The Duke of Sussex has spoken of his “unravelling” after he returned from his tour of Afghanistan, which he said triggered the trauma from the death of his mother.
Speaking in his Heart of Invictus Netflix docu-series, Prince Harry said mental illness was a “dirty word” when he first joined the military and wanted to cure the “stigma” in society.
The docu-series, which was launched in the UK at 8am on Wednesday, follows a group of service members on their road to the Paralympics-style sporting competition that Harry set up in 2014 for injured and sick military personnel and veterans.
In it, Harry says: “From my personal experience, my tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches, somewhere after that there was an unravelling. And the trigger to me was returning to Afghanistan, but the stuff that was coming up was from the age of – from 1997 – from the age of 12.
“Losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma that I had I was never really aware of. It was never discussed, I never really talked about it, and I’ve suppressed it like most youngsters would have done.”
He adds: “But when it all came fizzing out I was bouncing off the walls. Like: what is going on here? I’m now feeling everything as opposed to being numb
“The biggest struggle for me was no one around me really could help. I didn’t have that support structure, that network, or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me. Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you really consider therapy is when you’re lying on the floor in the foetal position probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously.
“That’s what I really want to change.”
Harry said he wanted Invictus to be like a safety net to catch people, because he lacked the support or understanding of his own “invisible injuries”.
Speaking to one Invictus Games participant, who had described the “demons” he carried daily on his shoulders, Harry agreed, saying that after his mother died, “for all those years, I had no emotion, I was unable to cry, I was unable to feel. 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 ‘shwoosh’. And then it was chaos.
“My emotions were sprayed all over the wall everywhere I went, and I was like, how the hell do I contain this? I’ve gone from nothing to everything and I now need to get a glass jar and put myself in it, put myself in it, leave the lid open and my therapist said, ‘You choose what comes in and everything else bounces off’.”
Harry was the executive producer of the series, which forms part of the Sussexes’ multimillion-pound deal with Netflix – with their main output so far being last year’s controversial Harry & Meghan documentary.
Heart of Invictus has been released in the run-up to next month’s Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The series, which was announced more than two years ago, has been made by Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions company. It is directed by Orlando von Einsiedel and produced by Joanna Natasegara, who worked together on the Oscar-winning short The White Helmets.
Harry is expected to travel to Germany for the entirety of the next tournament, which begins on 9 September, while Meghan will join him shortly after the games begin.
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
