Prince Harry: opening up about his grief

“What does someone who needs help with their mental health look like,” asked Felicity Morse in the i newspaper. They could look like a soldier returning from war. Or a mother struggling with a new baby. Or someone who has just lost their job. In truth, they could look like anyone: at least one in four people in the UK will have mental health problems during their lifetime. And, we learnt this week, they also look “like Prince Harry”. The Prince revealed to The Daily Telegraph that he had “come close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”, because he had bottled up his feelings about his mother’s death for so long. The result “was 20 years of not thinking about it, and two years of total chaos”. Only after his brother convinced him to seek help did he visit a “shrink”. “Once you start talking about it,” he said, “you realise that actually you’re part of quite a big club.”

The sight of a 12-year-old Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin became the enduring image of Princess Diana’s funeral, said Hannah Furness in The Daily Telegraph. Now, 20 years on, he has revealed how his grief affected him: “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?” This approach, he said, had “a serious effect not only my personal life but my work as well”. He only addressed his problems when he was 28, and started suffering from anxiety at royal engagements. At one point, he felt that he was “on the verge of punching someone”.

“By giving this interview, Harry has done more to show people that it’s OK – normal – to struggle with your mental health than decades of charity campaigns could ever achieve,” said Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail. Like their mother, Harry and William have chosen to support difficult causes, and by championing this one they can “transform” our view of mental health. “Normalising” these problems “is necessary – but so too is funding”, said Suzanne Moore in The Guardian. Mental health services are in “a very poor state”. Many people in Harry’s position would not get counselling; they would be fobbed off with antidepressants. “Now it’s time to make the help and support that was available to a prince available to all.”