As previously detailed in his bombshell 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry recalls “experiencing panic attacks” on his way to royal public engagements. “Just putting a simple dress shirt on, the tightening of the collar, literally felt like I was suffocating,” he says at one point. “Take it from someone who has suppressed his emotions for 20 years,” Harry warns at another moment. “It doesn’t end well.”
Going to therapy gave Harry “permission to grieve,” he says. “I learnt more about myself in two or three sessions than I had done in 20 years.”
For decades, Harry worried that seeking treatment for the loss of his mother would sever their bond. “My fear was if I heal from it, if I go looking for the fix, does that mean I lose the connection to my mum?” he says during the class. “I had spent so long emotionally numb to a large extent because I felt disloyal and guilty for the possibility of being happy and joyful without her. I felt like I had to be sad and I had to be emotionally numb in order to prove to her that I missed her.”
In developing his long-held defense mechanisms, Harry said that he wound up “shutting out both good and bad memories” involving Diana. “I forgot what my mum sounded like. I forgot her laugh. I couldn’t really visualize what she looked like without looking at a photograph of her,” Harry admits, dressed down in a dark button-up across from O’Connor during a staged tableside chat where each has a mug in front of them. “I decided through some advice from my therapist that I should get my mother’s perfume and try it myself,” Harry continues. “It was like being transported to another time…. Spraying my mother’s scent was almost like knocking certain bricks through so that certain memories and experiences could start seeping through.”
