On Sunday (October 12), Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were interview by a group of teenage friends from California. "In honor of World Mental Health Day, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down with us for a conversation about prioritizing mental health, removing the stigma around the issue, and how we can all contribute to a healthier world: physically, mentally, emotionally, holistically," the group, known as Teenage Therapy, wrote about the experience on their Instagram account.
During the chat, which was recorded in full, Meghan spoke about her own personal experience with cyber bullying and misinformation online. "I'm told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world—male or female," she said. "Now eight months of that I wasn't even visible. I was on maternity leave or with a baby but what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable. That's so big you can't even think about what that feels like because I don't care if you're 15 or 25 if people are saying things about you that aren't true what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging."
"Even though our experience is unique to us and obviously can seem very different to what people experience on the day to day, it's still a human experience and that's universal," she continued. "We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt. We all know what it feels like to be isolated or othered. And I think that's why the work you guys are doing here is so important ... that people know there's someone to talk to. You're not alone in any of it. We're all figuring it out."
Prince Harry chimed in, as well, and spoke about how important it is to talk about our personal experiences. "It's very easy to be sucked in and consumed by negativity but we all have a choice to be able to cut that out of our lives. Hate-following has become a thing. We don't need to do that," he said. "For me I made the choice not to read it, not to see it and to remove myself from that and to very much focus on the uplifting and hopeful side which most of that I get from your generation."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also shared their favorite self-care habits—Prince Harry enjoys meditating to take a break from his day, while Meghan said she likes to journal her experiences to help her reflect on them.
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