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'Silence can kill' says Prince William as he urges honesty over mental health

The Duke of Cambridge has stressed that “silence can kill” as he urged people struggling with their mental health to tell someone about it.

Addressing an audience of health writers, he said he had benefited from a working environment as a helicopter pilot in which all crew members were encouraged to admit to feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope.

For others, though, minor issues can become serious for people who are afraid to talk about their problems, he said, so that on average it takes a sufferer 10 years to admit to a problem.

As a result, said the Duke, suicide has become the leading cause of death in men under 40, a fact he described as “an appalling stain on our society”.

Mental health, said the Duke, is “the great taboo” and it is vital to “normalise” the subject so that it is viewed in the same way as physical health.

He said that until now: “If you were anxious, it's because you were weak.  If you couldn't cope with whatever life threw at you, it's because you were failing

“Successful, strong people don't suffer like that, do they.  But of course – we all do.  It's just that few of us speak about it.

“But I got interested in mental health for another reason.  One that was related to my work as an Air Ambulance pilot.  

“It was suicide, a subject that is so often hidden.  The suicide rate among young men in this country is an appalling stain on our society.  Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 40 in this country.  Not cancer, not knife crime, not road deaths – suicide.

“If one of these other issues took so many young lives, there would be a national outcry.  But there has only ever been silence. And this has to stop.  This silence is killing good people.”

He went on: “I was already experiencing the benefits of this open, positive approach to mental health in my work in Search and rescue and as an Air Ambulance pilot.  In both these environments, every member of the crew is actively encouraged to admit to when we are feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope, whatever the cause – our work or our home life.  

“My employer, I'm proud to say, knows about the value of normalizing mental health, and treating it with the same respect that we confer on physical health.  This should be the norm.”

The Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a magenta outfit by Oscar de la Renta, were attending a symposium in London of the Guild of Health Writers at which Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said Britain was in the grip of an “anxiety epidemic”.

He said the number of young men suffering from anxiety had doubled from 1.9 per cent to 3.8 per cent, and that men were more likely than women to keep quiet about it.

But he said there was some good news, because the number of people seeking help had risen from 25 per cent to 37 per cent.

The Duke and Duchess, together with Prince Harry, launched the Heads Together campaign to bring together mental health charities in a national effort to destigmatise mental health.

It is the official charity of the 2017 London Marathon, which the royal trio hope will become the “mental health marathon”.

Prince Williams career