“Yes,” said Meghan, “that was very, very clear.”
Later, we found out how it was clear. She remembered what she said to her husband: “It was like that, these are the thoughts that I am having in the middle of the night that are very clear, and I am afraid, because this is very real. This is not an abstract idea. This is methodical, and that is not who I am. “
Meghan said she asked a senior member of the royal family about the possibility of being hospitalized for her mental health problems, but said that person refused to protect the family’s image. She said she was too afraid to be left alone, worried about the possibility of ending her life. Then she confided to Prince Harry, who supported her emotionally, but did not share the extent of her problems with her family.
“I think I was ashamed to admit it to them and I don’t know if they had the same feelings or thoughts,” he said to Winfrey. “I have no idea. It is a trap environment in which many of them are trapped.”
That’s why Meghan’s revelation is a gift to so many strangers. You don’t have to be royalty to be stuck in silence. According to a 2015 study, almost 10 million adult Americans had taken suicide seriously during the previous year; a 2019 survey found that nearly one in five high school students had this type of thinking. Despite the relatively high prevalence of suicidal thoughts, less than half of the people who experience them tell a friend or family member. Among those who died by suicide between 2000 and 2017, only about one in three consulted a therapist or psychiatrist last year.
Some people may be concerned that Meghan’s revelations could cause other vulnerable individuals to see suicide as, to use his word, a “solution”. In fact, research indicates that knowing someone who died by suicide or who attempted suicide is related to an increased risk of suicide. When a celebrity dies of suicide, suicide rates increase slightly in the month following his death.
Yes, contagion can occur after suicide, but hope is also contagious.
Hearing stories of people who resist suicidal thoughts without acting on them has been linked to decreases in suicide rates. Perhaps the stories of recovery can inspire hope and healing.
The tragedy of silence around suicide is not just that people suffer alone. It is also that they rarely hear the stories of people who committed suicide and survived. The survey indicates that almost half of people claim to know someone who died by suicide. Although this has not been studied, it is likely that many more people will know someone who has recovered from suicidal thoughts, since about 240 times more people consider suicide in a given year than die from it.