The Me You Can’t See is an ambitious and emotional documentary series from Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Oprah Winfrey. Ambitious because it aims to tackle the stigma around seeking help for mental health struggles by asking a range of individuals – from their fellow celebrities and elite athletes to average folks – to open up about their particular battle, while Harry and Oprah also slowly reveal and discuss their own traumas and how they’ve found help. And a number of these stories, as one would expect, are incredibly emotional to listen to.
Now, to address the elephant in the series. I suspect there will a host of articles released the minute the embargo on this series drops, highlighting the “bombs” dropped by Prince Harry throughout the first several episodes (the first three episodes were provided to critics, and Harry’s personal story features heavily into each) – which will only serve to prove several of the points Harry makes throughout the series regarding the dangerous stigma around seeking help for mental health struggles and his own need to escape the intense pressures of public life in Britain. And I also suspect that these stories, and their reverberation around the tabloids, will overshadow some of the incredibly brave and worthy stories – and expert commentary – from less famous folks within the piece. But that’s the price you pay for entry. I suspect this series would never have gotten made without both Harry and Oprah (who opens up a bit about her personal struggles with mental health and how it spurred her advocacy and shaped her life in the first three episodes, but not to the level of Harry) being willing to share their own personal journeys alongside their famous and not-so-famous friends and acquaintances.
As for the structure of the series, well, that’s where I think the series could have done with a bit more refinement. Each episode is focused on a step in the process of getting help with mental health, with a series of stories from individuals about their personal mental health journey. For example, the premiere episode “Say It Out Loud,” includes a vignette with Lady Gaga discussing how, while experiencing some of the greatest success of her career, she was struggling with self-harm, as well as one with Olympic Boxer Ginny Fuchs who discusses the toll OCD has taken on her life – and the moment she realized she needed help. Lady Gaga’s story doesn’t appear again in the next two episodes, but we get more time with Fuchs and other participants as we follow their mental health journey. The stories themselves, and the interviews with the people in their lives who were also impacted by their mental health diagnoses, are powerful and provide a face to often undiscussed or misunderstood diagnoses (the piece in episode three on schizophrenia is particularly interesting, shining a light on a diagnosis that is often portrayed as a death sentence of sorts), but I found myself wishing we had more time with the various experts tapped by the series to further explain the science behind the terminology.
When a particular diagnosis is broached in a personal story, such as OCD or schizophrenia, there’s a voice over – occasionally with a talking head, but not always – with a mental health professional explaining what that particular disease means and the ways it can impact a person’s life. They often relate their explanation to the individual in that vignette – such as explaining how Fuch’s particular form of OCD falls within the area of that disease focusing on contamination and needing to clean rather than say, those with OCD who have a compulsion to count. But there’s not much time spent, at least in the initial three episodes, to discussing the conditions and their wider place within society – how prevalent are they, what treatment options exist, if you feel you might have a similar situation who should you speak to. There’s great content about how the stigma around mental health must be changed – how we shouldn’t feel ostracized for asking for help, how we should have access to services, etc. – but precious little about how to find that help and what the audience should do to support those in our life who might be struggling with mental health issues.*
*Having only seen the first three episodes of the limited series, it’s entirely possible that these topics will be brought up more in later installments. However, I would have liked to see a more holistic approach, allowing the experts more screen time, while limiting some of the focus, at least in these early episodes, on Harry’s own struggles. There’s a great deal of Harry content, and while it’s important to understand his path to get to this point – and why he is so supportive of normalizing mental health discussions and treatment – it begins to overshadow the other participants and their stories.
So, while I would absolutely recommend the series, as we absolutely need a more open dialogue around mental health, there are some elements to the program that don’t quite work as well as they could have. My hope – and the clear hope of both Oprah and Harry in MCing and producing this series – is that seeing so many people from various backgrounds and walks of life speaking openly and without shame around their own mental health struggles will inspire others to take steps to walk on their own mental health journey. There’s help and understanding out there – you just need to know how and who to ask. The Me You Can’t See is a great first step in the process.
The Me You Can’t See premieres on AppleTV+ on Friday, May 21. Critics were provided the first three episodes for review.
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