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By KATIE KINDELAN, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — In an interview that delivered bombshell after bombshell, one of the most spellbinding, and somber, moments of Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry’s sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey was when Meghan opened up about suicidal thoughts she had during her time in the royal family.
“I was really ashamed to say it at the time, and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he’s suffered, but I knew that if I didn’t say it that I would do it,” Meghan told Winfrey. “And I just didn’t, I just didn’t want to be alive anymore, and that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
Meghan’s revelation that she struggled with mental health, spoken in front of a global TV audience of tens of millions, could have a tangible impact on other people facing their own mental health battles, according to Dr. Ken Duckworth, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which describes itself as “the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization.”
“When a remarkable, famous person says, ‘I’m getting help,’ it raises the definite possibility another person will say, ‘If she can join this club … maybe I can join this club, because I too have felt, whatever the experience is,’ depressed, suicidal, overwhelmed,” Duckworth told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “I…
