Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria opens up about anxiety

As she prepares to celebrate her 40th birthday, Crown Princess Victoria reflected publicly on her struggles with performance anxiety. 

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  Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden with Prince Oscar, 2016. Photo: Bengt Nyman via Wikimedia Commons

• As she prepares to celebrate her 40th birthday, July 14, Crown Princess Victoria reflected publicly on her struggles with anxiety in an interview with Swedish television SVT.

• It wasn’t long ago that she opened up about her well documented battle with anorexia when she was 20, but Princess Victoria, now married and the mother of two, says she continues to live with anxiety.

• “The performance anxiety I had is still there,” the future queen said, adding the passage of time has eased the problem. “I’ve been given different kinds of tools and learned how to manage it.” But it is complicated; she opened up about having dyslexia, saying, “I used to think I was stupid and slow.”

• Echoing Prince Harry’s recent campaign to tackle the taboo of discussing mental health in public, the princess said she is concerned for the mental health of youngsters. The expectation that “everything has to be polished” has heaped pressure on young people. “There are as many reasons to feel bad as there are people,” she said, concerned that mental health problems were becoming more common, especially among young people.