Prince Harry says he fell into a depression for two weeks after he, Meghan and their son moved to Canada seven years ago.
In a heartfelt new MasterClass with neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor released on Thursday, Harry recalled how he had experienced an “adrenaline crash” within days after leaving the U.K.
“It was as if I needed stress in order to get the adrenaline to make my brain function because I became useless around the house,” he said. “I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks.”
The family moved to Canada in late 2019, a few months after Archie, Harry and Meghan’s first child, was born.
In January 2020, the couple announced that they planned to hand over their “royal highness” titles and step back from royal duties.
In the years since, Harry has been publicly upfront about the rift between him and the rest of the family over their treatment of his wife and apparent refusal to support him and his family in their legal battles against the U.K. media.
During the MasterClass, he recalled that the family moved to Canada to “get some space away from everything, just to be able to think.”
He described the period in the U.K. prior to the family’s move as a “stressful environment.”
The prince has long been open about struggling with grief after losing his mother Diana, former Princess of Wales, in a sudden car crash in 1997. Harry was 12 years old at the time.
He recalled how it felt to have the public’s eyes on him in the aftermath of the crash, including at the highly televised funeral.
“Everybody looked at me probably to see how (I’m) doing,” Harry said.
The intense public scrutiny and concern for his well-being compelled his younger self to create the “impression” that he was fine, he recalled.
“For 15 to 20 years, when I was being asked, ‘are you OK?’ my response was, ‘I’m fine,’” he said.
“It was numbness, emotional shutdown and without knowing it, adrenaline was pushing me, driving me.”
Shortly after moving to Canada, the couple relocated to Los Angeles in March 2020 where they lived for six years.
In a surprising turn of events, the couple announced in August that they planned to return to the U.K. Media reports confirmed their arrival in the country days later and report that the couple currently live in a private residence outside London.
Military service
Harry recalled the first time he realized that he was struggling, after he returned from his second tour in Afghanistan.
He described how the “adrenaline” had become a superpower and pushed him into service in Afghanistan and through his two tours.
“When I got back ... there was no other mission,” he said.
“What was very interesting was my post-traumatic stress was not tied to Afghanistan,” he added. “The things I saw, the things I experienced, appeared to be a trigger for other traumas that had stored themselves within me.”
Physical symptoms like panic attacks or feelings of suffocation when tightening a collar were the first noticeable signals that he was struggling, he said.
Connection to Diana
Harry spoke candidly of how he struggled to grieve his mother’s death.
He recalled shaking hands with members of the public during the funerals. “(They) were soaking wet with tears,” he said. “I almost felt guilty that I was unable to show the same emotion as these people who were crying for someone they’d never even met.”
During the burial, attended only by family, Harry recalled being able to cry for the first time.
Yet for a decade after, he would remain in denial of his mother’s death, convinced that the former princess had gone into hiding and would reveal herself, sooner or later to him and his brother, he added.
The “defence mechanism” repressed his memories of Diana. “I forgot what my mum sounded like. I forgot her laugh,” he said. “I couldn’t really visualize what she looked like without looking at a photograph of her.”
In 2013, he observed an event where military veterans participated in a sensory experience that used artificially generated sounds and smells to force them to remember their experiences.
Years later, he accepted advice from a therapist to try the same thing using his mother’s perfume bottle, he said.
“It was like being transported to another time, and it unlocked everything that had been locked previously,” he said.
