With attention comes haters. No one knows that better than Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, two of the most famous people in the world.
In honor of World Mental Health Day, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the podcast Teenager Therapy to discuss social media, vulnerability, and the strategies they use to focus on their mental health. During the 30-minute conversation, Markle also open up about what she learn from being the “most trolled” person on the planet last year.
“I’m told in 2019 I was the most troll person in the entire world, male or female,” Markle reveal in the podcast’s latest episode, which was release on October 10. “And eight months of that I was invisible—I was on maternity leave with a baby, but what was able to just be manufacture and churn out, it’s almost unsurvivable. That’s so big you can’t even think of what that feels like, because I don’t care if you’re 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging.”
Education
Markle and her husband found common ground with the podcast’s hosts, who are all in high school, noting that bullying and exclusion can have as much of an impact on a student’s mental health as the constant public pressure did on the royal couple’s lives. “We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt,” Markle added. “We all know what it feels like to be isolate or other.”
As for how she copes, Meghan Markle mentioned that journaling is “a really powerful thing. It allows me to reflect on where I’ve come from, and with that comes a lot of perspectives.” For his part, Harry does daily meditations. The royal couple stressed the importance of talking to a doctor, a friend, a family member, or even a stranger with honesty and openness, both to destigmatize mental health concerns and to “lighten the load” of any bad feelings.
Naturally, the group reflect on Meghan Markle particularly vulnerable moment from last year. When a reporter ask Markle how she was dealing with the stress and scrutiny of marriage, motherhood, and royal duties. “It’s really…it’s a lot. So if you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom or trying to be a newlywed, it’s um…. Yeah, well, I guess, and also thank you for asking because not many people have asked if I’m okay. But it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.” Markle also confirm to the reporter that she was “not really okay” at the time.
Public Movement
It’s been almost exactly one year since the highly publicized moment and the duchess just revealed what was going through her mind when it happened. “On the last day of the tour, man, I was tired. I was just about to give Archie a bath,” she said before her husband jumped in to mention that she was also breastfeeding their son at the time. She continued, “People don’t realize [breastfeeding is] like running a marathon, so between every official engagement, I was running back to make sure our son was fed. It was a lot, but at the very end the journalist asked me, ‘Are you okay,’ and I didn’t realize that my answer would receive such interest from around the world.”
“I didn’t think about that answer because I was in a moment of vulnerability because there was no presentation”. “It was just: Here is where I am, I’m a mom who is with a four-and-a-half-month-old baby. But I think it speaks to the fact that the reason with people is that everyone wants to be ask if they’re okay.”
Harry, too, spoke about not brushing off “are you okay” with a one-line text message. He makes a point of checking in with his friends on a deeper level and said that sharing can lead to a “domino effect,” whereby one person’s vulnerability can lead to everyone opening up—and the podcast is just further proof of that.