Prince Harry has described how returning from his final tour of Afghanistan triggered an “unravelling” but “no-one around me really could help”.
Speaking in his new Heart of Invictus docuseries on Netflix, The Duke of Sussex said he did not have a “support structure” to help him deal with his mental health struggles, which related back to the trauma of losing his mother Diana, Princess of Wales.
The duke, whose troubled relationship with the Royal Family has long been documented, said the impact of Diana’s death when he was 12 was never discussed and he finally sought therapy after “lying on the floor in the foetal position”.
The five-part documentary, which was launched in the UK at 8am on Wednesday, 30 August, follows a group of former military servicemen and women on their road to the Paralympic-style sporting competition Invictus, which Harry set up in 2014 for injured and sick military personnel and veterans.
In the second episode, entitled Invisible Injuries, Harry tells how he suppressed the trauma of losing his mother in a car crash – the 26th anniversary of which is on Thursday – but his return to the UK from his second frontline tour to Afghanistan in 2012 brought it all back.
“I can only speak from my personal experience, my tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches,” he said.
“Somewhere after that, there was an unravelling. The trigger to me was actually returning from Afghanistan. But the stuff that was coming up was from the age of, from 1997, from the age of 12.
He continued: “Losing my mom at such a young age, the trauma that I had, I was never really aware of. It was never discussed. I didn’t really talk about it and I suppressed it like most youngsters would have done, but then when it all came fizzing out, I was bouncing off the walls. I was like ‘what is going on here? I’m now feeling everything as opposed to being numb’.
“The biggest struggle for me was … no-one around me really could help. I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.
“Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you really consider therapy is when you’re lying on the floor in the foetal position, probably wishing that you’d dealt with some of the stuff previously, and that’s what I really want to change.”
Yesterday, Tuesday 29 August, ex Royal butler Grant Harrold revealed how Prince Harry and his brother William have a “non-existent and distant” relationship after previously being “the best of friends”.
Grant worked as a butler for King Charles between 2004 and 2011, back when the King was the Prince of Wales.
The butler said that the relationship between the two princes has become “so distant” after being extremely close in their younger years.
Grant, who mainly worked with William and Harry when they were in their late teens and twenties, explained: “They were best friends and they had the same friends, too. You’d see them in the pubs together. It was a great time for them.
"I remember going to the pub to meet them once. When I arrived, they called my name, I turned around and they were behind me. They were both very sociable boys.
“And that’s what’s so sad about it now, how they’ve gone from best of friends to non-existent really. They have become so distant. I know quite a few of Harry’s friends, who don’t hear from him at all now either.”
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