Prince William: We need to 'smash the stigma around mental health'

OHMYGOSSIP — Prince William has vowed to “smash the stigma around mental health.”
The 34-year-old royal – along with his brother Prince Harry and wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge – spearheads the mental health charity Heads Together, and has claimed it is “vital” to talk about the stigma surrounding mental health in order to make it “easier to deal with.”
Prince William said: “It’s absolutely vital. We need to get people talking to generate those conversations that make the subject easier to deal with. Families talking to each other is a great way of normalising the conversation.
“We need to smash the stigma around mental health and this is one way to do that.”
The royal – who has Prince George, three, and Princess Charlotte, 21 months, with his 35-year-old wife – also claimed “intervention is key” to helping tackle mental health problems, and praised health writers for their “important” work in raising awareness.
He added: “I and Kate believe early intervention is key. We need to offer a way of facing up to issues early on.
“The work you guys do is important. Health journalists have a major role to play.”
Prince William says he was inspired to try and make a difference in the way mental health is talked about after meeting vulnerable young people.
He continued to the Sunday Express newspaper: “It was their openness about their mental health, their anxiety issues, their honesty about not coping, that made me realise that poor mental health was a major issue in our society.”
Last week, Prince William spoke out against the high rate of suicide amongst young men in the UK, and dubbed it as “an appalling stain on our society.”
He said: “You may be wondering why Catherine, Harry and I got involved in this topic in the first place. Mental health is traditionally not a mainstream subject, after all.
“For me personally, it was a gradual awakening over many years through work I’ve been privileged to witness with vulnerable young people – the homeless, the unemployed, those who are unable to fulfil their potential.
“But I got interested in mental health for another reason. One that was related to my work as an air ambulance pilot. It was suicide, a subject that is so often hidden.
“The suicide rate among young men in this country is an appalling stain on our society. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 40 in this country. Not cancer, not knife crime, not road deaths – suicide.”

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