince Harry Says
Prince Harry has talked about the fact that therapy helps people realize that their condition and their experiences are actually more common than they would have believed and that this made all the difference for him. The World Health Organization has estimated that more than three hundred million people now suffer from depression. The revelation that Prince Harry has long suffered from depression, particularly in light of the circumstances, should not be as surprising.
Prince Harry has said that he regrets not bringing all of these issues up earlier. Many people struggling with depression all around the world often feel the same way as soon as they finally do open up about it. Talking about depression is very difficult.
The fact that Prince Harry is a person in the public eye does make a huge difference. This obviously had an impact on his own personal grieving process. Grieving publicly can feel false at times, and that a person might as well skip grieving altogether. Of course, Prince Harry's coping mechanism over the course of a decade was more or less to avoid grieving altogether. The natural response is to try to ignore the issue.
Impact on the Public
His story helps to reveal a number of problems with the way society tends to handle mental illness. People are encouraged to avoid expressing their feelings. They are told that their feelings don't actually matter and that they should just try to get over them. However, this doesn't realistically work. Those deep-rooted feelings will just reveal themselves in other ways. Depression is a real medical problem and people can't rationalize away the symptoms. That's why it's so important to seek out help.
It's well-known in psychology that people only have so much control over their emotions and the thoughts that they express in the first place. Helping people with mental illness partly needs to involve getting them to open up about their feelings. This is one of the reasons why mental health awareness, particularly on a massive level, is so important. Famous individuals like Prince Harry are helping everyone when they aren't afraid to tackle the issues and open up about what's going on.
If you know someone struggling with grief or depression, be there for them, be a support, and let them know they're not alone. You can make a powerful difference.
