Duchess of Sussex says she has not ‘scraped the surface’ when talking about mental health struggles

Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey in 2021 that she ‘didn’t want to be alive any more’ during her time in the Royal family

The Duchess of Sussex has said she has still not yet “scraped the surface on my experience” after being asked about her suicidal thoughts during her time as a working royal.
The Duchess told Oprah Winfrey in 2021 that at one time she “didn’t want to be alive any more” when she was in the Royal family.
In an interview with CBS, the US television channel, she said: “When you’ve been through any level of pain or trauma, I believe part of our healing journey, certainly part of mine, is being able to be really open about it.
“And you know, I haven’t really scraped the surface of my experience. But I do think that I would never want someone else to feel that way.
“And I would never want someone else to be making those sorts of plans. And I would never want someone else to not be believed.
“If me voicing what I have overcome will save someone, or encourage someone in their life to really genuinely check in on them and not assume that the appearance is good, so everything’s okay, then that’s worth it.
“I’ll take a hit for that.”
The Duke and Duchess took part in the interview to launch the Parents’ Network, an online “global community” to support “parents whose children have suffered from the harmful effects of social media”.
It follows a pilot programme by the Archewell Foundation in 2023 and is described as a “free-to-access peer-support network, complete with comprehensive advice and resources provided by a licensed facilitator, which offers invaluable support to those in need”.
The programme was launched alongside the interview which was filmed with CBS Sunday Morning in Santa Barbara last week.
Talking about the project, host Jane Pauley said: “The central topic is the loss that these families have suffered, stories that need to be shared because the parents who are listening who have not suffered a loss think that they couldn’t. But they could.”
Prince Harry replied: “They certainly could. And that’s, I think, one of the scariest things that we’ve learnt over the course of the last 16, 17 years that social media’s been around, and more so recently, is the fact that it could happen to absolutely anybody.
“We always talk about in the olden days if your kids were under your roof, you knew what they were up to; at least they were safe, right?
“And now, they could be in the next-door room on a tablet or on a phone and can be going down these rabbit holes. And before you know it, within 24 hours, they could be taking their life.”
The Duchess added: “I think you have to start somewhere.
“I think the simplest thing that anyone watching this or anyone who’s able to make change to look at it through the lens of, ‘What if it was my daughter? What if it was my son? My son, or my daughter who comes home, who are joyful, who I love, and one day, right under my roof, our entire lives change because of something that was completely out of our control?’
“And if you look at it through the lens as a parent, there is no way to see that any other way than to try to find a solution.”
James Holt, executive director of Archewell, said the Parents’ Network would gather mothers and fathers whose children had suffered harm arising from social media or the internet for help, support and campaigning.
“Over the past two years, alongside our co-founders Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, our team has engaged deeply with parents and young people about the repercussions of social media on their mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing,” he said.
“It became strikingly clear that there is a critical need for connection and community among those who understand the pain, fear and isolation caused by social media’s impact on children. We believe in the transformative power of community, and that is why we have created this network – to connect those who face these challenges and offer mutual support.”
Archewell and parents from the pilot programme are also launching the campaign No Child Lost to Social Media to help tell their stories. They hope to convince social media platforms to “prioritise safety in their design”.
In the UK, 62 per cent of children aged 13 to 17 have reported encountering harmful content online over four weeks, according to Ofcom, the media watchdog.