‘There’s only so long you can hold your breath.’
Kate Middleton’s brother, James, has opened up about his experiences with depression and how it feels to be ‘judged’ on his success now that he is in the public eye.
The 33-year-old is the co-founder of Boomf, a personalised gift company, spoke about his mental health earlier this year and opened up about his diagnosis of clinical depression revealing that it left him feeling like a ‘complete failure’
In a recent interview with Tatler, he spoke about how he has dealt with the condition and why he found it so difficult to talk about it initially.
‘It’s what keeps you in bed, while anxiety makes you feel guilty for being there,’ he said.
‘I thought: “What do I have to be depressed about?” I’ve been so lucky with my upbringing, I had all the things I wanted.
‘It’s not that I wanted more, but there was something that wasn’t always there… And the more I ignored it, the more it was taking over.’
However, James said that he didn’t feel able to talk about how he was feeling even though his parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, believed that something ‘wasn’t right’.
He continued: ‘I shut myself off, I didn’t communicate with my family at all. But there’s only so long you can hold your breath.’
James sought help and began therapy, and also spent time at his brother-in-law James Matthews’ Scottish estate, Glen Affric. He credits it with helping him ‘feel like James Middleton again’, revealing that he now feels ‘excited about life’.
In a piece for Daily Mail in January, James wrote: ‘I know I’m richly blessed and live a privileged life. But it did not make me immune to depression.’
He continued that Kate’s inspired him to talk about his experiences publicly.
The Duchess of Cambridge is a mental health advocate and set up Heads Together, a foundation which aims to promote mental well-being and end the stigma surrounding mental health, alongside her husband, Prince William and her brother-in-law, Prince Harry.
‘It was Catherine who first realised that all three of us were working on mental health in our individual areas of focus,’ Prince William said in a speech on World Mental Health Day.
‘She had seen that at the core of adult issues like addiction and family breakdown, unresolved childhood mental health issues were often part of the problem.’
If you have been affected by any issues mentioned in this article, you can contact The Samaritans on 116 123 or visit their website www.samaritans.org.
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