New Meghan and Harry interview

[elprup]

JAN MOIR: She gave Harry an icy stare any husband would know - watch what you're saying, mister!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-13707697/JAN-MOIR-Harry-icy-stare-husband-watch-saying-mister.html

@CoffeeCantata I agree with your observations on body language and facial expressions. Meghan’s jaw was clenched, she looked very tense and visibly irritated at times. Particularly the question of modest beginnings or however it was phrased. Meghan’s eyes flared at her before she responded.
I also noticed that Harry didn’t reciprocate any contact when she placed her hand on his knee. He would usually place his hand over hers or respond to her touch at least. Instead, his whole upper body was angled away from her and he looked disengaged. There was no reassurance from him when she was obviously talking about a very low point in her life. Interesting dynamics going on.

Has anyone seen any analysis of the body language in that interview? I can’t bring myself to watch it but have seen still photos.

he really doesn’t look like someone who wants to be there at all. I doubt he really understand what like would be like outside of the RF and just doing endless silly interviews is probably not what he wanted.

Harry's account of the birth reads like a bad TV sitcom. Where you shout at the screen that's not how it is.

There's different levels of suicidality and it's common now to differentiate between those levels and suicidal ideation and suicidal threat (again two different things). I'm not going to go into it here as it's a sensitive topic and I don't want to trigger anyone I don't know, but I specified 'actively suicidal' and there's a number of clinical indicators for that.

I'm not interested in criticising someone who's no longer with us and who I obviously never met and, I'm being careful what I say here so as not to trigger/minimise but there's a number of reasons why a person might topple themselves down an indoor flight of stairs during an argument with their spouse when their MIL was at the bottom of the staircase. A number of reasons that don't incorporate active suicidality.

Otherwise the stats worldwide and in developed world are clear eg Lindahl & Kaljepeeta papers, so I wouldn't personally rush to try to counter good academic research on the basis of Andrew Morton's book on Diana or Meghan's interview with Oprah. Neither of those anecdotes count as data because there were clear impetuses behind those stories in terms of reputation management. I'm happy to stick with the actually properly collected statistics.

Thanks @GiveMeSpanakopita very good points well made.

I would also like to add that Diana's fall down the stairs, at the exact same point in her pregnancy as Meghan was (according to previous posters) may be highly significant from Meghan's perspective. A number of people who know her have said she has narcissistic personality traits, I don't know about that and I personally think all famous peopple probaby have strong narc traits, that's very different from NPD btw. But a narcissistically tending person, who's frustrated that things in their life aren't going exactly as they want them, might see a good opportunity to wrest back control by deliberately triggering their traumatised spouse by triggering memories of their mother and the pain of that bereavement and fear of that bereavement. It would be especially efficacious to do so just before a public event when emotions cannot be discussed and the triggered spouse must sit and stew in traumatised flashbacks. So that's one (uncharitable) way of reading the Night of the Albert Hall.

It's sad but true that abusive narcissists can and do make suicidal threats when they feel events spinning out of their control. My abusive ex did this a LOT. That's different from clinically indicated active suicidality. Not saying that's what happened here, or with Diana, but always instructive to consider events through different lenses.

Meghan copy Diana? Whaaaaaat

Once again an insightful post @GiveMeSpanakopita. My feelings on Meghan’s suicidality are less charitable. I think there is a difference between not liking your life and seriously contemplating ending it.

As just about everybody has observed, the whole story makes no sense but I suppose we will never get the true facts out of them. Why on earth contact HR? There are a thousand people to call before a department that deals with staff issues. I can only imagine it was to get financial clearance to go to some Arizona wellness place at $10k a night.

Yes I’ve always thought that.

"My feelings on Meghan’s suicidality are less charitable."

Mine are Morganesque.

@WillowWands it's about a paper trail and keeping the receipts, officially documenting too IMO, and as you say.

The very insightful points you raise have been touched on before, @GiveMeSpanakopita, though even the most balanced comments run the risk of deletion because of those who'd rather this wasn't mentioned made at all

For me the key word is "abuse", and on here that's exactly what it's deemed to be when it's a man doing it. Unfortunately the all too common double standards come into play if it's a woman, and this dichotomy helps nobody in clouding the issues

One more thing I want to say about the CBS interview and then I'll shut up and stop thread hogging lol.

Meghan made a comment to the effect of how she 'hadn't even scratched the surface' of her suicidality. I found that quite an alarming statement because if someone is suicidal they need to be in therapy immediately. Her period of suicidality was, what, four years ago (?) and she definitely has the financial resources for a course of DBT which is better than CBT for suicidality, average course of DBT is 10 weeks and then you do something else if needed. So she's had four years to get that done and really by the point you should not just have scratched the surface, you should really have explored the depths of your suicidal ideation in highly controlled dialectical setting. Now maybe she has no truck with therapy, I don't know what she's said on the subject, but really I would have expected her to have done the work on herself by now and have a much deeper understanding of her trauma than just 'scratching the surface'.

The alternative way of reading that comment is that it wasn't referring to her own psychological state at all but that it was a threat to the RF. Again, uncharitable interpretation, but less alarming than the idea that a wealthy woman in California, the mecca of psychotherapy, went through a period of suicidality and didn't do some sort of psychotherapeutic exploration of it AT ALL in the subsequent four years, so the extent that she was still only scratching the surface.

I’ve wondered a few times on here what help she actually did get after her failed trip to HR. She has never mentioned any kind of therapy, but she seems to have recovered enough to attend her baby shower 🤷‍♀️

As pp have said, there is a world of difference between not wanting to be “here” (as in the Palace perhaps?) and not wanting to be alive. If it was the latter, I hope she got some help, but she has never alluded to this

@GiveMeSpanakopita M does say she's 'overcome' her issues (?) but not fully discussed or explained her 'experience' (?) Possibly this is coming (?)

There possibly seems to be some discord for her around not being 'believed' and this is where she wants to lend her particular support, presumably to others whose experience has been minimised as she sees it.

She also talks about the importance of 'checking in' on those close, which is perhaps problematic given their own family circumstances.

She also talks about the importance of 'checking in' on those close,

Yes and I didn't like that comment at all. Of course we all want to check in on loved ones especially if they're going through a tough time, but ordinary 'civilians' should never, ever, EVER be made to feel that they are responsible for keeping a suicidal person alive. They should NEVER be told they are 'first responders' or anything else. That's a terrible burden to place on somebody.

Can I be any more emphatic? Families and friends should NEVER feel that they are responsible/to be blamed for the suicide of a loved one. I'm surprised M&H even thought it was OK to give that impression!!

Thank you, @GiveMeSpanakopita that's been my experience, and it's so exhausting.

There possibly seems to be some discord for her around not being 'believed' and this is where she wants to lend her particular support,

Well, the parents they had on the CBS programme, their son actually had taken his life. So I don't see how Meghan's focus can be on those whose suicidality is not believed because there's nothing more likely to lend credence to a suicide attempt than actually going through with it.

Mixed and harmful messages, in my view.

@GiveMeSpanakopita 100 per cent agree and sadly all too often parents etc DO blame themselves, hence reason for in person support networks IMO, NOT mainly/solely online.

You make me think that powerful figureheads be they may, they should have said very little and deferred to a credible expert very quickly esp re: very sensitive topics/areas/all mental health.

They’re playing with fire with this.

When she said that she had only scratched the surface of her experience , I took that as a veiled threat to “ tell her truth” about her life in the RF . Remember she said that she had never signed anything to keep quiet.
Of course I could be wrong .
@GiveMeSpanakopita thank you for your very measured, insightful posts .

You make me think that powerful figureheads be they may, they should have said very little and deferred to a credible expert very quickly esp re: very sensitive topics/areas/all mental health.

Well, put it this way. How many other celebs do you know who are publicly involved in and speak openly about suicide charities? Seriously, how many? You can google if you like.

Almost no one credible and that's not because famous people don't care or aren't affected, it's because they (or their PR advisers) know that it's an incredibly complex subject, a communicable behaviour and therefore should only be spoken about publicly by experts or by survivors who are sufficiently past their trauma and knowledgeable enough to speak about it in the right way so as not to cause harm.

There's a number of celebs that I know of via AA networks that do donate to and are involved with suicide support groups but they don't make a big public deal about it because they've educated themselves and they know the score. Mostly they also align themselves with well established mental health charities eg Stephen Fry with Mind and they lend their support in that way, by supporting actual professionals to support survivors.

So I don't know whose advice H&M took here, probably no ones, but I'm not a clinial psychotherapist and even I can see that they don't really know what they're talking about and they don't realise that some of the things they're saying to CBS could be triggering and harmful, so I'm confused as to who is advising them tbh.

There are now online sleuths, looking frame by frame at the event they attended on the day she told Harry about wanting to end it all, pointing out that H looked really angry rather than upset or concerned, that she had to pull his arm towards her so that she could hold his hand, rather than him being affectionate or supportive. He did look furious, I imagine he is utterly useless in a crises.