Britain’s Duchess Catherine met with a girl who suffers from bipolar disorder on World Mental Health Day.
The 33-year-old royal – who has children Prince George and Princess Charlotte with husband Prince William – bonded with Emma Peacock, 19, after learning she’d been misdiagnosed with ADHD at the age of eight despite being bipolar.
Emma told Duchess Catherine: "I made the mistake of telling my friends first. That was not a good idea. Because they didn’t understand, they stigmatised it and I was excluded."
Offering her sympathies to the teenager, Catherine asked whether she’d found it hard to discuss her condition with her mother as she too doesn’t like to worry her family.
Emma responded: "I was so scared my family would worry, you always want to protect your family, so I found it really hard."
The brunette beauty – who attended the event at Harrow College in north London with her husband, the Duke of Cambridge – also spoke to the girl’s mother Nadine, asking how her daughter’s diagnosis had affected her.
According to People magazine, Nadine said: "When your child is going through such difficulties and anxieties, and struggling with mental health, it is heartbreaking. A lot of her friends wouldn’t talk about it because it was taboo."
Duchess Catherine meets with bipolar sufferer
