Prince Harry said his family wasn’t there for him and he didn’t have the “support structure” he needed following the death of his mother Princess Diana in 1997 — when he was just 12 years old.
During the Duke of Sussex’s new Netflix limited series, “Heart of Invictus,” the royal opened up about dealing with past traumas — which he said goes back to before his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following his return home from serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan, one in 2007 another in 2012, the Daily Mail reported.
“The trigger to me was actually returning from Afghanistan, but the stuff that was coming up was from … 1997 from the age of 12,” Harry said in the show. “Losing my mum at such at young age. The trauma that I had I was never really aware of.”
Prince Harry appears to take another jab at the Royal family by saying he didn't have a support network after his return from Afghanistan.
Here we go again, it's another Harold public therapy session.
https://t.co/YyvyM4B3Y9 pic.twitter.com/Wd4xNVxygd
— HarrysGreySuit (@hrrysgreysuit) August 30, 2023
“It was never discussed,” he added. “I didn’t really talk about it. 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 am now feeling everything as opposed to being numb.'”
“The biggest struggle for me is that no one around me could really help,” the royal continued. “I didn’t have that support structure, that network, or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.”
The Duke said he’s similar to others who have suffered a trauma in that he didn’t realize that he should seek help for his mental health until years later.
“Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you really consider therapy is when you are lying on the floor in the fetal position probably wishing that you dealt with this stuff previously,” Harry said.
Later in the show, the royal said finally by the age of 28 he was able to start to working through some of the trauma, Page Six noted.
“I had no emotion, I was unable to cry, I was unable to feel,” the Duke said. “I didn’t know it at the time. And it wasn’t until later in my life, aged 28, there was a circumstance that happened that the first few bubbles started coming out and then suddenly it was like someone shook and it went ‘poof’ … and then it was chaos.”
Harry is married to former “Suits” actress Meghan Markle and the two share two kids together — a son, Prince Archie, and daughter, Princess Lilibet. They currently live in southern California.
Relations between the royal couple and his family have not been the best following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s initial decision to step down from their senior roles in January 2020. Three years later, the prince released his tell-all memoir “Spare” that took aim at Harry’s brother, sister-in-law, and father.
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