Prince Harry Suffered Panic Attacks After Serving in Afghanistan as Grief From Princess Diana's Death 'Caught Up' to Him Amid Mental Health Struggles

Prince Harry got candid in his new MasterClass episode about how he suffered panic attacks after he came home from the military in 2013.

The Duke of Sussex, 42, spent 10 years in the British Army, serving from 2005 until 2015.

Harry explained how the grief from his mother Princess Diana's death in 1997 "caught up" to him after he left the army.

“When I go back from Afghanistan on my second tour in 2013, there was no other mission,” he said.

“Everything caught up with me, and what was very interesting was my post-traumatic stress was not tied to Afghanistan. The things that I saw, the things I experienced, appeared to be a trigger for other traumas that had stored themselves within me," Harry went on.

Harry served two active-duty military tours in Afghanistan — first from 2007 to 2008, and then from 2012 until 2013.

The Invictus Games founder noted he realized he became "seriously depleted" both mentally and emotionally "when just putting a simple dress shirt on, the tightening of the collar, literally felt like I was suffocating."

"I would be experiencing panic attacks just in the car on the way to work,” he recalled. “And that’s when I realized, okay, there’s something bigger. There’s something else that you need to look into here.”

In Harry's bombshell 2023 biography, Spare, he discussed his military deployment and his experiences with panic attacks, severe anxiety and trauma. He also claimed he flew on six missions that killed 25 members of the Taliban during his army service.

He also wrote about how his mother's tragic and sudden death from injuries sustained in a car crash in Paris had a lasting impact on him as a preteen.

Harry and his older brother, Prince William, walked behind Diana's coffin during her funeral procession in September 1997 — an act that profoundly affected the war veteran.

"My memory had been spotty since Mummy disappeared, by design, and I didn't want to fix it, because memory equaled grief. Not remembering was balm," the memoirist penned.

Harry also stated he believed Diana faked her death, noting: “Her life’s been miserable, she’s been hounded, harassed, lied about, lied to. So she’s staged an accident as a diversion and run away."

"I suppose I knew the truth deep in my heart. The illusion of Mummy hiding, preparing to return, was never so real that it could blot out reality entirely. But it blotted it out enough that I was able to postpone the bulk of my grief," he wrote.