Harry also described serving in Afghanistan as the “trigger” that finally forced him to deal with the death of his mother and his unprocessed grief.
“If you lose your mum at the age of 12, you have got to deal with it,” Harry said. “The idea that 20 years later I still hadn’t really… that 15, 17 years later I still hadn’t dealt with it. Afghan was the moment where I was like, ‘Right, deal with it.'”
He continued, “Once I plucked my head out of the sand, post-Afghan… it had a huge.. life changing moment for me. It was like, right, you are… Prince Harry, you can do this, as long are you’re not a complete tit, then you’re gonna be able to get that support, because you’ve got the credibility of 10 years’ service and therefore, you can really make a difference.”
He added that meeting other people who suffered through the same trauma as him helped him cope, adding, “There’s similarities there and you can help them and you can have a bit of banter. And the moment you have that banter, you can see them relax.”
“You help yourself, so you can help others,” he continued. “And I think that is hugely powerful.”
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE