Diana's Eating Disorders and Health Issues


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Ava Elizabeth

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Does anyone know how long Diana suffered from eating disorders?
Did she ever recover from them?
I`ve read that she had eating disorders when she got married to charles, but somewhere else I`ve read that she got them when Charles cheated on her with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Did her sons know about her problems, or did she hide it from them?
I dont know anything about this, so I would truly appreciate it if someone could post some info!
Thanks anyway!
 
i think it showed how human she was... so many girls have eating disorders today... i read somewhere she had a disorder...
 
Diana publicly spoke about being bulimic. I know she talked about this after her separation and spoke at a function to raise awareness for eating disorders.
 
she had kinda eating disorder that made her self bring up the food she had eaten,her stressfull life might be one the disorder's causes
 
Diana got the eating disorders before she even married Charles.During their engagement,Diana had to live in Buckingham Palace.She was always lonely and stopped eating..She also found out about Camilla before the marriage,so that must have made her even more depressed and anxious.
 
I read somewhere that she claimed her eating disorder started during her engagement when Charles said something about her being chubby, but I read somewhere else that someone else who knew her had claimed her problems started while she was still at school. I suppose it's a matter of whose version you believe.
 
There ARE two versions of when it began--during her school years she saw her sister develop anorexia and there are those who say she mimicked some of that behavior as far back as boarding school. Then there is the infamous story about Diana being told by Charles she was "a bit chubby" and how that set off the bulimia. One journalist said he thought she'd always had it but the "prevailing thinking is that when someone is happy and content, it goes away.....when one is not, it reappears." He cited Charles' love for Camilla and the extent of that love being fully revealed on the honeymoon as the true start of the real bulimia. Does Diana address it on the infamous Peter Settleton or Andrew Morton tapes?
 
I'm not sure if she does, although if I remember correctly Andrew Morton seemed to have believed her version of events that her health problems were originally caused by Charles. However, since that's what she was intending for him to believe, it just means that that's what she told him, not necessarily what actually happened.
 
Thank you all for posting! Did William and Harry know about her eating disorders?
Did she recover from them?
=)
 
right now of course they know,but i dont think a mother worries her little children with her mental disease so i dont think they knew then,is being bulimic passes to children from parents?i mean are william and harry in risk of getting such disorder?
 
One author wrote "Prince William has been aware far too long" of his mother's unhappiness and instabilities. He was fiercely protective of her and she used him as a sounding board even when he was way too young to hear all she had to say about Charles, the marriage, etc. I'm sure the kids knew "mommy" had something wrong with her as even staff noticed how she would often run to the bathroom to vomit after eating. And when she started speaking about eating disorders--implying subtly she knew of whence she spoke as she had suffered from them--they were covered by the media. Kids will be kids; and I'm sure William and Harry heard from their schoolmates what their parents were saying about Diana having eating disorders. Bulimia is uncommon in men so they likely will not inherit a tendency toward it. Thank God.
cute_girl said:
right now of course they know,but i dont think a mother worries her little children with her mental disease so i dont think they knew then,is being bulimic passes to children from parents?i mean are william and harry in risk of getting such disorder?
 
maryshawn said:
One author wrote "Prince William has been aware far too long" of his mother's unhappiness and instabilities. He was fiercely protective of her and she used him as a sounding board even when he was way too young to hear all she had to say about Charles, the marriage, etc.
I think that is one of Diana's greatest mistakes as a parent -- to have used her very young children as sounding boards for the problems in her own life and her marriage. Speaking negatively about Charles, Camilla or how the rest of the British royal family or those who worked for them treated her was bad parenting in the least. No matter how she personally felt about Charles, Camilla or the rest of the family, they are still William and Harry's family (Camilla notwithstanding). Charles, as horribly as he treated Diana, is still William and Harry's father and the Queen, Prince Phillip et. al. are still their grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Telling her sons such negative things could have seriously impacted how they felt about their paternal family and in light of the fact that Diana passed away prematurely, it's a good thing that William and Harry had a good relationship with their father to help them through that difficult time.
 
cute_girl said:
right now of course they know,but i dont think a mother worries her little children with her mental disease so i dont think they knew then,is being bulimic passes to children from parents?i mean are william and harry in risk of getting such disorder?

If you are speaking of bulimia being passed to William and Harry, I'm not sure that's possible...well at least I have never come across a story on men having bulimia. Also, I think that having bulimia has a lot to do with your self-esteem...I don't think men tend to obsess about their bodies like we do...I mean, they tend to go about it differently from women. Many of them are concerned about getting physically fit.
 
I think men do have eating disorders; the Duchess of Kent's biography refers to Lord Nicholas Windsor having some sort of eating disorder, although I don't know how authoritative a book it is. It's far less common in men, and according to that biography it tends to be a control issue rather than a body-image one.
 
Elspeth said:
I think men do have eating disorders; the Duchess of Kent's biography refers to Lord Nicholas Windsor having some sort of eating disorder, although I don't know how authoritative a book it is. It's far less common in men, and according to that biography it tends to be a control issue rather than a body-image one.


It seems though that your self-esteem would play apart...I mean your perception of your body. I can understand where the control issues come in though. I have never heard of a man having an eating disorder, but I suppose anything is possible then.
 
I stand corrected. Yes, some men DO suffer from eating disorders but, so far, there are no signs of such in either William or Harry. A lot does have to do with esteem and body image and both boys seem more like Charles in that regard--fit, energetic, strong. I do want to agree that one of Diana's failings, if you will, as a mother is using her sons as her "counsellors" throughout her marriage and afterwards. She said she always told them "Mommy loves you best," which is nice but is a real stab at Charles, their father. I am divorced but would never say "who loves you best?" and make my daughter choose or say I love her more than her father. I also didn't like hearing she would never have married Dodi without talking it over with William. Of course, the little boy who stuffed tissues under the bathroom door to his weeping mother would say "whatever makes you happy, mama." It was her personal life; she should never have brought them into it by asking them what she should do. Puts too much weight on a youngster's shoulders in my view.
 
poor William and Harry...

anyway in her biograhpy I read that several times she tried to kill herself even when she was pregnant and she usually cut her self with a knife,are these symptoms relate to bulimia?or she had other illnesses like deep depression?
 
Princess Diana's Illnesses

There are so many books, articles and videos to use as sources for this one but the book on Diana by Anne Edwards and the one by Sally Bedell Smith are good ones. The videos "Diana: In Search of Happiness" and her own Panorama interview provide the information cited below.

All explore Diana's illnesses and "mental instability." The Smith book goes so far to say Diana was a "borderline" personality or showed classic symptoms of it. She did not ever--by all accounts--"seriously" try to kill herself--the time she threw herself down the stairs while pregnant with William has been reported a few different ways with Diana changing her story from she meant to hurt herself to "I would never do anything to put my baby in jeopardy." She did injure herself using what is called "self-mutilation," where she used knives or razors to cause cuts and marks on her arms and legs. This went on during the early years of the marriage but decreased as time went on. This is not an attempt to kill oneself but rather a cry for attention. Her sister, in the Smith book, noticed. Charles knew about it, according to Diana--in the "Panorama" tape. A lot of Diana's problems--and I am not a psychiatrist nor are those who wrote the books about it--seem to stem from anxiety and depression (post partum and regular, if there is such a thing, depression). Depression is "anger turned inward" and certainly whatever was going on with Charles and Camilla or simply Charles being a bachelor for so long and used to doing what he wanted when he wanted, caused someone like Diana who craved love and attention a lot of irritation, which Charles did not want to hear and subsequently led to depression. She was very young, shy and not worldly when she married and suddenly having to speak in public was a big transition. That and simply trying to be accepted into the royal family led to a lot of anxiety. The bulimia has been attributed to everything from Charles squeezing her waist and saying "my, we're a bit chubby here" to her own fascination with her public image and fashion and wanting to be slim to look her best.

I was reading Paul Burrell's book last night. I think it boils down to this. Diana had a difficult childhood and wanted and needed a great deal of affection, approval and attention. The Royal Family takes its lead, in large part, from the Queen and Prince Phillip, who showed Diana a lot of kindness but tempered it by not wanting to be intrusive. Burrell describes a very good relationship between the Queen and Diana early on--whereby Diana might be alone at night and ask if the Queen was dining in. Whenever she was, the Queen would always ask Diana to join her. But the Queen does not hug and kiss and cuddle as effusively as Diana likely needed--so Diana would often interpret a pleasant dinner as another "cold" encounter. Its a matter of expectations and the difference in the way Charles, the Queen and others in the Royal Family simply could not live upto Diana's expectations. Quite frankly, I'm not sure--and I like Diana very much--anyone could. The attraction to Dodi was based in large part on the fact he had the time to devote to her and was, like Diana, an individual who craved expressions of love (his mother died when he was quite young and his father tended to give him money but not a whole lot of time). So, what you have is a cocktail for problems as Diana's neediness could only be sufficiently addressed when and if people would drop everything for her and give her unstinting attention--and, as one of her friend's pointed out in "Diana: In Search of Happiness," few are able to give that kind of love non-stop. A story in the Smith book regarding Oliver Hoare is telling. He was separated and gave Diana a great deal of attention. Then, one day, his young daughter was ill and he had to cancel a get-together with Diana. She flew off the deep-end and--to make a long story short--he became so worried, he was forced to ignore his daughter in order to search for Diana. He found her crying in Kensington Park on a bench--convinced his need to see his daughter meant she no longer mattered. So, she was a difficult person to befriend or be involved with. And that is a shame. Another close friend, Lord Peter Palumbo, said the simple fact she was "royal" meant you couldn't just drop in on her and led to an isolating existence--as she would be on public duties, surrounded by loving people who needed her then ended the day eating alone off a tray in her sitting room.

What ifs are easy....would her life have been more satisfying if she had not been a royal? Yes and no. She did love the attention and helping others and other "royal perks." But it also isolated her and led to complications within her marriage and personal life. One thing is for sure--there are no easy answers when it comes to Diana's life. And what may have happened to give her joy will never be known. I think that's what keeps her "alive" for so many of us as she is a puzzle and, in the end, we will never have the answers. In the end, even she didn't.....or so it seems.

Sorry for the long diatribe but it is a complicated issue. I do not believe she would ever have killed herself, however.
 
She sounds like exactly the wrong person for Charles. They were both wrapped up in their own needs and seemed to just view the other in terms of what they could do to fulfill the practical needs while still both being emotionally needy in ways the other couldn't do anything to help.

It's so ironic that this highly suitable aristocratic virgin was in many ways as unsuitable as you could get. It reminded me of what the Countess of Strathmore said about George VI when he was still Duke of York and had been courting her daughter Elizabeth, who turned him down the first time he proposed: that he was the sort of man who would be made or marred by his wife. That marriage was highly successful, but Prince Charles - who seems to much the same temperament as his grandfather -was marred, not made, by his marriage. (not trying to say that it was all Diana's fault, however; there's plenty of blame to go around all three of the people in that triangle as well as some others)
 
maryshawn said:
There are so many books, articles and videos to use as sources for this one but the book on Diana by Anne Edwards and the one by Sally Bedell Smith are good ones. The videos "Diana: In Search of Happiness" and her own Panorama interview provide the information cited below.

All explore Diana's illnesses and "mental instability." The Smith book goes so far to say Diana was a "borderline" personality or showed classic symptoms of it. She did not ever--by all accounts--"seriously" try to kill herself--the time she threw herself down the stairs while pregnant with William has been reported a few different ways with Diana changing her story from she meant to hurt herself to "I would never do anything to put my baby in jeopardy." She did injure herself using what is called "self-mutilation," where she used knives or razors to cause cuts and marks on her arms and legs. This went on during the early years of the marriage but decreased as time went on. This is not an attempt to kill oneself but rather a cry for attention. Her sister, in the Smith book, noticed. Charles knew about it, according to Diana--in the "Panorama" tape. A lot of Diana's problems--and I am not a psychiatrist nor are those who wrote the books about it--seem to stem from anxiety and depression (post partum and regular, if there is such a thing, depression). Depression is "anger turned inward" and certainly whatever was going on with Charles and Camilla or simply Charles being a bachelor for so long and used to doing what he wanted when he wanted, caused someone like Diana who craved love and attention a lot of irritation, which Charles did not want to hear and subsequently led to depression. She was very young, shy and not worldly when she married and suddenly having to speak in public was a big transition. That and simply trying to be accepted into the royal family led to a lot of anxiety. The bulimia has been attributed to everything from Charles squeezing her waist and saying "my, we're a bit chubby here" to her own fascination with her public image and fashion and wanting to be slim to look her best.

I was reading Paul Burrell's book last night. I think it boils down to this. Diana had a difficult childhood and wanted and needed a great deal of affection, approval and attention. The Royal Family takes its lead, in large part, from the Queen and Prince Phillip, who showed Diana a lot of kindness but tempered it by not wanting to be intrusive. Burrell describes a very good relationship between the Queen and Diana early on--whereby Diana might be alone at night and ask if the Queen was dining in. Whenever she was, the Queen would always ask Diana to join her. But the Queen does not hug and kiss and cuddle as effusively as Diana likely needed--so Diana would often interpret a pleasant dinner as another "cold" encounter. Its a matter of expectations and the difference in the way Charles, the Queen and others in the Royal Family simply could not live upto Diana's expectations. Quite frankly, I'm not sure--and I like Diana very much--anyone could. The attraction to Dodi was based in large part on the fact he had the time to devote to her and was, like Diana, an individual who craved expressions of love (his mother died when he was quite young and his father tended to give him money but not a whole lot of time). So, what you have is a cocktail for problems as Diana's neediness could only be sufficiently addressed when and if people would drop everything for her and give her unstinting attention--and, as one of her friend's pointed out in "Diana: In Search of Happiness," few are able to give that kind of love non-stop. A story in the Smith book regarding Oliver Hoare is telling. He was separated and gave Diana a great deal of attention. Then, one day, his young daughter was ill and he had to cancel a get-together with Diana. She flew off the deep-end and--to make a long story short--he became so worried, he was forced to ignore his daughter in order to search for Diana. He found her crying in Kensington Park on a bench--convinced his need to see his daughter meant she no longer mattered. So, she was a difficult person to befriend or be involved with. And that is a shame. Another close friend, Lord Peter Palumbo, said the simple fact she was "royal" meant you couldn't just drop in on her and led to an isolating existence--as she would be on public duties, surrounded by loving people who needed her then ended the day eating alone off a tray in her sitting room.

What ifs are easy....would her life have been more satisfying if she had not been a royal? Yes and no. She did love the attention and helping others and other "royal perks." But it also isolated her and led to complications within her marriage and personal life. One thing is for sure--there are no easy answers when it comes to Diana's life. And what may have happened to give her joy will never be known. I think that's what keeps her "alive" for so many of us as she is a puzzle and, in the end, we will never have the answers. In the end, even she didn't.....or so it seems.

Sorry for the long diatribe but it is a complicated issue. I do not believe she would ever have killed herself, however.

Charles had a full life and still does as Prince of Wales. He still had a job to do, but Diana wanted all of his attention and time. She really didn't know how to make a positive adjustment to the situations that life dealt her when it came to the royal routine. She wanted all of anyone and would accept no less or would feel rejected. When the royals tried to get help for her (and I believe they did) Diana did not cooperate. People who are sick mentally or in any other way need to admit they need help. When Prince Charles would go off for lunch with his mother or out to the opera (even when Diana refused to go) Diana took it as abandoning her. It would have been the same problems if she had married a wealthy businessman or a CEO. She would have been unable to cope without excessive attention.

She furthermore betrayed and hurt a lot of people either through her illness or simple nastiness. She went from being the friend of the Duchess of York to rival, even going so far as to deliberately leak the separation and then pretending to be planning to leave her husband at the same time. Then backing out and letting Fergie get fried while safely watching from Kensington Palace.
 
And at the age of 19, put in the same situation, how would YOU have turned out?!! Diana was a product of her surroundings. How prepared would ANY ONE OF US have been to handle the enormous pressure that Diana was daily subjected to? New marriage, baby on the way, unsupportive inlaws, cut off from friends and family, new job, new home, expectations of the media and public, and no owners manual for any of it! All at 19/20 years of age! She did the best she could with what she had.
As for Fergie, READ HER BOOK, she herself said that she made the mistakes that lead to her problems.
There is a Native American saying "You cannot judge a man, until you have walked a mile in his shoes". Before you judge Diana, I suggest you "walk" in HER shoes.
 
It isn't possible to walk in her shoes; all we can do is to draw conclusions from what we read and see in the media. It sounds as though there was plenty of blame to go around; Diana sounded - even in books written by people generally supportive of her - to be a very high-maintenance sort of person, and she married into a situation where people were supposed to be self-sufficient and where no allowances were made for her weaknesses, and she married a husband who wasn't well suited to dealing with an emotionally demanding wife.

It's just very sad that the two of them got together in the first place; knowing what she, Charles, and the whole royal setup were like, her family should have done a bit more to protect her rather than being so keen for her to marry into the royal family that everybody turned a blind eye to the actual people involved.
 
The important thing is that she got over them and was able to talk about it. I saw on a show that after she revelaed that she suffered from bulimia, more ppl began to open up about their own sufferings with this illness.
 
Diana, in the tapes released by her speech coach, said that she and Charles were only together 13 times before their engagement. Had they had the opportunity to "date" like normal couples, I have no doubt that they NEVER would have married. They both needed more than the other could provide.

However, we will never know the true story. It is important to remember that some of the books that have been written about Diana were written by employees. The butler, the bodyguard, the secretary, the housekeeper.
How many of us can say that we liked our supervisor at work 100% of the time?
 
what happened to diana and charles is just tragedy. to blame all on charles would not be fair because i think he is just not strong enough to say "no" when the family wants him to marry diana, the 19 year old, virgin. while lots of people agree that he should have, but the sad thing is that he didn't. and diana being 19, shy and being subjected to the new environment and position must felt a little scared sometimes, especially when she knows the husband-to-be is not in love with her.

the story should not happened like that, but yet it did. and we as the outsider who could only guess and speculate must not be too hard, on both of them. eventhough, personally, i think it all started with charles.
 
These days, when it's more acceptable for senior royals to marry women who aren't noble and who have had serious previous boyfriends, this sort of situation shouldn't happen. I hope it means that William doesn't end up in a similar situation. After what happened with Charles and Diana and seeing how well Sophie seems to have fitted into the family, Wiliam should be free to marry whoever he wants to.
 
How prepared would ANY ONE OF US have been to handle the enormous pressure that Diana was daily subjected to? New marriage, baby on the way, unsupportive inlaws, cut off from friends and family, new job, new home, expectations of the media and public, and no owners manual for any of it! All at 19/20 years of age! She did the best she could with what she had.

In all frankness she was given "Princess Lessons." She was taught how to walk, wave in front of an imaginary crowd, not to mention she knew basic protocol. She was taught by Oliver Everett, Lady Susan Hussey, not to mention a large staff and her mother. She had been unprepared in childhood however. Her father let her and her siblings get away with anything and even allowed her to technically drop out of school. When her mental problems became known people around her urged her to get help, but she refused to admit she had problems. Furthermore she needed depth and more substance. She was lacking in the intellectual department and outright refused to read books about past Princesses of Wales to get a more specific idea of her responsibilities and how various princesses embodied their roles.

As for her mental illness, my parentals have never coddled me and I have to take medication for my anxiety disorder. I know I have problems and I confront it. I've screwed up frequently and sometimes I overreact. She refused to face her issues and get help. Ultimately she was spoiled by the palace system who kept saying on and on and on that she needed time to adjust. The Queen in particular wanted her to work things out. I suggest people on this forum read "The Queen and Di". Gives an interesting and stimulating look at the relationship and points of view.
 
I read one account of the "Charles calling her chubby" story: During their engagement, Charles put his arm around Diana's waist and said something to the effect of, "We're getting a little chubby there, aren't we?" Diana's waistline went from 27 inches to 23 inches for the wedding.
 
I suggest people on this forum read "The Queen and Di". Gives an interesting and stimulating look at the relationship and points of view
If you are referring to me, I have read it.
My point was... that at a young age, many of us would have reacted in much the same way. Diana was a young girl, cast in a difficult role. A role that she was too young and too inexperienced to handle. She and Charles should never have been married, and when Diana wanted to call off the wedding she was talked out of it by her sisters. Perhaps if she had been "older and wiser" she would have had the strength to have gone thru with calling off the wedding. Instead she was unhappy and that unhappiness manifested into an eating disorder. Which, by the way, often causes mental problems. How many of us here haven't been able to have a meal (for whatever reason)? Was your brain working at it's peak? Imagine years of deprivation.

Another thing, you're judging Diana based on your living in a normal world. The Royal Family doesn't live in the "normal" world. They are still very removed from the experiences that we all have. What seems normal to us, like seeking help, isn't normal to them. And the Queen and Diana were from VERY different generations.

So rather than judging harshly, keep an open mind and perhaps pity the young girl and stop villifying the woman.
 
Diana's "deprivation" was self-imposed however. Her judgement was not impaired because she didn't have access to food. Also, Diana's eating disorders seemed to be a combination of both anorexia (when you starve yourself) as well as bulemia (when you eat but then purge), so Diana was not exactly completely "deprived."

Also, her insecurity and her unhappiness were apparent long before she developed her eating disorders. So it wasn't a case that Diana missed dinner one night and the next night she had made the biggest mistake of her life by marrying Charles when she was not ready or if she didn't really love him or he didn't really love her.

In regards to wanting to call off the wedding, it should be shame on her sisters for talking her out of it. Diana expressed a concern to them and they brushed it off because the monogrammed towels had already been ordered.

Sammy said:
So rather than judging harshly, keep an open mind and perhaps pity the young girl and stop villifying the woman.

The thing about being an adult however, which Diana most certainly was when she died tragically, is that you can't forever blame your mistakes on others. As an adult you have to accept responsibility for your mistakes and actions. Diana never did this. She forever blamed Charles for not loving her, for Camilla being part of Charles's life even when he and Diana were married, etc. Certainly Charles's and Camilla's actions were not proper but where does the responsiblity fall for Diana who had affairs of her own?

And the woman Diana became is a result of the young girl she was.
 
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