Prince Harry Says He Felt 'Ashamed' With How He Responded To Meghan Markle's Suicidal Thoughts
May 21 2021, Published 2:24 p.m. ET
Prince Harry admitted that when his wife, Meghan Markle, told him she was grappling with suicidal thoughts, he didn't handle it exactly how he had hoped to.
While speaking to Oprah Winfrey in March, Meghan revealed that she didn't want to be "alive" anymore. The night she told Harry about how she was feeling, the two had to attend an event and smile for the cameras.
"I think people have seen the photographer of us, you know, squeezing each other's hands as we walked into the Royal Albert Hall in London for a charity event," Harry said in the new series, The Me You Can't See. "She was six months pregnant at the time. What perhaps people don't understand is, earlier that evening, Meghan decided to share with me the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities of how she was going to end her life. The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought. She hadn't ‘lost it.' She wasn't crazy. She wasn't self-medicating, be it through pills or through alcohol. She was absolutely sober. She was completely sane. Yet in the quiet of night, these thoughts woke her up."
"The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum and to now be put in a position of losing another woman in my life, with a baby inside of her, our baby," he said, referring to how his mom, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car accident after being chased by the paparazzi. "I am somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with it."
Harry and Meghan had a "quick cuddle" before their event, but the dad-of-one regrets not being there for his wife more. “I was ashamed that it got this bad. I was ashamed to go to my family, because to be honest with you, like a lot of other people my age could probably relate to, I know that I’m not going to get from my family what I need,” Harry said.
Fortunately, Harry went to therapy and turned his life around — without his family's help.
"Therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything. That's why I'm here now. That's why my wife is here now," he said. "Without therapy and without doing the work, we would not be able to withstand this. I've never had any anger through this, I've always had compassion."
"I'm now a more comfortable in my own skin. I don't get panic attacks," he added. "I've learned more about myself in the last four years than I have in the 32 years before that. And I have my wife to thank for that."
