[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are opening up more about her mental health struggles.

The Duchess of Sussex first revealed she experienced suicidal thoughts during her sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, saying she “didn’t want to be alive anymore” when she was still a working member of the royal family. It became so bad for her at one point that while pregnant with their son, Archie, in January 2019, she told the Duke of Sussex she couldn’t “be left alone” before attending an event at Royal Albert Hall:

“If you zoom in, you can see how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine. You can see the whites of our knuckles, because we are smiling and doing our job, but we’re both just trying to hold on.”

Just heartbreaking. Now, the former actress spoke about that dark period of her life again in part two of the couple’s Netflix documentary series, Harry and Meghan, released on Thursday.

Related: Harry Blames Meghan’s 2020 Miscarriage On Legal Case Against UK Tabloid

Meghan herself shared that things took a turn for her when she began to encounter a wave of negative criticisms from the media after their wedding in May 2018:

“It was like, all of this will stop if I’m not here, and that was the scariest thing about it because it was such clear thinking.”

But when Meghan asked the institution to get her some help, they turned down her request, she claims, because everyone was more concerned about “how that would look for the institution.” Prince Harry even confessed in the series how he “hates” himself for how he handled that time in her life, expressing:

“I was devastated. I knew she was struggling. We were both struggling, but I never thought it would get to that stage and the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed. I dealt with it as ‘Institutional Harry’ as opposed to ‘Husband Harry.’ And what took over my feelings was my royal role. I had been trained to worry more about, ‘What are people going to think if we don’t go to this event? We’re going to be late.’”

The 38-year-old royal added:

“And looking back on it now, I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give.”

Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, also recalled the moment she found out about how much her daughter was struggling with royal life, saying:

“I remember her telling me that — that she’d wanted to take her own life. And that really broke my heart because I knew. Well, I knew that it was bad. But to just constantly be picked at by these vultures, just picking away at her spirit. That she would actually think of not wanting to be here. That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear.”

With tears in her eyes, the momma then noted that she and Harry could not “protect” the Suits alum from the press, no matter how much they wanted to. Not in her current position.

We cannot imagine how tough it must have been for Doria to witness her daughter struggling so much. And she wasn’t the only one who saw Meghan suffering at the time. Harry says the royals “knew how bad it was” for his wife at the time, explaining:

“They thought, ‘Why couldn’t she just deal with it?’ As if to say, ‘Well, you know, everyone else has dealt with it, why can’t she deal with it?’ But it was different. This was different. But actually if you strip all that away and say, ‘OK, fine, it was exactly the same,’ so do we still believe we should have just sucked it up like other members of the family? Or does one think maybe it’s about time that we stopped?”

Instead, though, Harry claimed “no one would have a private conversation with the editors” to get them to back off from Meghan, recalling what King Charles III said to him once:

“My dad said to me, ‘Darling boy, you can’t take on the media. The media will always be the media.’ I said I fundamentally disagree.”

Wow. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Does this change your opinion of Harry and Meghan’s royal exit? Let us know in the comments (below).

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, help is available. Consider contacting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, by calling, texting, or chatting, or go to 988lifeline.org.

[Image via Harry and Meghan/Netflix]