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In a recent podcast, Prince Harry revealed that he sought counselling following two years of “total chaos” that he experienced while struggling to come to terms with the loss of his mother, Princess Diana.
Harry was just 12 when his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash, but he said it was not until his late 20s that he began to process his grief. In an Interview with Bryony Gordon for The Telegraph, the Prince revealed that he “shut down all his emotions” following the death of his mother, despite his brother, Prince William, encouraging him to seek help. It was only when he was 28, after facing anxiety during royal engagements, that he spoke to a professional about his mental health.
He described how he turned to counsellors and even took up boxing to cope with the effect losing his mother had on his mental wellbeing. He described how his high-profile lifestyle in the public eye left him feeling “close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions.”
The Prince, now 32, told The Telegraph: “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help? So from an emotional side, I was like “right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything.” And then (I) started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never actually processed, started to come to the forefront and I was like: there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with.”
He revealed that he had decided to share the unprecedented insight into his past in the hopes it encouraged others to break the stigma around discussing mental health. Prince Harry’s revelations this week have been praised by mental health experts. We welcome the Prince’s recent revelations as an important step towards removing the stigma around talking about mental health, particularly amongst young men.
It was recently revealed that Prince Harry had trained as an Armed Forces Mental Health First Aider, and he was reported speaking about his desire to use these skills to support military veterans. According to The Daily Mail, a source for The Prince commented, “Through his work with the personal recovery unit he (Prince Harry) attended a two-day course about how to help people with mental health issues in the veterans’ context.” The source added, “It's about mental health first aid: what do you do when someone comes to you, what words should you use, which direction can you point them in.”