Prince Harry And Prince William Speak Out With Kate Middleton About The Loss Of Their Mother

Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Prince Harry have been heavily involved in the Heads Together campaign, speaking out about mental health and the importance of recognizing it. Recently, in a video for the campaign’s #OktoSay series, Prince William and Prince Harry opened up about the death of their mother and how it affected them.

The death of a loved one, especially a parent, is a difficult time for anyone to go through. Every single person deals with the accompanying grief in different ways. Some people seek comfort in food or loved ones, while others prefer to isolate themselves from others. These ways of dealing with grief aren’t necessarily bad. There is no wrong way to process grief. The danger comes when people choose to remain in a state of grieving, not allowing themselves to heal.

According to the Royal Foundation website, the Heads Together campaign is a partnership with certain mental health supporting charities that desire to provide help for those who need it, all while raising awareness about the issue. The goal of the campaign is “to change the national conversation on mental wellbeing.”

In the video, which can be seen in this article in People, Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate Middleton are seen sitting around a table on the grounds of Kensington Palace. Kate brings up how the birth of her son changed her life, and how no amount of preparation and books on child-rearing can accurately prepare one for motherhood.

“There’s no rule book,” added Prince William. “There’s no training that teaches you how to do it. You just learn from previous generations and hope that you can translate it into what, you know, what you want to do.”

As the video progresses, Prince William brings up the death of his mother, stating that he and Prince Harry “have not talked enough” about their mother. Prince William and Prince Harry were fairly young when their mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash, with Prince William being 15-years-old and Prince Harry only 12. Even though Prince William and Prince Harry did not really speak much about the experience, Prince William comments that he and Prince Harry have been “uniquely bonded” because of it.

Kate asked Prince Harry if the campaign has helped him realize that he and Prince William had not spoken enough about their mother’s death and how it made them feel. Prince Harry agreed that it had.

“I always thought to myself, you know, ‘what’s the point of bringing up the past?'” said Prince Harry. “‘What’s the point of bringing up something that’s only going to make you sad. It ain’t going to change it, it ain’t going to bring her back.’ And when you start thinking like that, it can be really damaging.”

Yahoo News includes a longer, more in-depth version of the Heads Together video. In this version of the video, Kate explains why she, Prince William, and Prince Harry chose to work with Heads Together to address mental health. The three discuss how difficult it can be to open up about certain issues and how helpful it can be to talk to someone about them. Prince Harry suggests that one reason people sometimes find it hard to open up about their problems is because people believe that everyone else’s lives are perfect in comparison to their own.

“And therefore, you think ‘if everyone else’s life is perfect, then there must be something wrong with me.'”

Grief over the loss of a loved one, and mental health, in general, can be quite difficult to talk about. It is good to see the royal family bringing attention to it while learning about themselves along the way.

[Featured Image by Stefan Wermuth/WPA Pool/Getty Images]