Meghan Markle Got Real About Her Mental Health Struggles In A Candid New Interview

Months after exiting her role as a working member of the royal family, Meghan Markle is opening up about dealing with "damaging" negative media attention and scrutiny over the past few years. While speaking with the Teenager Therapy podcast in honor of World Mental Health Day, the Sussexes got candid about struggling to balance being new parents while living life in the limelight. Meghan Markle’s quotes about internet trolls affecting her mental health are heartbreaking, but she assured fans she's "doing really well now."

While speaking with Harry during the podcast, Markle reflected on what made her say she was "not OK" during a 2019 interview she gave during her royal tour of Africa.

The new mom, who said she was juggling breastfeeding Baby Archie with her duties on tour, explained, "I was tired. I was just about to give Archie a bath. I was exhausted."

"I didn't realize that my answer would receive such an interest from around the world," she continued. "Because I said, 'Well thanks, people haven't really asked me if I'm OK.' I didn't think about that answer. I just answered honestly because I was in a moment of vulnerability, because I was tired, because there was no presentation. It was just, here I am. I'm a mom with a four-month-old baby and we are tired."

In line with the theme of Mental Health Day, Markle also opened up about how negative stories about her impacted her mental health.

"I'm told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female," she said during the podcast, adding, "Now eight months of that, I wasn't even visible. I was on maternity leave or with a baby."

Still, Markle said that the media attention was almost "unsurvivable."

"But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable," she continued. "That's so big, you can't even think of what that feels like. Because I don't care if you're 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren't true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging."

The former Suits star explained that her experiences had lead her and Prince Harry to focus on bringing more attention and awareness to mental health and wellbeing.

"So, I think from my standpoint, part of the work that we do is our own personal experiences and being able to talk to people and understand that even though our experiences [are] unique to us, and obviously can seem very different to what people experience on the day to day, it's still a very human experience and that's universal," she said.

"We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt. We all know what it feels like to be isolated or the other…We are all figuring it out," Markle said.

Despite weathering negative tabloid attacks and false claims about her "difficult" behavior, the duchess assured fans that things have taken a turn now that she is living a quieter life.

"Today I would say, I am doing really well," she said. "Thank you for asking."