Meghan Markle opens up about life-changing phone call at ‘worst’ point of her life

The Duchess of Sussex has opened up about hitting the “worst point” in her life and the phone call – arranged by Harry – that turned things around.

Meghan Markle has opened up about reaching out for help after hitting the “worst point” in her mental health struggles.

In the latest episode of her podcast Archetypes, the Duchess of Sussex revealed that she made the call after being referred to a mental health professional by her husband, Prince Harry.

“My husband had found a referral for me to call. And I called this woman, and she didn’t even know I was calling her … and she was checking out at the grocery store,” Meghan explained to her guest, Bollywood star Deepika Padukone.

“I could hear the little beep, beep … She could hear the dire state that I was in. But I think it’s for all of us to be really honest about what it is that you need and to not be afraid and make peace with that, to ask for it.”

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Meghan has opened up about her mental health struggles. Picture: Samir Hussein/WireImage

Meghan first opened up about her mental health struggles in her explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, in which she revealed she had once told Harry that she “didn’t want to be alive anymore”.

She claimed that one night, while suffering suicidal thoughts, she forced herself to go with him to an official event at the Royal Albert Hall in London as she was afraid of what she might do if left alone.

The Duchess, who was six months’ pregnant at the time, told the TV queen that she was “weeping” while clutching her husband’s hand while the lights were down in the royal box at the Cirque du Soleil premiere.

“I was ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry because of how much loss he suffered,” she said.

“But I knew that if I didn’t say it I would do it – because I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. That was a very clear and real and frightening, constant thought. And I remember, I remember how he just cradled me.”

Harry and Meghan at the Cirque du Soleil premiere in January 2019. Picture: Paul Grover/WPA Pool/Getty Images

Elsewhere in this week’s podcast episode, titled “The Decoding of Crazy”, Meghan hit out at TV shows including How I Met Your Mother and Scrubs for perpetuating stereotypes of “crazy” women.

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever been called crazy or hysterical or what about nuts? Insane, out of your mind, completely irrational, OK? You get the point,” Meghan said.

“Now, if we were all in the same room and could see each other, I think it would be pretty easy to see. Just how many of us have our hands up? By the way, me too.

“And it’s no wonder when you consider just how prevalent these labels are in our culture.”

Meghan – who starred in US legal drama Suits before becoming a royal – then played audio clips from popular sitcoms to prove her point.

The Duchess later told her other guests, actresses Jenny Slate and Constance Wu, about the derivation of the word “hysteria”.

“I just learned this when we were doing this episode that the word hysterical comes from hysteria, which is – wait for it – the Greek word for womb,” she said.

“Plato himself was actually among the Greek philosophers who believed that the womb would travel around the body adding pressure to other organs, which would then lead to erratic and unreliable behaviour.

“Calling someone crazy or hysterical completely dismisses their experience and minimises what they’re feeling.

“It keeps going to the point where anyone who’s been labelled it enough times can be gaslit into thinking that they’re actually unwell or sometimes worse, to the point where real issues of all kinds get ignored. Well, that’s not happening today.

“I feel pretty strongly about this word, this label crazy the way that it’s thrown around so casually and the damage – it’s rotten [for] society and women, frankly everywhere.

“From relationships to families being shattered, the reputations destroyed and careers ruined. The stigma surrounding the word, it also has this silencing effect. This effect, women experiencing real mental health issues, they get scared, they stay quiet, they internalise and they repress for far too long.”

Meghan’s podcast returned last week following a four-week break in the wake of the Queen’s death.