I’m going out a limb here because I don’t know Harry or Meghan, but since they’ve invited us into their world via Netflix, and tell us directly on camera of their struggles, I’m wondering what it might be like to be their therapist.
Now it seems, at least from what they’re showing us on their doco, the darkest days of Meghan feeling deeply distressed, even not wanting to live, have passed. Thank goodness. I hope she has excellent mental health support now, and Harry too, because that kind of distress should not go untreated.
One of the first questions I would ask Meg would be about her previous and current mental health care plan. I would want to establish in my own mind whether she was prevented from seeing a therapist during her darkest days, or whether she chose not to, and I mean that very genuinely, not critically. I know that sometimes, truth can be stranger than fiction, so I would reserve any judgment. I would need to get clear on what resources she found in herself, and around her, to get through her worst days, so we could continue to strengthen and build on those.
There’s no doubt M and H have both had a dreadful time being relentlessly pursued by photographers, and being pulled apart and criticised by the press ad nauseum. Worse, Meghan tells us in the doco that she has been the subject of terrifying, and blatantly racist online hate and trolling, even death threats, not to mention a whole lot of stalking.
I imagine the couple have employees in place to manage all of their correspondence at the first level of contact, both online and off, and on a practical level for mental wellbeing, I would encourage that to continue. I would hope that they are protecting themselves very strongly from the words of others, and I would encourage putting in place multiple barriers to make it very difficult for racism and other violent words to reach them and provoke them into constant cycles of public reactivity.
I understand the desire to fight back and defend against slander and that to do nothing can be to indirectly allow it. However, I would encourage them to continue to handle this through legal channels and avoid engaging hostiles on their own turf, that is, through press statements in the media refuting scurrilous claims. Something about that reactivity undermines their public image and feels brittle. I can’t help feeling that engaging the press in the press is not a smart move. I would wonder about better, emotionally safer ways.
For example, could they use their power, experience and influence in sweeping ways to challenge the Zuckerbergs and Musks of this world to improve the ethics and regulation of the online world, to make the online environment a place of less anonymity and greater accountability?
But let’s get back to the inner emotional dynamics, where my expertise actually lies! Why is the press often so very hard on the couple, particularly Meg, generally giving their media appearances less than glowing reviews?
It was refreshing for me to read
substack So Many Thoughts, where she actually focusses on things she likes about the first three episodes of Harry and Meghan. It’s quite rare to read openly smiling reviews like that.As I watched the first episodes of the Netflix series, along with so many other people worldwide, I reflected repeatedly on what it is about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that seems to rub so many people up the wrong way?
What’s not to have compassion for, when the Sussexes explain in their doco, all the extraordinary scrutiny and pain they experienced? Why do the tabloids continue to give them such a hard time?
Their love story is as happy and sweet as anyone’s, they’re attractive and seemingly mutually devoted to a “life of service”.
What’s not to like? Why are they widely so un-adored? What would I say to Harry and Meghan about that, to try to help, if I was their therapist?
It’s a massive and complex subject, but here’s the bare bones of it as I see it.
I think they have (quite understandably) made a rookie mistake that has led to some of the vitriole they cop, a mistake that the other members of the royal family rarely make.
M and H came out presumably seeking understanding, empathy and connection around their situation and struggles by sharing their truth. I’m guessing they wanted to set the record straight, but unfortunately I think they missed the mark. They have not understood something that the tabloids know very well - how unrelatable they are to most people. The barrier is their wealth.
Their life is one of incomparable influence, wealth and open doors into anything and anywhere they could ever wish to go. For example, at the beginning of the doco, Harry speaks to us from the Windsor Suite at Heathrow which is so exclusive that most of us didn’t know it existed until now. Poor choice to share that detail, I’d suggest.
Why?
I am so sorry to have to say this, I’d tell the couple, but, because human nature. While most punters wish you all the very best in the bigger picture of life, the average punter falls over themselves to enjoy a free glass of bubbles in the Qantas Club. You have (or had) use of a family suite and private jets at Heathrow? A lot of people won’t even remember what you said, after they read that on the screen. They’re just sitting there on their couches going “Whaaaaat?!”
Yes, yes, now I absolutely understand it’s for reasons of personal security, but believe me that doesn’t change the natural human response of people who have less access to resources, feeling uncomfortable about the rich and famous openly complaining about anything personal. There’s almost no way to achieve a sense of connection when your audience can’t empathise with your personal problems because your wealth and influence sets you in a place beyond their imagining.
An exception, where it works for everyone to talk about your struggles publicly is when it’s in the service of helping others and H and M can be, and have been, very good at that. Harry comes across generally as a lovely, authentic bloke. He did a particularly wonderful job talking about veterans and mental health. I would definitely encourage him to continue that as a priority, assuming he loves doing it.
I think in that role, Harry was at his most relatable, talking about his lived experience as a soldier. People cared about that. It was work that mattered and still matters, setting up the Invictus Games and so much more. He communicated brilliantly via his service, showing some vulnerability to connect, but keeping it all about helping others.
The Queen always held her emotions very close to her chest in public. To keep the monarchy mystical and elevated she knew it had to stand apart from the ordinary in some ways other than just mind-boggling wealth. This may even be how the traditional English aristocratic style of keep a stiff upper lip, or as the Queen allegedly advised her family “Never complain, never explain” evolved. Who knows?
There was some sound psychology behind the Queen’s public persona, a style that kept her and her family in power while other more ‘casual’ royal families of Europe continue to fade into obscurity. I’m not advocating for shutting down emotionally, not at all, just for balanced wisdom and a realistic acknowledgment of human nature’s shadow side.
I know so much is not fair or kind, but you have to work with what you’ve got when ‘forward facing’ as Meghan called it. There was also lived wisdom in the words of Doria, Meg’s mum, who advised Meg that racism was likely at work within narratives around the couple in the media. I don’t doubt it. I wish it were not true, but we still have such a long way to go.
Another aspect of human nature is the desire to feel better about ourselves. We want to reassure ourselves that it’s not all sunshine and roses in the wealth, fame and influence stratisphere if we’re not in it and don’t think we ever will be. Many humans just sleep better at night by reaffirming to themselves the idea that loads of money doesn’t make everything perfect. It helps people feel better with what they don’t have, to hear life’s been hard for Harry and Meg. But, that, I would advise the couple, is not warm empathy or connection, nor an appreciation of them setting the record straight.
Why mean tabloids sell comes down to a paradoxical mixture of human curiosity, natural jealousy, and an almost unconscious hope to reaffirm to ourselves that it’s OK to have less than them because their lives are more screwed up than ours. I think it’s ultimately self-defeating for Meg and Harry to feed information into that blackhole, but of course, that’s just my humble opinion.
I’d say all of this if appropriate, as a shakeup, to try to help them to truly protect themselves emotionally by being real about how they are seen and why they want to be seen. Do they want to be known for their struggles, or for their work? If it’s the latter, then I’d want to help them turn the emphasis around and keep it that way.
This doco says to me that Meg and Harry are potentially going to keep feeling hurt by the world until they see just how unrelatable telling their truth makes them. I know it isn’t ideal, but we have to work with human nature, even to evolve it.
I would be encouraging them to continue to find all the powerful ways they could to use their rage against the cages they’ve found themselves caught up in, to improve the world for others. A large part of the Queen’s success lay in doing that, constantly shining the light onto the needs of others, and away from her personal struggles in public arenas. I think there is some method in that old fashioned ‘madness,’ so to speak.
Last but certainly not least, dealing with the hurt and anger Meg and Harry clearly have with their families of origin, especially fathers and siblings or half-siblings, would be a major focus of therapy, I imagine. I would want to dive into the potential for repairing those relationships - examining whether it takes more energy to maintain the rage than it would to heal it.
From there, we could work on myriad strategies to individuate from their families of origin ‘spiritually’, by which I mean at that ultimate level of acceptance that we are different from each other and do not have to reject each other completely despite it. The aim would be to reach a place where the animosity dissolves gradually, because the past no longer holds so much emotional charge.
That place of spiritual adulthood, where the desire to critique and reject our parents and family dissipates because we realise it no longer impedes our way of life - that’s the place I would be trying to help Harry and Meg move towards even more. The right of passage is natural. The world stage is not, so it needs to be cordoned off, not played upon.
I might not be the best therapist for the couple and I’ve certainly made assumptions here because I don’t know them. However, I would hope to help them avoid some of the potholes along the way that I think they’re still tripping over.
I wish them well and I am looking forward to those next three episodes out of curiosity, as a social study, to reflect on my biases, and to notice any envy or judgment coming up in me around their wealth and lifestyle - the gloriousness and the shadow side
The soundtrack to this article is Harry and Meghan’s wedding dance