Prince Harry is opening up and we’re thankful that he is. The conversations that have been started from The Me You Can’t See are important. Working to end the stigma of mental illness is one of the most important conversations that can be had.
And for Harry, that’s going to mean opening up about the trauma that he endured after the death of his Mom, Princess Diana.
In the series he talked about the funeral and what he remembered the most.
“For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along The Mall, the red brick road,” Harry said. “By this point, both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me, showing one-tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing.”
He was a child expected to act like a man and hide his emotions. I have long thought that making Harry and William walk behind their mothers coffin was cruel.
And the way that his Mom died caused anxiety and fear. He spoke open about his mental health and anxiety that he felt.
“Before I even left the house, I was pouring with sweat and my heart raced. I was in a fight-or-flight mode,” Harry said during the episode when talking frankly about his anxiety. “Panic attacks, severe anxiety. And from 28 to probably 32 was a nightmare time in my life.”
“I would just start sweating,” he continued. “I would feel as though my body temperature was two or three degrees warmer than everybody else in the room. I would convince myself that my face was bright red, and therefore, everybody could see how I was feeling but no one would know why. So, it was embarrassing. You get in your head about it. And then you’re just like, ‘Everybody is looking at me.’ One bead of sweat feels like the whole face is pouring down.”
His bluntness was moving and also of the utmost importance. And the way he continued and talked about how he was self medicating his way through what he was feeling.
“Everywhere I go, every single time I meet someone, it’s almost like I’m being drained of this energy. Picking up on other people’s emotion,” he said. “Finally, I’d bump into someone who was sweating more than me, and I would stop, be able to speak to them and then everything would calm down and then I could move on again.”
“I was willing to drink. I was willing to take drugs. I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling,” he said. “But I slowly became aware that, OK, I wasn’t drinking Monday to Friday, but I would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night. And I would find myself drinking not because I was enjoying it, but because I was trying to mask something.”
Harry started therapy and is working through his anxiety. It’s an admirable thing that he is so open about what he has felt and is feeling.
The Me You Can’t See is streaming now on AppleTV+.
