Chapter 22 1. Dark times of life

Before every butterfly spreads its beautiful wings and dances gracefully, it has to go through a long wait and painful transformation.Diana went from a girl suffering from hunger to a mature and confident woman, with many ups and downs and ups and downs.Finally, with the help of friends and self-efforts, he walked out of the shadow of unhappy marriage.The process is extremely difficult, extremely long, and painful. In 1979, after Diana's affair with Charles was revealed, she was frantically pursued by the news media.Faced with all kinds of pressure, the girl who encountered this situation for the first time could only hide in her apartment and cry like a child.She is a fragile girl.

After she and Charles got engaged in February 1980, they lived at Buckingham Palace.In the indifferent and rigid atmosphere in Buckingham Palace, she suffered from bulimia nervosa during the lonely and helpless days.The disease tormented her for 10 years. Long-term pressure before the wedding, Camilla's shadow appeared from time to time, Charles' attitude was not clear, and he still insisted on giving Camilla a bracelet. Coupled with the depressing environment in the palace, on the eve of the wedding, when she had dinner with her sister Jenny, she Eat whatever you see, eat up all the edible food on the table, feel sick again after a while, and throw up all of it.These were the early symptoms of her bulimia nervosa.She thought it was due to pre-marital pressure, but she never expected that there would be a longer period of torture waiting for her in the future.

What tortured her all the time was the ubiquitous shadow of Camilla and the court atmosphere she couldn't adapt to.The newlyweds were extremely harmonious in public, but Diana found an impenetrable divide.Whenever Charles indulged in his hobbies, she was surrounded by deep insecurities who had nothing to do.There is no friend in the royal family who can pour out their difficulties.The photos of Camilla and the cufflinks Camilla gave made her go crazy with jealousy. Diana, who has nothing to do, often visits the kitchen. Her appetite is surprisingly large, and she eats one bowl after another of ice cream.Between meals, the chef also asked the chef to prepare special snacks for her.

For several years, royals and friends wondered about Diana's eating habits.In the dead of night, she still had to find food from the refrigerator.Once at Windsor she ate a whole steak and a pie, to the astonishment of a footman.Her friend Rory Scott remembers eating a pound of sweets one evening while playing bridge.By her own admission, she drank another bowl of egg soup that night before going to bed. A disorder expert who studies eating habits said: People with bulimia do not admit that they are sick.They are always smiling, seem to have no troubles in life, and they are all helpful, but they are quite painful in their hearts because they dare not vent their anger.

2% of young women in the UK suffer from bulimia nervosa, who overeat and use food as a means of controlling all chaos within themselves and the outside world. This intermittent craving is often accompanied by feelings of frustration, loss of control, and thoughts of self-destruction. After overeating, most patients go on a hunger strike or force themselves to vomit, feel guilty, depressed, and even want to commit suicide.They are often of normal weight, but they feel too fat and too ugly.The disgust of themselves made them go on hunger strike after eating and drinking. Diet experts believe the disorder stems from a precarious family background in childhood, from the intricate relationship between mother-daughter tensions, food and anxiety, and a dysfunctional family life, the turbulence and Anxiety causes symptoms to appear.

Diana's older sister Sarah also suffered from the disease, which left her skinny after her romance with the Duke of Westminster ended in 1977. Diana unfortunately also suffered from this situation.In the past few months, she has been tossed between a new life, a new role, her husband's married girlfriend, suffocating public exposure, and extreme emotions of happiness on the clouds and depression on the abyss. balance. On that honeymoon, which she called "the happiest moment of my life", her vomiting was exacerbated by photos of Camilla.After her marriage to Charles fell apart, Charles disgustedly described the honeymoon as having a disgusting "vomit smell".In Charles' indifference, Diana was even more unable to extricate herself.

She lost weight and was constantly nauseous, to the point of being "skinny."On visits to Wales, people were amazed at how thin she was as a pencil.At that time, she suffered another pregnancy reaction. At this helpless moment, she found that she could not find help from the royal family, and her family, although sympathetic to her, hoped that she would maintain the status quo of this fairy tale marriage.She herself did not want to break this fairy tale that everyone envied.Extremely lonely, she could only torture herself until she had the idea of ​​suicide. During the course of her altercation with Charles, she made 5 suicide attempts.The most dangerous time was when Diana, who was pregnant, rolled down the stairs, making the Queen Mother and everyone else tremble.

Her husband Charles realized the seriousness of the matter and invited his good friend Lawrence van der Post to Scotland to treat his wife. After seeing no results, she turned to several doctors and psychologists in Buckingham Palace.They prescribed all kinds of medicines and suggested all kinds of remedies.Diana refused to cooperate. She knew in her heart that what she needed was not treatment, but time, rest, and the love and understanding of those around her. People kept persuading her to cooperate with the treatment.At this time, she found out that she was pregnant.Pregnancy gave her enough reason to refuse to cooperate, she did not want to have a deformed child.

At that time, she was rarely in a good mood.Her relationship with Charles was stuck in a vicious circle.All kinds of pressure made her anxious, feel insecure, eat, drink, vomit, argue with Charles, cry, and even commit suicide, which made her relationship with Charles worse and her emotions worse. Maybe she really came to the wrong place.Happiness fell from the sky. She changed from a kindergarten teacher who did not graduate from middle school to a British princess. She was not psychologically prepared for the price and sacrifice that would be required to pay for this sudden rise in status.

She thought happiness was easy, that power, wealth, and fame came without trouble.But the reality is not a fairy tale. In the face of a lot of cruel reality, she is depressed, angry, and disappointed. For the British royal family, they thought they would marry a gentle, sweet and docile princess, adding vitality and beautiful scenery to the dull atmosphere of the royal family.But unexpectedly, that simple girl was immediately swallowed up by the royal system and marriage, and became a noisy, crying, and unstable resentful woman. whose fault? It is absolutely unfair to place the blame entirely on one party.One is a pure and beautiful girl, and the other is the majestic and prominent royal family. According to an ancient Chinese saying: "The two are beautiful when they are separated, and the two are hurt when they are together."

Diana had to struggle until the day she came out of the pain. The birth of William made her anorexia nervosa better for a while.But the good times didn't last long, and she suffered from bulimia nervosa again, and she also suffered from severe postpartum depression.The birth of William and the series of psychological reactions caused by it triggered the hidden danger accumulated in her heart—the ambiguous relationship between her husband and Camilla.Whenever Charles came home late from a night out, she panicked, cried, and called friends to ask.Overhearing Charles calling Camilla in the bathroom further frustrates her. She became a little nervous, cried easily, and was worried about her son. From time to time, she asked the nanny to see if there was any problem with the child.A year of chronic illness and events had made her almost a different person. At Kensington Palace, several psychologists and psychotherapists came to treat her chronic depression. Some tried drugs, and some tried to dissect her psychology and find out the cause. The first to treat her was the famous psychiatrist Dr Allen, a friend of Lawrence van der Post, whose practice was near Kensington Palace.He is keen on analyzing the princess' dreams, asking her to write down the content of the dream, and then analyze it in order to get the potential meaning.But Diana didn't feel confident about the treatment, so she let it go. Prince Charles trusted him so much that in later years he would often visit his clinic to discuss his marital problems with Dr. Aron. Another doctor, David Michel, focused on the analysis of the conversations between the couple.Every night when she sees a doctor, let her recall what happened that day.She made no secret of the fact that between their husband and wife she had more tears than conversation.In addition, there are other medical specialties each with their own set of treatments.Unfortunately, what Diana needs is not therapy, but care and more love, and she continues to sink into the abyss of disappointment. On November 11, Diana's doctor Mike Linert spoke to pianist Miss Lily Snipe about concerns about the princess' health.In her diary, Miss Snipe wrote: "Diana had a poignant beauty to look at. The inner pain and nasty disease so mercilessly thinned her formerly plump figure (doctors wanted her to put on weight, but she No appetite). I asked about her son in passing and he said the little one slept 13 hours straight the night before! Both she and Charles couldn’t get enough of this sweet baby.”