Monday was World Mental Health Awareness Day, and many people are highlighting mental health awareness all week. That includes royalty! The Duchess of Sussex’s Archetypes podcast this week is “The Decoding of Crazy” with Deepika Padukone, Constance Wu and Jenny Slate. Personally, I love how many Asians and Asian-Americans are coming on this podcast! It’s amazing to see Meghan give a platform to women like Wu, Padukone, Mindy Kaling, Lisa Ling and Margaret Cho. I wasn’t expecting it. Also: to mark Mental Health Awareness day/week, Meghan and Archetypes has partnered with Project Healthy Minds to provide help and resources. You can go here to see. At the very start of the episode, Meghan puts a trigger warning that the conversation is going to be very heavy and that people can and should opt out if they don’t feel up to it. Here’s this week’s episode:
The part with Jenny Slate starts with the companion adjective to “crazy,” which is “hysterical.” Apparently, it’s news to Meghan that hysterical/hysteria has misogynistic roots as being a descriptor for women only, meaning women were fundamentally “crazy” because of their reproductive systems.
I’ll admit that I kind of tapped out of the episode when it comes to Constance Wu. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy/empathy for her, I absolutely do. But I’ve been reading her interviews and excerpts from her new memoir and I know how heavy that conversation is and it’s just way too heavy for me at this moment. Wu was raped, she was sexually harassed by a superior, she attempted suicide, she was in a really dark place and she sought help.
All of this is incredibly personal for Meghan. She was being abused and smeared so much during her 2019 pregnancy that she had suicidal thoughts. Even today, there’s still a campaign against her to make her sound “crazy.” One of Prince William’s favorite descriptors for his sister-in-law is “unhinged.”
Constance Wu crying and talking about her suicide attempt, Deepika calling a family friend who left an event to attend to her, Meghan’s first call with a therapist who talked to her while at the grocery store. This week’s episode is heavy.#Archetypes#ArchetypesOnSpotify pic.twitter.com/r2T8MzYEvO
— Dee (@Dee09371086) October 11, 2022
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Spotify.
