You may remember a few years ago those “Keep Calm And Carry On” posters were everywhere, people had it on tshirts, coffee mugs, parodies sprung up quickly and it seemed everyone had at least one thing with it on. The phrase originated from posters which were put up around the UK during the Second World War to keep the morale up during the Blitz. It has become a stereotype of British people that no matter the crisis around them, they maintain that stiff upper lip and carry on regardless. As a Brit myself I have to say it’s kind of true and something that we are bizarrely proud of. Seriously, all kinds of nonsense can be going on around us and somehow Brits will continue on with their daily lives and say we will deal with the nonsense later. There are times however when this approach to life is not our best option, one of those situations is in regards to mental health.
The stiff upper lip attitude can be best seen in the British Royal Family. No matter what happens they always present the perfect united front, clothes pressed, smiles in place and a carefully rehearsed statement for any press they may encounter. This public face has been maintained even under the worst of circumstances like in the aftermath of the death of Lady Diana, formally known as Diana Princess of Wales. This past week her son Harry has opened up about how difficult that period truly was for him and how damaging it was to bottle up his emotions and keep the public face in place.
In an interview published by The Telegraph the Prince talked about how close he had come to breaking down on multiple occasions, how he refused to even think about his mother because it would just make him sad and it wouldn’t bring her back. He stated that after a lot of encouragement from those around him he eventually spoke to a therapist and finally began to deal with his grief almost 20 years after the events. His Heads Together campaign, which he founded with the his brother and the Duchess of Cambridge, is working to break down the stigma around mental health in the UK. Their video series called #oktosay shows various British celebrities and ordinary people discussing talking genuinely about how they were feeling with their friends and loved ones helped them instead of brushing it off with the classic “I’m fine”.
The thing that makes the Prince’s statements so impressive to me is that he is completely breaking with tradition by giving an interview like this. This is a man from a family who are the ultimate example of “Keep Calm and Carry On” and he is saying you know what no, sometimes you need to stop and recognise that you’re not perfect and check in with yourself, you shouldn’t just keep marching on regardless. He says that stopping and talking to someone can improve your mental fitness and make your more effective in your daily life. When such a public figure opens up in this way it is something that I personally admire, this is someone who is required to live his life in the spotlight and is subject to a level of scrutiny that I can’t even imagine.
As celebrities and public individuals open up about their own struggles not only does it raise awareness around an issue like this, it also normalises the conversation. When ordinary people like you and I see this, someone with so much power and privilege being open and honest about their mental health, it can make it easier to have a conversation of our own. You can even use it as a conversation starter yourself, talk to a close friend about what he said in that interview, what it made you think about, how you have been feeling recently. Talking isn’t a cure for mental illness but stopping to recognise where you’re at mentally is important, it can help relieve some of your burden, it can allow you to check in with yourself and recognise whether you may be in need of professional support. It took guts to do what he did last week and I hope you are as inspired by it as I was. If you have not listened to it yet I would strongly recommend listening to the half hour podcast that he did (which is attached to the telegraph article I mentioned earlier). Also check out the amazing work being done by the Heads Together campaign and if you have a chance watch some of the #oktosay videos
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