He was 12 years old when Diana died. And, as he now says, no one gave him a place to put it.
In a new video for a mental health learning platform, Prince Harry says life in the Royal Family kept him from grieving his mother as he should have. He says he went almost 20 years without shedding a tear and felt “emotionally numb”. “You’d think I had the best help in the world. I’m a prince, for God’s sake, and yet I was grieving and had nowhere to channel those feelings”, he says.
He says his official duties triggered panic attacks: tightening his shirt collar for royal engagements made him feel as though he was suffocating. Between the ages of 20 and 30, he went to war twice, thinking he could escape what he was feeling. He couldn’t.
Today, he says he thinks of Diana “almost every night and most mornings”.