Prince Harry makes a point, a case for access to mental health care

 Digital Discourse Foundation Editorial

Prince Harry’s recent series of media outbursts may well have been with an eye on profit and he may have been pushed to do so by marketing agents of his book “Spare” and in other sensational Netflix promotional interviews. All the same Harry’s insecurity stemming from being told that he was a Spare to the British Throne underscores the need for emotional support, access to counseling and in a larger societal context, access to Mental Health Care. His case clearly highlights the need for early intervention and relationship based parenting support to bring up children with life skills.

Every single person alive has emotional grievances and grouses to address; but everyone is living with it, coping with it as best as one could. The bottled up stress will manifest in one or another unpleasant fashion in one’s lifetime, unless addressed satisfactorily. Mental health professionals and psychiatrists often worry that those with unaddressed emotional bitterness often indulge in violence. Violent gun culture in the US makes a case for society to wake up to the need for access to mental health care.

January 2023 saw four unfortunate mass shooting events in California. Further a serving cabinet minister in Odisha was gunned down by his own security personnel who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The non political assassination was a shock in a state that is known for droughts, floods, heat and cold waves and had a clean record of no assassination whatsoever. The state of Odisha is known more for natural calamities than crimes. Thus the assassination triggered by a person with diagnosed bipolar disorder and under medication for it came as an eye opener, onlookers aver.

Celebrities like Prince Harry can monetize sensational accusations; but for mere mortals on the street already with stress factors bordering on financial and perhaps food insecurity, sensationalising emotional discord will not lead to profits or bettering one’s life prospects.  Prince Harry is paying the price for breakup of the family unit, blood ties and onlookers everywhere will feel pity for the young Prince.

If one were to put oneself in the position of a 12 year old boy who lost his mother in mysterious circumstances and had to attend a public funeral without answers to bizarre questions about his own paternity, any sensitive person will completely empathise with his acute identity crisis, and psychological conflict while growing up under public glare. It is undoubtedly hard for any pre teen boy to lose a mother. His mother – Princess Diana was the world’s most beautiful woman and the most photographed, most cherished, and most glamorous woman who had not been treated well in a palace set-up known for tradition hierarchy patriarchy, etc. King Charles’ father Prince Phillip’s letter to the late Princess Diana stating “Why would any man desert a Princess as beautiful as Diana and the mother to the heir to the Throne and another lovable son” has obviously left very deep scars and unanswered questions in the mind of the victim – Harry. But Harry was born next in line to the throne as dictated by British traditions. This he has to accept, like it or not.

These British traditions have established that the heir to the throne is the eldest born. Thus Harry the second son stepping back from Royal Duties but claiming noisily for upkeep is a somewhat rude demand nothing else, even if unfortunate. This is an enormous cultural difference for his wife Megan Markle to accept. He is also unaware it seems, that his legal heirs will one day likely claim the British Crown. Republicans and onlookers are amused at how this is all panning out. A dispassionate and less subjective book will be even more of a bestseller, except that it will border on the voyeuristic! The journey of the Kohinoor Crown will make even more sensational literature, wouldn’t you agree?

Harry is unwittingly falling victim to the very genesis of publicity triggered conspiracies. Harry’s accusation of the media for prying on his private family seems hallow and lacks credibility... because he is now using the Media to carve self pity.

Harry’s and Megan’s stepping back from royal duties by squarely blaming uninvited Media coverage of their private family seems now to have been no more than a convenient tool for an opportunitistic and confused launch of a career for Harry in the Media. Harry is obviously not trained for a media career. Prince Harry cannot use the Media either as an Agony Aunt or as a sounding board or as his spokesperson. There are separate entities for that. Counselors, trained listeners, PR agencies are there for such interventions. Media is the Fourth Estate meant to scrutinise public domain issues. If indeed the loss of his purse is a public issue it would have been something for the Fourth Estate to take up. But the Firm or the British Royal Family, despite being publicly funded by the tax payer is beyond the scrutiny of the Fourth Estate in UK, the mother of Democracy.  That maybe another “tradition” but so it is in the UK. Media in the other countries will not bother to scrutinise the fiscals of the Royal Family in the UK. This is another bitter pill for Prince Harry to swallow. So Prince Harry trying to milk column inch or bytes in the Media will help serve the cause of the Media’s revenue, not Prince Harry’s interests.

He had a plush career as a Helicopter pilot in the British Military. He qualified for a military helicopter pilot’s career thanks to his lineage, not through any rigorous elimination rounds of competition, by the way. He walked out of the Military and a decade later recounted his kill count without context; inviting security issues to the Royal Family.  It all points to unresolved bitterness and unaddressed emotional discord leaving a severe identity crisis… during his childhood and teenage years. Harry for some mysterious reason quit his career there and went back to his royal duties. There as any confused young man would do, he indulged in drugs, played dirty with women, self confessed to losing his virginity to an older woman in a public place like Hyde Park, … that woman, an actress - committed suicide in 2020. Was such decadent behavior part of his Royal duties one wonders! He was completely oblivious to his Royal lineage. In the bargain for book promotion, he brought to the attention of the world the impact of his familial discord on his own sexuality. This will only complicate his own persona, unfortunate, for the young man. He was once found naked in the company of girls and young ladies in Las Vegas in the USA. Publicising his sexual misadventures makes sensational copy at the cost of the Institution … the Firm, as the Royal Family is institutionalized indeed. Rather loud for a Prince old timers would say. But it was his young blood that was screaming for change in British stiff upper lip traditions!

Now he has spoken with absolute disdain the fact that in his role as military helicopter pilot he shot and killed Taliban militants and then lent grandiloquence to justify himself… these are all reminiscent of a weak mind seeking approval and acceptance from the very forces he bad mouthed and stepped back from. He has no clue yet of the bridges he has burnt. Harry’s rendering in ugly black and white what was hitherto an assumption of differences between the two brothers leaves no more than bitter taste in public memory. 

While Princess Diana certainly tried to be a good mother and gave her children as normal a childhood as possible, unpretentious of Royal lineage, for good or for worse she seemed not to have impressed upon her children, the traditions so customary to British society and Royalty. Her untimely and violent yet mysterious death then was bound to have repercussions on her children.

British tradition dictates that the eldest born will be heir to the throne. Thus whoever told Prince Harry that then Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, now King Charles had called Prince Harry a “spare” was insensate and laced it with malafide vested interest. Mental health professionals could possibly confront King Charles to check if indeed this was true and get him to apologise to Harry to bring closure... that maybe one option to consider...but who will bell the cat?

In retrospect, despite sympathy for the way Princess Diana was treated, one concludes that as a mother she ought to have protected Harry from such cruel vicissitudes at the very least. The role of the Mother in emotionally fortifying her children can never be underestimated. Such and worse examples of parenting found wanting are manifest in families of lesser mortals bereft of publicity. This ugly sub surface of society – world over - can be addressed with, better parenting skills and universal access to mental health care indeed. 

Harry’s brother – the future King – Prince of Wales, Prince William sought stability in conforming to tradition, but Harry himself rebelled against the established Order without being fortified by the strength that courage of conviction lends to rebels. His bitterness and resentment finds expression in rebellion yet he seems wholly unprepared to face the consequence thereof. Prince William espousing the cause of Mental Health lends enormous dignity to the charities he supports and to the Crown, the institution of the King and his heirs…

After calling the senior royals names and accusing them among other things of hideous racism, Harry is now found crying that he wants to come back or is pleading for British Royals to accept him back. Burning bridges with blood ties – Harry would do well to learn even at this late stage – has consequences. - Consequences that he does not seem to have given a thought to. After accusing the Royal family of racism he now seems to have backtracked on that too, saying he only echoed what his wife Megan Markle said… And imagine his marital insecurities being tossed into public domain as it were! At the least, these are extremely tragic outcomes of bad parenting. If this makes Harry more determined to be a better parent and husband he should be lauded and supported publicly.

His stepping back from Royal Duties as “working Royals” stripped him of his own financial security. His marrying a divorced American – onlookers believe - will create a divided lineage of the House of Windsor. What will be the repercussions thereof remains a research study scurrying believers to download Nostradamus’s forecasts.

Republicans readily point to the palace massacre in Kathmandu in June 2001 by the distraught Crown Prince of the Himalayan Kingdom… leaving royal observers nervous and hoping for a royal forgivance soonest possible. 

Observers and British military personnel are justifiably worried of the Prince speaking rather lightly about his ‘kill count’ in Afghanistan. In these days of hydra headed terrorism sovereign Governments and the UN are trying their best to make the World more inclusive; and here we have a privileged Prince unbecoming of the royal grace making almost blasphemous allegations of racism and bigotry and has divided the heirs to the House of Windsor. More than the blasphemy, security personnel are worried sick of the opportunity Taliban terrorists gain in determining a revenge attack at a time, place and on people they decide on.  Harry’s loneliness is all the more manifest. It leaves us wondering what or who is he so angry against? It underscores the need for universal access to mental health care… be it for Prince or Pauper.

To heal himself, Prince Harry has to forgive and forget, be constructive and loving; and if he wants to play with the Media he will do well to accept the rules of the game. For, he is no longer a privileged Prince but a humble simple humanoid which cannot get publicity on its own terms in sunny California!

King Charles, as blood ties evoke, will most certainly try to forgive his errant son and bring him back to the Firm and Family. There is a lesson for all the dramatis personae to learn. This unseemly Royal episode, at the very least serves the case of Mental Health care and  early intervention and relationship based parenting support, if taken positively. Indeed serious is the undercurrent for mental health care and “early intervention and relationship based parenting support, or better, sensitive parenting skills”.  Prince Harry, it is high time you realize that every single person has mental health issues… please join the band and do something positive and constructive for humankind to cherish your legacy.