Losing someone at a very young age is a feeling that can never be forgotten nor is an experience like any other.
This is especially true when someone so close meets their untimely demise, say your parents or siblings. Prince William is one who had to suffer this circumstance when he was just 15 after his mom, the late Princess Diana, suddenly died from a car crash in Paris, France in 1997.
Losing Princess Diana
As you can imagine, it is hard to lose your mother at an age when you still don’t think about your future that hard or when you’re still enjoying your teenage years. To add salt to the injury, the media has always been present covering the painful event and even at times prying more than they should, making mourning privately impossible. The heavily reported and covered unfortunate event became too hard for the nation, more so for the royal family.
The Duke of Cambridge has been open about the devastating loss he and his brother Prince Harry had to face while still young. Prince William has never been secretive when it comes to how the death of their mother had taken a toll on his mental health. In fact, the 36-year-old, along with the other Fab Four namely the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Kate Middleton, has been championing mental health.
No Worse Pain
Recently, the father of three gets real and raw in a BBC special called “A Royal Team Talk: Tackling Mental Health” as he tried to open a conversation on mental health and urged men to talk about what they are feeling.
Prince William admitted that when he lost the Princess of Wales as a teenager, he experienced a pain that’s incomparable to anything, so much so that it might be impossible to encounter another event that may leave the same or worse level of pain.
However, although Prince William said that the pain when he was grieving was not like any other and may be hard to overcome, it is possible to at least find solace in other people who are going through what you’re feeling.
He further underlines the importance of sharing your grief out to those who are experiencing the same thing, citing the British’s stiff upper lip mindset – a person who is always resolute and stoic despite what’s happening in the environment – has worked during difficult times but people need to talk about their emotions.
Men vs Mental Health Problems
Mental health issues never discriminate – men and women alike are prone to suffer from this. However, men are less likely to open up about their emotional battles and therefore would seek help lesser than women.
In fact, there are 6 million men in America that suffer from mental health problems and the percentage of men taking their own lives is four times higher than that of women.