Star of the year prince harry
HRH chats mental health issues
Why did you choose mental health to focus on, and start the Heads Together campaign?
All the charitable work that William, Catherine and I have been doing – whether that’s homelessness, kids and early intervention, or my connection with the veterans – everywhere we go, a conversation happens that links to mental health. We put our heads together – funnily enough – and thought what would be good is if we could somehow capture the interest of the UK and change the conversation on mental health.
What is your personal experience with mental health?
I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had quite a serious effect on not only my personal life, but my work as well. 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? It’s not going to bring her back. It was 20 years of not thinking about it and then two years of total chaos. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
So, what changed?
My brother and other people saying, “You need to deal with this. It’s not normal to think that nothing’s affected you.” I got to a point, at the age of 28, where I really started to care and was trying to find a path in life. Then, when I got to 30, I was like, “Wow, this is a much better way of life [dealing with the grief].”
Why is it important to get the country talking about this issue?
Imagine if everybody’s been wandering around at 50 per cent mental capacity. Imagine what we, as a country, as individuals, could achieve by unlocking that next 25 per cent. That is the most unifying thing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a prince, a mother, a CEO, a white van driver or a kid – mental health relates to everybody. n