Prince Harry feels better equipped to help a suicidal person now.
The 36-year-old royal has previously admitted he didn’t know how to react when his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, told him she wanted to her end her life but he’s grown to understand the most important thing to do for anyone in that position is to “listen”.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey in a new bonus episode of their Apple TV+ show ‘The Me You Can’t See’, he said: “So many people are afraid of being on the receiving end of that conversation [from a suicidal person] because they don’t feel like they have the right tools to give the right advice.
“But what you want to say is ‘You’re there’. Listen, because listening and being part of that conversation is without doubt the best first step that you can take.”
The pair also reflected on what they’d learned during the filming of the series and agreed the best advice they were given was to tell a suicidal person they are “not alone”.
Harry also talked to Glenn Close about the importance of speaking openly about mental illness to family, with the prince admitting he thought families felt “shame” when they realised they have missed a problem with someone they love.
After the ‘Fatal Attraction’ star admitted her family covered up a genetic history of mental illness and explained the shame she felt for not knowing her sister had been suicidal, Harry said: “There’s an element of shame that we feel because we’re like ‘How could we have not have seen it? How could we not know? How did you not feel comfortable enough to share that with me?’ “
Elsewhere in the 90-minute episode, Harry had a candid conversation via video link with Robin Williams’ son Zak about how hard they found grieving their famous parents in the spotlight.
Harry – whose mother, Princess Diana died in a car accident in 1997 – told Zak: “Your father was a real hero of mine. He brought so much joy and entertainment to so many people.”
Zak admitted he couldn’t grieve properly because of the public devastation over Robin’s 2014 suicide.
He said: “From my end I didn’t get a chance to focus on the private grieving process until a year and a half after my dad passed away.”
Harry agreed: “We have a lot of shared experience when you see so many people around the world grieving for someone they feel they knew better than you did because you’re unable to grieve yourself.”
The prince – who has son Archie, two, and is expecting his second child with Meghan – believes climate change is inextricably linked to mental health and thinks they are the two biggest issues the modern world faces.
He said: “The connecting line is about our collective well-being and when our collective well-being erodes, that effects our ability to be caretakers of ourselves, of our communities and of our planet ultimately.
“We have to create a more supportive culture for each other where challenges don’t have to live in the dark, where vulnerability is healthy and encouraged and, of course, where physical and mental health can be treated equally because they are one.”