Prince Harry reveals how brother Prince William helped him realise it was ‘ok’ to ask for help

Prince Harry has revealed how his older brother Prince William helped him to realise it was ‘ok’ for him to ask for help and attend therapy sessions. 

• According to Prince Harry, his brother Prince William told him he had to 'deal with' his trauma regarding the death of their mother and encouraged him to seek mental health support.
• Princes William and Harry have both been vocal about mental health for a long time and revealed that, when they set up a royal mental health initiative, no other celebrities wanted to join in as the subject was too taboo at the time.
• In other royal news, Princess Diana is the ‘only person’ who could end her sons’ Prince William and Prince Harry’s feud.

Prince Harry's latest Netflix project, Heart of Invictus, which featured a sweet nod to his son Prince Archie, has included less accusations thrown at his family than his first show with the streaming platform, but there have still be one or two claims mixed into the episodes. 

In one of the show's five episodes, he spoke candidly about how he felt he lacked any type of 'support network' within his family after returning home from Afghanistan, an ordeal he said he didn't pick up trauma from directly but that brought up older trauma regarding the death of his mother Princess Diana.

However, many have been quick to point out that Harry has previously praised his brother Prince William, who is reportedly 'worried' about Prince Harry's upcoming trip to the UK overshadowing the first anniversary of the late Queen's death, for his support that persuaded him to finally get help with his mental health. 

Speaking to Bryony Gordon on the Mad World podcast back in 2017, Harry said, "I was a typical 20, 25, 28-year-old running around going 'life is great', or 'life is fine' and that was exactly it.

"And then [I] started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with.

"It's all about timing. And for me personally, my brother, you know, bless him, he was a huge support to me. He kept saying this is not right, this is not normal, you need to talk to [someone] about stuff, it's OK."

It's unsurprising that William was keen for Harry to get help. On top of being his older sibling and therefore feeling the responsibility to help support a family member, the Prince of Wales has been a vocal mental health advocate for decades and even set up the Royal Heads Together Mental Health Initiative with his brother Harry and wife Kate Middleton. 

Launching the programme in May 2016, the royals caused a stir as not only did their open approach of speaking out about mental health break down society's general tradition of ignoring the problem of mental health, but it cracked open the royal family’s long-standing tradition of keeping their personal struggles to themselves as William opened up about his emotional turmoil following the tragedies he witnessed through his work with the air ambulance.

Speaking as part of a panel at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2019, W Magazine reports that the Prince revealed 'not one celebrity wanted to join' in with the initiative and that's when he knew it was important for him to speak out personally. 

He said, “There was this sort of elephant in the room, if you like, that had never been grappled, and it crossed between all the different sectors and all the different organisations that we were working with—and mental health was the thing. 

"We realised no one was talking about it, no one wanted to talk about it. What was very interesting from when we set up the campaign was that not one celebrity wanted to join us. Not one person wanted to be involved in the mental health campaign Heads Together…. We rang out to a lot of people and nobody, before we started, was interested in being part of Heads Together because it was mental health.

“When I started feeling issues myself, it was from my air ambulance work. I was dealing with a lot of trauma on a day in, day out basis, stuff that your body is not programmed to deal with, there’s just no way it is. For some reason, we’re all embarrassed by emotions—British people, particularly—we’re very embarrassed by revealing our emotions.”

Since launching the programme, Princes William and Harry, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle have all spoken candidly about their's and others' struggles with mental health, helping to destigmatise the issue.