{"id":98755,"date":"2025-05-13T18:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98755\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T18:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:42:12","slug":"kate-middletons-brother-talks-about-depressive-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98755\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate Middleton\u2019s Brother Talks About Depressive Episode"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Middleton\u2019s<\/a> brother, James, is opening up about one of the hardest periods of his life. <\/p>\n

The Princess of Wales\u2019 younger brother spoke to The U.K. Times<\/a> about struggling with depression<\/a> and suicidal thoughts nearly a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at the time I was spiraling out of control,\u201d Middleton told the outlet in an article published on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only once I was diagnosed that I came to terms with the fact that I could have depression and needed to make sure I was present for myself. I needed to re-find who I was. I knew that the kinds of thoughts I was having were not me. I wasn\u2019t being myself. I\u2019d lost who James was.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Middleton and Carole Middleton attend the wedding of Pippa Middleton and James Matthews at St Mark’s Church on May 20, 2017.<\/p>\n

In his book, \u201cMeet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life,\u201d the businessman opens up about being at his parents\u2019 house in November 2017. The Times\u2019 says that in the early morning, Middleton writes he\u2019d made his way to his parents\u2019 skylight and was thinking of jumping off the roof. <\/p>\n

He wrote that it was only his late dog, Ella, who saved him, when the two made eye contact. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are reasons to be alive, and not wanting anyone to suffer from what I might do was a major one,\u201d Middleton shared. \u201cI imagined what it would be like for Ella, how unfair it would have been for her, and then that extended to my whole family and my friends. All I would have done was transfer my pain on to other people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Middleton credited his sister, Kate, and brother-in-law, Prince William<\/a>, for campaigning about mental health at the time. He also told the Times that he\u2019d attended therapy sessions with both Kate and his sister, Pippa Middleton<\/a>, which was important to his recovery. <\/p>\n

\"PrincePrince William, Kate Middleton, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Pippa Middleton and James Middleton attend church on Christmas Day on Dec. 25, 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire. <\/p>\n

Samir Hussein via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving them there meant that I knew I was surrounded by people that truly understood what I was going through,\u201d he shared, though he said his \u201cbiggest challenge was that I had my own stigma about mental health.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was most terrified that when I wrote about having depression, I would be called a fraud; that people would say, \u2018You\u2019ve had a privileged upbringing. You\u2019ve had everything, essentially. No real struggles,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat sort of feedback. But depression doesn\u2019t select like that and, anyway, I think I\u2019ve learnt to accept criticism.\u201d <\/p>\n

James has openly spoken<\/a> about his mental health over the years, as have other younger members of the royal family, including Prince Harry<\/a>, Prince William, Meghan Markle<\/a> and the Princess of Wales. <\/p>\n

Kate previously wrote about the importance of seeking help for mental health issues, particularly in children, in a guest blog for HuffPost in 2016<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike most parents today, William and I would not hesitate to seek help for our children if they needed it,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe hope to encourage George and Charlotte to speak about their feelings, and to give them the tools and sensitivity to be supportive peers to their friends as they get older,\u201d the then-Duchess of Cambridge said (Prince Louis was not mentioned, as he was born two years later).<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cWe know there is no shame in a young child struggling with their emotions or suffering from a mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate Middleton\u2019s brother, James, is opening up about one of the hardest periods of his life. The Princess…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,25536,533,218,532,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-98755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-james-middleton","10":"tag-kate-middleton","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-prince-william","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114501998819874149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}