Prince Harry has stated that he “always felt slightly different” from his family, as did his late mother.
In an online discussion about grieving, the Duke of Sussex stated that he was afraid about losing memories of his mother Diana when he began counseling.
He also stated that he “smothered” his children with affection in order to avoid passing on any “traumas” or “bad experiences” from his own upbringing.
His conversation was with Dr. Gabor Maté, a trauma and addiction author.
Their fireside chat in California centered on themes of “living with loss” from his explosive book, Spare.
Reflecting on the public response to the work, the Duke of Sussex insisted that he was not a “victim” or seeking sympathy.
“I felt a huge weight off my shoulders,” he told Dr Maté, describing the book as an “act of service” to help others break the taboo about speaking about mental health problems.
Saturday’s talk centered on the prince’s emotions, counseling, and mental health concerns.
But, it did not address recent royal discoveries, like as Harry and Meghan’s request to quit Frogmore House – or whether or not he will attend his father’s coronation.
There was also no indication of how the Royal Family, especially his brother, felt about his autobiography.
Growing up, Prince Harry described feeling “somewhat different to the rest of my family” and living in a separated “bubble,” which treatment helped him burst.
He was probed about his emotionally detached childhood, with a paucity of embraces and displays of affection, in front of an international online audience.
He said that with his own children, he was “making sure that I smother them with love and affection”.
“As a father I feel a huge responsibility to ensure that I don’t pass on any traumas or… negative experiences that I’ve had as a kid,” he said.
He continually emphasized the significance of therapy, despite the fact that it could cause a schism between him and other relationships.
But he claimed he feared it might undermine his feelings towards his mother, Diana, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 when Harry was 12 years old.
“One of the things I was most scared about was losing the feeling that I had of my mum… whatever I had managed to hold onto of my mother,” said Prince Harry.
The prince spoke about being “eternally grateful” for his wife Meghan in changing his perspective, calling her an “exceptional human being”.
But he said meeting Meghan had given him a “crash course” in the experience of racism, which he described as “pretty shocking”.
Prince Harry also defended the use of psychedelic medicine, saying it had helped him “deal with the traumas and pains of the past” and was like the “cleaning of the windscreen”.
He said taking cocaine “didn’t do anything for me” but that “marijuana is different, that actually really did help me”.
And he spoke about Afghanistan, where he served for two tours of duty, saying not all British soldiers agreed with the war.
“One of the reasons why so many people in the United Kingdom were not supportive of our troops was because they assumed that everybody who was serving was for the war. But no, once you sign up, you do what you’re told to do.
“So there was a lot of us who didn’t necessarily agree or disagree but you were doing what you were trained to. You were doing what you were sent to do.”
To view the online interview, viewers needed to purchase a copy of Prince Harry’s best-selling memoir, which made headlines for its unique description of royal tensions and personal confessions.
It detailed his experiences with drugs and losing his virginity, as well as claims of a violent conflict with his brother, Prince William.
