Prince Harry has given a candid and revealing interview with The Daily Telegraph and the shocking results of this interview have spread the nation, particularly the news that he has only just spent the last two years processing his grief from the death of his mother, Princess Diana of Wales, which happened nearly twenty years ago.
Harry said that he found himself in a state of “total chaos” psychologically as he was fast approaching a “complete breakdown” when he sought out mental Health counselling to help him deal with the mourning from his mother’s tragic and sudden passing, which resurfaced in his mind after he claims he spent almost twenty years “not thinking” about it.
Harry says he’s in a ‘good place’ with it now
According to Harry, who’s 32 now and only starting coming to terms with his mother’s death when he was in his late 20s, he’s in a “good place” with it now, which is probably why he feels so comfortable going public with his struggles. He also spoke of the “process” he went through to deal with these feelings, adding that he was “saved” by boxing as it became an outlet through which he could release the aggression he was harbouring after his mother was killed.
And why wouldn’t Harry be harbouring aggression? His mother was killed in an easily avoidable car accident. At the time, the paparazzi following the car were blamed, so he’d be angry at them, but after an investigation that took place over more than a year, it was discovered that her death was in fact the driver’s fault, so he’d be angry at him, except he was also killed in the crash, so Harry would have to internalise his aggression, and that’s terrible for your mental health.
So, he took it out using boxing as a release, and would recommend the same to others with similar internalised aggression problems.
Harry decided to open up about his struggles with mental health issues because he wants to encourage people suffering from mental health problems to follow in his footsteps and open up about their own struggles to the people around them.
There’s a shame or a humiliation surrounding issues of mental health, but Harry wants people to be more comfortable with it, which is noble because it means more people will be able to get the help they need.
The interview was a part of the Heads Together campaign
In addition to doing it as a general way of encouraging people with mental health problems to do the same, Harry gave the interview and opened up about his mental health struggles as a part of a campaign he’s been promoting with his brother, Prince William, and William’s wife/Harry’s sister-in-law/the world’s crush Kate Middleton for the mental health charity Heads Together.
Heads Together is the charity of the year for the London Marathon.
Harry was 12 years old when his mother died, and he said that with it happening at such a young age, yet burgeoning on emotional maturity, his response to it was “shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years,” and he said that this had “a quite serious effect” on both his personal social life and his work. “On numerous occasions,” he claims, he has come “very close to a complete breakdown” occurring from “all sorts of grief and all sorts of lies and misconceptions,” and his aim is to stop others from feeling the way he has for the past two decades.
Also in the interview, Harry expanded on what exactly he means when he says he spent two decades after his mother’s death “not thinking” about her. He described his method of “dealing with it” simply as “sticking (his) head in the sand” and stopping himself mentally from ever thinking about Diana, “because why would (thinking about her) help?”
