Prince Harry on Panic Attacks, Therapy and His Mom's Death: I Needed to 'Heal Myself from the Past'
"I wasn't in an environment where it was encouraged to talk about it either, that was sort of, like, squashed," the Duke of Sussex says in The Me You Can't See
Prince Harry is opening up about the path that led him to therapy.
In an emotional revelation in the new AppleTV+ docuseries The Me You Can't See, co-created by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex speaks openly about his mental health journey, sharing that he has been in therapy for four years "to heal myself from the past."
He also reveals that it was his wife Meghan Markle who encouraged him to seek help. "I saw doctors, I saw therapists, I saw alternative therapists. I saw all sorts of people. But it was meeting and being with Meghan, I knew that if I didn't do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with," he shares.
His challenges followed the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Harry, who was just 12 years old at the time, says that during his childhood, teen years and twenties, "I wasn't in an environment where it was encouraged to talk about it either, that was sort of, like, squashed."
In a searingly honest conversation with Oprah in the series, Harry said he would have his "head in the sand and just crack on."
"If people said, 'how are you?' I'd be like 'fine.' Never happy. Never sad, just fine. Fine was the easy answer. But I was all over the place mentally," he reveals.
As he embarked on royal duties in the years that followed, severe anxiety would dominate his emotions.
"Every time I put a suit and tie on and having to do the role and sort of like go, let's go. Before I even left the house I was pouring with sweat, my heart rate was . . . I was in fight or flight mode. Panic attacks, severe anxiety . . . So [age] 28 to probably 32 was a nightmare time in my life, freaking out," he admits.
"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 continues. "But I slowly became aware that, okay, 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,"
"People who are hurt, understandably hurt, from their upbringing, their environment, what's happened to them, what they've been exposed to, what they've seen — whatever it is — if you don't transform, if you don't process it, then it ends up coming out and in all sorts of different ways and you can't control," he says.
In the first episode, Harry talks about his mother's funeral, when he and his older brother Prince William, then 15, joined their father Prince Charles, grandfather Prince Philip and uncle Charles, Earl Spencer in walking solemnly behind Diana's casket.
"For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horse's hooves going along the Mall, the red brick road. By this point, both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body," Harry recalls.
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"I'm just walking along and doing what was expected of me, showing the one-tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing," he adds.
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Harry says that he's still haunted by the memories of feeling helpless as his mother struggled with the tabloid media.
"I always wanted to be normal, as opposed to being Prince Harry, just being Harry. It was a puzzling life and, unfortunately, when I think about my mum the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one, over and over again," he says. "Strapped in the car, seatbelt across. My brother in the car as well, and my mother driving and being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on.
"She was almost unable to drive because of the tears, there was no protection. One of the feelings that come up is helplessness. Being too young, being a guy, too young to be able to help a woman, in this case, your mother. And that happened every single day until the day she died."
Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey's mental-health docuseries, The Me You Can't See, which premieres May 20 at 9 p.m. ET, also features inspiring stories from Oprah, Lady Gaga, and Glenn Close.
Harry and Oprah co-created the series to "lift the veil" on mental health and wellbeing, they said last week. "Now more than ever, there is an immediate need to replace the shame surrounding mental health with wisdom, compassion, and honesty. Our series aims to spark that global conversation," Oprah said.
If you or someone you know need mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.