Family Secrets
I’m so excited to connect with you about Queen Charlotte. What a really interesting series! It’s really popular. You know, everybody’s talking about it. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out. It is a part of the Bridgerton series on Netflix, which was also popular. It has a lot of intriguing topics inside of it. An artistic point of view of the glass ceilings that people face because of their gender, their race, or sexual orientation. It was so well put together. I wanted to talk about the connection between Queen Charlotte and mental health. May was Mental Health Month. So, I thought, what a great time to dive into this topic.
Queen Charlotte spoke about many important things in mental health. It did talk a lot about stigma without mentioning it. If you think about the series, there was a lot of hiding going on. There was a lot of sneaking and preparing. Preparation to keep the King’s mental health status on the low. If you think about it, they created processes. The family was in on it. The servants were in on it. Everybody knew about the king’s mental health condition except for his new wife.
This is very real; oftentimes, in our families, we make it normal to know something is going on and not discuss it. We make it normal to pick up the slack. When we see someone experiencing a mental health crisis, but do not necessarily connect them with effective resources for real improvement.
There were some things with mental health stigma around relationships. It was clear to me that the king admired and adored his new wife, but he wanted to shield her; he wanted to protect her from knowing because of embarrassment and because he thought this would better protect her. This is still a common experience for many to hide their mental health struggles: in an attempt not to be a burden and to avoid embarrassment. Building a strong support system is an important part of getting better. Adults need villages too.
Photo Credit: By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73381663
Written By: Natasha D. Oates, Award-Winning Therapist & Relationship Coach
