THER THAN THE occasional shopping, I stopped going out in 2015.
O Stopped entirely.
No more occasional dinners with mates. No more house parties.
No clubs. No nothing.
Every night I’d go straight home from work, eat over the sink, then catch up on paperwork, Friends on low in the background.
Pa’s chef would sometimes stock my freezer with chicken pies, cottage pies. I was grateful not to have to venture to the supermarket quite as much…though the pies sometimes put me in mind of the Gurkhas and their goat stew, mainly because they were so unspicy. I missed the Gurkhas, missed the Army. I missed the war.
After dinner I’d smoke a joint, trying to make sure the smoke didn’t waft into the garden of my neighbor, The Duke of Kent.
Then I’d turn in early.
Solitary life. Strange life. I felt lonely, but lonely was better than panicky. I was just beginning to discover a few healthy remedies to my panic, but until I felt surer of them, until I felt on more solid ground, I was leaning on this one decidedly unhealthy remedy.
Avoidance.
I was an agoraphobe.
Which was nearly impossible given my public role.
After one speech, which couldn’t be avoided or canceled, and during which I’d nearly fainted, Willy came up to me backstage. Laughing.
Harold! Look at you! You’re drenched.
I couldn’t fathom his reaction. Him of all people. He’d been present for my very first panic attack. With Kate. We were driving out to a polo match in Gloucestershire, in their Range Rover. I was in the back and Willy peered at me in the rearview. He saw me sweating, red-faced. You all right, Harold? No, I wasn’t. It was a trip of several hours and every few miles I wanted to ask him to pull over so I could jump out and try to catch my breath.
He knew something was up, something bad. He’d told me that day or soon after that I needed help. And now he was teasing me? I couldn’t imagine how he could be so insensitive.
But I was at fault too. Both of us should’ve known better, should’ve recognized my crumbling emotional and mental states for what they were, because we’d just started to discuss the launching of a public campaign to raise awareness around mental health.
