Harry reveals Afghanistan forced him to face Diana pain

PRINCE HARRY has opened up about how his time in Afghanistan was the trigger for him to get help dealing with his mother’s death.

The Prince – who served on two frontline tours with the Army – was filmed in conversation with Paralympic medal winner and former Invictus Games captain Dave Henson for Forces TV. He admitted that he has “plenty of issues” and had felt helpless at times, but he said Afghanistan was the moment he realised he had to deal with his problems and that the Invictus Games he set up for wounded service personnel had been “a sort of cure”.

He said: “Going through Invictus and speaking to all the guys about their issues has really healed me and helped me. I’ve got plenty of issues but none of them really relate to Afghanistan – but Afghanistan was the thing that triggered everything else.

“Not to get too personal, if you lose your mum at the age of 12 then you’ve got to deal with it and the idea that... 15, 17 years later I still hadn’t dealt with it, Afghan was the moment. I was like ‘Right – deal with it.’”

The Prince recently won praise for revealing in a podcast with The Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon that he sought counselling as he confessed it was not until his late twenties that he processed his grief for Diana, Princess of Wales, who was killed in a car crash in 1997.

He told Mr Henson: “For me, Invictus has been a sort of cure for myself... There was many times in my early life and also many times in Afghan and coming back from Afghan when you actually feel helpless.”

He added: “Once I plucked my head out of the sand, post-afghan, it had a huge, life changing moment for me – ‘Right, you are Prince Harry, you can do this, as long as you’re not a complete tit, then you’re gonna be able to get that support, because you’ve got the credibility of 10 years’ service and therefore, you can really make a difference’.”

The Prince described how his own struggles had manifested themselves and said that recognising this meant he could help others. He said: “You can tell the signs in people... in my case, suit and tie and every single time I was in any room with loads of people, which is quite often, just pouring with sweat, heart beating bop, bop, bop, bop – literally like a washing machine – just like, ‘Oh my god, get me out of here now. Oh hang on. I can’t get out of here – I’ve got to just hide it.”