AS THEY PREPARE FOR HIS BELOVED INVICTUS GAMES THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUSSEX APPEAR IN A MOVING DOCUSERIES ON THE INSPIRATIONAL TOURNAMENT

As to this week ahead of the sixth Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, the Duke of Sussex has opened up about his own emotional struggles as a military veteran.

Prince Harry, who will attend the inspirational sports tournament for injured and sick veterans from 9 to 16 September, appears in the newly released Heart of Invictus documentary made by his Archewell Productions company for Netflix.

In the moving five-part series, he shares how returning from his final tour of Afghanistan led to an "unravelling" connected to the trauma of losing his mother Diana, Princess of Wales.

LEARNING TO COPE

He said: "I can only speak from my personal experience, my tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches. Somewhere after that, there was an unravelling.

"The trigger for me was actually returning from Afghanistan. But the stuff that was coming up was from 1997, from the age of 12.

"Losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma that I had, I was never really aware of.

"It was never discussed. I didn't really talk about it and I suppressed it like most youngsters would have done, but then when it all came fizzing out, I was bouncing off the walls. I was like: 'What is going on here? I'm now feeling everything as opposed to being numb."

He adds: "The biggest struggle for me was... no one around me really could help.

"I didn't have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.