Harry’s revelation has helped so many

Thank you, Prince Harry. The 32-year-old prince has helped us all by ditching his stiff upper lip.

He came by that lip honestly. The House of Windsor is famous for its steadfastness, stability, and calm in rapidly changing times. These qualities helped lead the United Kingdom in its successful challenge against the Nazis in the Second World War. They helped make Queen Elizabeth a beloved monarch worldwide.

For his part, Harry survived a difficult childhood, the miserable end of which came when he was 12 and his mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a car crash.

He then suppressed his own grief, while serving in the military and honouring injured soldiers.

Then he did the bravest thing of all, when he recently announced that his strategy had been all wrong.

Harry finally broke his silence about his loss in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

"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 "shut down all his emotions" and was often "very close to a complete breakdown.”

Only in his late 20s, after starting counselling, did he start to recover.

“All of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront,” he said.

His comments are “a watershed’ that will help open up discussions of mental health everywhere, says Fred Wagner of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Waterloo-Wellington branch.

“I find it personally inspiring, given the family he’s come from,” said Wagner.

“When people like Harry take these kinds of risks, they make it that much easier for the rest.”

The association offers a full range of mental health services including psychiatrists, social workers and a wide range of counselling groups. About 10,000 people receive treatment at any one time.

Our discussion on mental health is at an uneasy crossroads. Lots of celebrities urge us to talk about it. So does the “Let’s Talk” campaign of Bell.

But there’s theory and then there’s practice.

Set the public relations aside and ask yourself this: Would I feel more comfortable disclosing to my boss that I have to take a few days off because of a broken wrist, or am I more at ease saying I’m getting treatment for depression and suicidal thoughts?

“We’re still really preoccupied with how people think of us,” Wagner said.

And many people still think mental health problems are a sign of a weak character.

Few public figures seem more buoyant than Prince Harry, with his history of roguish pranks and his fondness for sports.

He and his older brother, Prince William, have made it a personal priority to support discussion of mental illness as if it were any other illness, without stigma. But that’s the easy part. Letting millions of people into your own personal vulnerability, when you’ve been taught all your life to avoid that at all costs, that’s the hard part.

Good for you, Your Royal Highness.