Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, have been revealing very personal information in their recent documentary and Harry’s new memoir, “Spare.”
In that book, the prince shares his struggle with agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder that can cause people to become afraid to leave their homes.
“I was an agoraphobe. Which was nearly impossible given my public role,” Harry writes in his memoir which will officially be published on Jan. 10, but was released early in Spain and translated by NBC News.
Harry remembers “one speech, which couldn’t be avoided or canceled, and during which I’d nearly fainted.” He said that his brother, Prince William, came backstage afterward laughing about him being “drenched.”
“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,” Harry writes.
“‘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.”
Jacqueline Bullis, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, writes that agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder that involves intense fear and anxiety in situations where it would be difficult to escape.
This could include traveling on a plane or other forms of public transportation, standing in a line, being in a crowd, going to a movie theater or grocery store, or even sitting down for a haircut.
Bullis notes, “Agoraphobia used to be thought of more of this fear of open spaces, but now we really understand it as more of a fear of fear.” That means a person is afraid that they are going to experience distressing or panic-like symptoms in a given situation, and it would be very difficult to escape from it.
The symptoms they fear can include diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, sweating, chest pain, dizziness, and lightheadedness.
