Should I feel bad for Prince Harry?
DEAR BEL,
MY concern is perhaps unusual as it’s not for myself, nor a member of my family, nor a friend.
It’s for the person who is currently headline news and appears on the front page of every newspaper.
He appears to be ridiculed by everyone — the laughing stock of almost the entire world — and seems to dig himself a deeper hole every day.
Having been in a similar situation myself, but only with my family, am I the only one to show concern for his welfare and his mental ability to ride out the storm against him?
The pressure must be enormous, overwhelming and possibly life-threatening.
I remember the late TV presenter Caroline Flack and what happened to her when the pressure of being ostracised became too great.
Heaven forbid that we should be wringing our hands in grief if the same fate should befall him. Do you agree?
ALISON
ALISON, i’m so glad you wrote this letter, which shows such compassion for the Duke of sussex because, of course, you are far from being the only one to express such concerns.
Rightly worried about Harry’s mental health (a subject which never seems to lose its fascination for him), you are concerned that the current ‘pressure’ could prove to be too much.
Certainly, when i watched the first part of his TV interview with Tom Bradby i felt similar concerns, largely because i care about the monarchy, love the King and Queen, and also met Harry twice when he was about ten.
When he married his beautiful bride, i rather adored him. But as Bradby’s very gentle interview continued, my compassion turned to despair. i segued from ‘ oh, poor little lad’ to ‘oh, shut up, churlish prince’. no wonder he and his wife divide opinion.
i’m currently reading a brilliant book called The Body Keeps The score by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, subtitled ‘Mind, Brain And Body in The Transformation of Trauma’.
The word ‘trauma’ is often used to describe the effect on Harry of hearing of his mother’s death, and having to walk behind her coffin on that terrible day. But it’s also a word that’s often misused — turned into a cliche, which belies its seriousness.
Care is necessary, since the word can describe many different states of response to varied events, from war to a motorway pile-up. For instance, van der Kolk mentions a disturbed girl in a clinic who ‘at the age of five, had seen her mother [a prostitute] raped, dismembered, burned and put into the trunk of a car. The mother’s pimp was suspected of sexually abusing the girl’.
surely some perspective is needed. To be frank, i pity the millions of children worldwide who are reported every year as victims of child abuse, far more than even a sad little boy bewildered by grief. i worry about a reader’s son who is currently threatening suicide rather more than about the ‘ridiculed’ figure you describe.
After all, the public attention you so kindly bewail has assiduously, greedily, been pursued by Harry and his wife, who live a life of unimaginable privilege and — we hope and trust, for their sakes — great happiness.
We should ask, with van der Kolk: ‘How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past? What happens in people’s minds and brains that keeps them frozen, trapped in a place they desperately wish to escape?’
His book contains far too much clinical analysis to summarise here, but i think you’d agree with me that Harry does indeed now seem to be more trapped within his flawed memories and locked-in resentment than ever he was as a courageous Army officer, and then the brilliant, dedicated founder of the invictus Games.
Yet i was heartened to read this in the book: ‘our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring wellbeing.’ isn’t there hope there to reassure you? of course, it depends on Harry’s willingness to be ‘healed’ rather than create a career out of resentment and misery.
To maintain contemplative silence in front of the finest scented candles the Californian ‘wellness’ industry can provide, instead of spouting more and more of his very own, very noisy ‘truth’ — because, in another quotation from van der Kolk: ‘The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves’.
i wish Harry would apologise, as he demands an apology. Forgive, just as he expects his father to forgive him, in spite of all his vitriol. Realise that, without his family (flawed as it might be), he is nothing at all.
PRINCE HARRY will certainly never know what true wellbeing is unless he actively works to ‘ restore relationships’ — even after taking his flamethrower to them. Until he displays the kindness he and so many others pontificate about. But you and i better not lose sleep over that, as it will require much time and intent.
Freud wrote: ‘out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.’ And those who admire Harry may think that by flexing his muscles in public he has shown that strength. But, of course, it’s only abject weakness that we’ve witnessed in his interviews.
What’s desperately needed now is a miraculously rational decision by Harry to stop making himself his own victim, ditch the therapy and focus on the good new life he is capable of living. i’d say a prayer for that outcome.