Star comment: Bit by bit but stigma is receding
If you have a broken leg, you wear a plaster cast and you walk with crutches. If you have a mental health problem, whatever crutches you may be lucky enough to have are invisible, and your friends and relatives may be entirely oblivious to your illness.
It is something hidden within, and there are those who suffer from mental illness who like things that way, perhaps feeling a sense of shame and afraid to say anything in case they are seen as weak.
And so they struggle on alone, without help.
Prince William and Prince Harry have made invaluable contributions in recent days by speaking openly about mental health. You see, it does not matter who you are, anybody can be affected.
If royalty, with all the responsibility and expectations on their shoulders, can talk about it, it sets an example to others that they have nothing to fear from being open and that a society which felt embarrassed and uncomfortable about addressing such matters is becoming more enlightened and receptive.
Bit by bit the stigma is being chipped away. Another who is playing a part in that is Alistair Bates, of Minsterley, who is running in the London Marathon on Sunday. He will be running for the Heads Together team. Heads Together is the charity supported by Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues and tackle the stigma.
For Alistair, who had a breakdown, he says it was talking to people about what he was going through that helped him.
He is fundraising for Best Beginnings, which aims to give support for those affected by the stresses of parenthood and which is a charity partner for Heads Together.
There is that stereotype that has it that British people are inclined to have a stiff upper lip. Watch contestants on television talent shows and the like, where displays of emotion are hungrily devoured by the cameras, and you wonder how that stereotype has endured.
Yet there are large numbers of Britons living life behind a mask whose inner turmoil goes unnoticed until the mask suddenly slips and there is a crisis.
There is that old advert which had it that it's good to talk. It is also good to listen, and everyone can play their part in creating a society in which people with mental health issues feel they can speak openly about what they are going through, rather than bottle everything up.
