Different Facets of Diana

[US Royal Watcher]

...Diana claimed that time was the happiest she was in the marriage, but I think it says something that she was happy when Charles was miserable. I am happiest when my husband is happy and vice versa. I think that is true of most solid marriages.

Diana still suffered from bulimia and (I think) a personality disorder. He was starting to get a little jealous that she was getting too much attention and she wasn't willing to tone it down a bit. And he and Diana didn't have enough in common with each other to fill the hole in Charles life when he stopped seeing Camilla.

Does anyone really believe that if Camilla had been out of the picture, Charles and Diana would have been incredibly happy? The breakdown of the marriage had nothing to do with the men in gray suits, Camilla, Barry Manakee, the media or anything else. I think if they had been committed to each other it would have worked out.

Note, I didn't say they had to be in love with each other. Being in love alone is not an indicator of whether two people will be happy. They have to be able to communicate with each other and cooperate to solve problems. Diana became hysterical when she hit a bump in the road and Charles tended to withdraw into himself. That is a recipe for disaster. They needed someone to help them communicate productively.

 

[NGalitzine]

Whatever her pluses and minuses only 2 people really know what went on in that marriage and one has been dead and in her grave for nearly 16 years. Best to let her rest in her grave and let the living move on with their lives.

 

[Roslyn]

...I believe Diana created the myth about Camilla playing a part, because she could never accept Charles' close friendship with other women, particularly Camilla. She saw Camilla as a threat from the beginning. Remember her comment when she was snooping around and found Charles' gift to Camilla just before the wedding, and the cufflinks.

Does anyone really believe that if Camilla had been out of the picture, Charles and Diana would have been incredibly happy?

No. It would have fizzled out anyway. In my opinion they had so little in common they could not have sustained a long-term relationship. They should never have married.

 

[Dman]

If they would've never married, we wouldn't have Princes William & Harry. I think they are nice young men and I'm sure Charles appreciate the love he shared with Diana and which produced the boys he love and adore today. She gave him a family and I think he's grateful for that.

 

[US Royal Watcher]

[On Charles's resentment that the intense media focus on Diana overshadowed the work he was doing]

Of all the arguments Diana made against Charles, this is the one that most indicated her lack of self awareness. Even the most pro-Diana media, including Richard Kay and Andrew Morton, acknowledge that Diana was very jealous when other members of the royal family, especially Fergie, received press attention. So Diana complaining about Charles's jealousy is really the pot calling the kettle black.

It is a known fact that if anyone in the royal family was receiving positive attention from the press, Diana would orchestrate a media stunt in order to get them thrown off the front page. When the family was together, she repeatedly did things to deliberately draw photographers to her--even when the attention was supposed to be on the Queen.

I don't see Catherine doing anything like that to William. I could be wrong about this, but I can't think of another royal who is as desperate for media attention as Diana was.

If I had a choice between getting my name in the papers and making my marriage work, I would choose my marriage. Diana didn't. It was not all her fault, but she has to take some of the responsibility.

 

[sthreats]

...how Diana's depression impacted her actions. She was incredibly unhappy and people who are unhappy often concentrate on their own needs to the exclusion of others...But Diana was able to get out of the house, often. She seemed to really enjoy herself in public, even during times she was suffering from depression.

The patient does not have to have psychomotor retardation symptoms to have severe depression. By that I I mean they don't have to stop eating not be able to get out of bed and not be able to function to call it severe depression. Some people have an atypical type depression where they actually get more irritable and agitated especially with people close to them. Or they do compulsive self-destructive behaviors and spend the time angry with everyone. Many patients have Depression and borderline personality disorder- these people are very difficult to treat and are chronically dysfunctional.

Since none of us were Diana's treating physician I don't think we can go by anything other than what she self-reported-- which is that she suffered depression,self-mutilation, and bulimia.

I have always admired the fact that she was brave enough to discuss these problems. Really helped take the stigma off admitting mental illness.

 

[US Royal Watcher]

The patient does not have to have psychomotor retardation symptoms to have severe depression...

That is very interesting. I have heard that some doctors do think that people can be severely depressed even though they are able to function on many levels. I need to read more about it.

I have a family member who suffers from severe depression and a personality disorder and sometimes she can't even get out of bed. It's terrible to see someone you love in that much pain. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I agree that Diana's admission that she suffered from bulimia and depression is helping to destigmatize mental illness--although 20 years after the book, there is still a stigma. I will bet that she inspired some people to seek treatment and saved many lives that way. I am very grateful that our understanding and treatments have continued to improve since 1992.

 

[Warren]

The current discussion has fallen into three strands. Firstly, Diana's personality, her character and quirks, how they manifested themselves positively and negatively, and how they affected Diana and impacted the lives of those around her, those with whom she had contact, and the general public at large. Those posts remain in this thread.

The second deals more with the marriage, its breakdown and the Charles-Diana dynamic but without particular reference to or connection with the thread topic of "the different facets of Diana". Those posts have been moved to the Charles and Diana thread.

The third strand involved only a small number of posts and was largely concerned with the character of Charles, his upbringing, and his relationship with Camilla. As those areas are not the topic of this thread or of the Charles and Diana thread, the posts have been removed, along with a couple of others which had no relevance to anything.

Thanks for everyone's continued good-natured understanding and cooperation.
So far so good!

Warren
British Forums moderator

 

[US Royal Watcher]

Warren, sorry things got a little off topic and I appreciate the way you edited the posts so they made sense in two different forums, not so difficult.

It's been a very interesting discussion and I have learned a lot from reading everyone's point of view. I especially appreciate sthreats explanation about the diagnosis of severe depression. I hope I have not offended anyone with my rather strong opinions. I respect everyone's point of view. Diana was a fascinating woman and I know her family and friends miss her to this day.

 

[Warren]

I agree that this particular line of discussion has been very interesting and reflects the increasing level of maturity that analysis of Diana the person has reached in these forums. It's a far cry from the bad old days when any discussion of the Diana era would descend to the level of "Diana was an angel come to earth" and "Diana's dead so Charles and Camilla must be punished" and from that point on self-destruct.

Part of Diana's unique character was her ability to engender an intense personal identification from many people all around the world. Quite a remarkable feat, but the downside is that it makes dispassionate analysis and discussion of her actions and motivations extremely difficult. Apart from the personal investment that tends to brush aside the coldly analytical, "Diana" is a difficult subject to get to grips with due to the wide divergence of her behaviours. Purely as an example of what I'm getting at, on the one hand is the caring, compassionate and ground-breaking Diana who gave unwavering public commitment in support of those with HIV/AIDS. Then on the other is the dark Diana, the neurotic obsessive who made hundreds of quickly-terminated phone calls to the residence of Oliver Hoare. From a public telephone box outside Kensington Palace no less! A Mother Teresa figure or a sociopath? It's inexplicable.

My point is simply that it's hard to marry these two extremes into one personality and come up with a rational explanation that gets past the glib "there's good and bad in everybody". I believe that one of the reasons for Diana discussions traditionally ending up heated, personal and ugly is that the contrasts of her behaviours is so wide and hard to comprehend that ever since her untimely death many people have found it emotionally and intellectually easier to take one side while downplaying or dismissing the other.

 

[Queen Camilla]

I do not think she was clinically depressed. She might have experienced sadness & some depressive feelings each person has but she magnified & dramatized them when she went to the media.

She rewrote her childhood for the media.

There was only one facet of Diana, the media Diana. The whatever would get the most attention. The moment she realized the media was tracking her (1978 binoculars incident) she crafted an image & kept perfecting it throughout the years.

 

[sthreats]

I just don't agree. I really believe that she did have depression but as someone mentioned earlier there are definite behaviors that point to some type of personality disorder. People like that are known as having dual diagnosis

As Warren said there are so many Different Diana to try to reconcile. Even that swing from the actively seeking attention getting media to the running away from the media just didn't make sense. Then there's Diana as a good mother per her children versus Diana as an angry embittered mother who did things in anger that would clearly harm her children. I wonder if Diana herself was able to reconcile all these different aspects of her personality before she died.
.

 

[Tsaritsa]

It is perfectly possible to be a high functioning depressive in that the depression sets in at some point during childhood, the child's changed behaviour becomes overlooked/ignored because the parents are too absorbed with their own problems and the condition never becomes resolved NEITHER does it develop further, meaning that the adult functions with low level depression but the residual pain of childhood is never far from the surface. This of course means that it may take less for the already vulnerable adult to succumb.

 

[blauerengel]

I am not a specialist, but I am very interested in psychology & try to read and learn as much as possible! As I have never met Diana personally, I can only guess and speculate about the source of her difficulties,but I believe that to a certain extent she has shown many signs of a bipolar disorder.Many of the symptoms (sometimes extremely joyful,at other times absolutely desperate etc.) could explain some of the very different aspects of her personality.There were two completely contrasting sides of her that are otherwise difficult to find in one person.

Here is a link to a wikipedia entry about bipolar disorder, it is very interesting to read & there are also lots of interesting books about this illness,most famous one is probably Kay Redfield Jamison, clinical psychologist & Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine-she wrote a few books about this particular issue like "An Unquiet Mind ".
Bipolar disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What I found particularly interesting is that there are many famous people and artists who suffer from bipolar disorder,Redfield-Jamison has also emphasized the point that people with BPD show a lot of creativity and imagination. This fact should not distract from the many negative aspects of BPD, but it shows that there can also be something positive that may also explain why a lot of entertainers are diagnosed with this illness.
List of people with bipolar disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the royalty admirers and history fans: Some people believe that Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi")of Austria,Queen of Hungary also showed signs of BPD, but we must be very careful with our speculations because some people who do not fit in our pattern of what we believe to be "normal" quickly get a label with a mental illness on it.

 

[Tsaritsa]

As you so rightly say, Blauerengel, we have to be careful. If we see BPD as occupying both ends of a 1 through 180 semi circle, there are many who occupy the space between 50 through 130 or there about without being so labelled. Diana has also been labelled with Boarderline Personality Disorder. Histrionic Personality Disorder is another which may be worthy of consideration OR could it just be that for whatever reason, the poor girl FELT out of her depth and lost and spent her short life searching in the wrong places for the affirmation she was unable to give herself.
.

 

[US Royal Watcher]

I agree with Warren's succinct explanation of why people feel so strongly--either positively or negatively--about Diana, she was a mass of contradictions. I also appreciate the obvious expertise of some of the posters in the discussion about Diana's mental health disorders.

I understand Blauerengel concern about labeling people as mentally ill, but I think that Diana's pattern behavior was at times so extreme and destructive, both to herself and others, that it most likely clinical. Particularly since she admitted to suffering from bulimia and self-mutilation. I think her problems stem were obviously more than just that she felt that she was out of her depth.

Although sometimes I feel that she should have taken responsibility for getting treatment, I have to remember that it was harder in the 80s. I don't think either anorexia or bulimia was recognized as a psychiatric disorder until the late 70's and we've learned a lot about depression since Diana died.

Her position also made it a lot harder for her to seek help. There was the problem of lack of privacy. The papers speculated about the possibility that she had an eating disorder after one of the reporters who habitually staked out her home, saw a prominent physician who specialized in eating disorders coming and going. Given the stigma of mental illness even today, the media attention was hardly helpful.

Another complication was that Diana was surrounded by enablers. If Charles or someone else close to her tried to stage an intervention, Diana was able to seek comfort from other people in her circle who validated Diana's feelings of victimhood. It's easy to avoid admitting you have a problem when so many people are telling you that you are absolutely perfect in every way.

The great thing about Diana is that if you read through the thread about her eating disorders and mental health issues, you find that Diana inspired many people to seek help and probably saved lives. She was fascinating.

 

[Mermaid1962]

At which banquet did she cry?

Three instances spring to mind: Her sitting alone in front of the Taj Mahal, her crying at a banquet and constantly looking up as if to avoid being seen when she knew otherwise,

 

[Mermaid1962]

Ah yes, the American connection. I hadn't really thought about that before. One thing that the American press didn't really pick up on was how dangerous the break-down of the marriage of Charles and Diana was constitutionally. To people in the UK and the monarchies within the Commonwealth, this wasn't a possible divorce of a couple of celebrities--this was the divorce of a future King and Queen! I see the same hype now with William and Harry. They are seen very much as celebrities and not as a future constitutional monarch and his younger brother--who maybe one day could have to ask as Prince Regent or King if there's a tragedy.

They declared her 85% British & 15% American.
This fueled the she's one of us. An American marrying a prince.
The new Princess Grace.

They almost always called her Princess Diana.

They wrote mostly favorable stories about her and praised her for what the royal family did naturally.

There were new magazines launched around her marriage into the royal family so they filled their magazines with stories about her.

 

[Mermaid1962]

Most definitely. There was a short-lived boost in public opinion and press immediately after the Panorama interview, but then it soured.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the media eventually begin to turn against Diana in the last few years of her life? Especially after the divorce.

 

[blauerengel]

That´s interesting,what kind of negative aspects did they focus on? I did not notice it so much in my country,but the press in UK probably had a different point of view than magazines in other countries,especially countries who are not part of the Commonwealth.
In Austria we had mostly positive articles-people were absolutely crazy when the happy C&D-couple visited Vienna (there was a British trade fair and they visited many cultural and historical places),but after the divorce most women´s magazines wrote a lot about her charity,fashion and gossip. The majority of people I know had a lot of understanding and felt close to Diana, because with a divorce rate around 50% , a lot of men & women knew how hard it is to get back into life after a relationship turns sour. To me it seems as if it is more difficult for women to recover after a divorce - from what I see around me-most men get remarried earlier than divorced ladies,but it could also be because women are more open about their feelings and talk more about their emotional issues?
Coming back to the topic of "different facets of Diana", I always felt as if she felt relieved and more confident after the divorce-she had some very happy moments, she knew herself better and also seemed to be a much stronger and independent woman than before.

 

[BritishRoyalist]

I think The U.S press was mostly positive to mixed at times during the height of the Charles-Diana Separation/divorce and then the last year leading up to Diana death and the week following there was some negative articles . I am not 100% sure as I don't fully remember but hopefully someone on here from the U.S during that time can say.

I think The U.K press did have a different point of View and Perspective then other countries including other commonwealth countries. Kind of like the Lewinsky Affair. The U.S had a different opinion and view on the whole Scandal then the U. k and Australia because he was the President in the Newspapers/Magazines home countries.

 

[blauerengel]

@BritishRoyalist:
That´s the same thing I noticed,the news were overly exuberant after Diana got married,they had a lot of positive press while there marriage was seen as a good match, later on there were the ugly "War of the Wales"-years and after the divorce people were either completely against or absolutely adoring Diana. Now it seems as if we have moved to a different way of looking at Diana,a more balanced and less emotional one. We can see both the good and the bad without having to malign either Diana,Charles or Camilla.
For people who were not from the commonwealth it was only a terrible divorce and many were shocked that the fairytale went bad,but for British people it must have been much worse because it had such a devastating effect on the Royal family! I am glad that today it seems as if the BRF has come to terms with the past and everyone has found some happiness, especially now that William & Catherine are expecting their first baby

 

[BritishRoyalist]

I agree with everything you said. To the U.S press they were more 'Celebrities' or they played them mote that way but to the British it was a Future King and Queen and that jade it worse for them

 

[Missymew2]

I believe that Diana will always play a role in both Prince William and Prince Harry's lives. She was their mother and they loved her deeply. When you lose your mother, you lose one of the few people who will love you without condition. Their lives will forever be marked as before and after their Mother's untimely death. They will also never know what truly happened that night, nor will they know what their lives would be like now if she were still alive. That has been taken away from them forever. I believe that they will always carry a sadness deep inside their hearts.

 

[COUNTESS]

Diana was their mother and they loved her very much. They have shown that. And they are celebrities, otherwise they have little use. Today Kings and Queens are just that. They do not reign as Monarchs, they have governments that lead their nations, prime minsters who make the rules with their governments. The Monarchs, except is a few distant places, are controlled by their Constitutions. Charles outspoken opinions, make many uncomfortable. His mother has been wiser. She, of course, has opinions, she keeps them to herself.

 

[BritishRoyalist]

Actually The Queen hold meetings with the PM where she can say just about anything and the only time she has the chance to express her feelings/opinions. Of course we don't know what goes on at those private meetings or what is said at them, The Queen Obviously cant make them known in public. And only to some in the U.S is the Queen and other Royals seen as a celebrity. And she still reigns.

 

[PrincessKaimi]

We don't see them as celebrities. It's rude to generalize. They certainly don't have a star on Hollywood Blvd. As to press coverage, when Kate and William were in North America, Canadians (justifiably) were far more excited - but does turning out to see them constitute "thinking of then as celebrities"?

The Daily Mail has as much a focus on the Royals-as-Gossip Items as any American rag, in fact, I'd say moreso. And it's not the only British "paper" that has this focus. Nor are People/US magazines entirely owned by (or read by) people in the U.S.

 

[NGalitzine]

Both boys seem to have been able to move on with their lives. They live in the present and not the past.

 

[Dman]

William & Harry have moved on with their lives but they make sure they keep their mother's memory alive with supporting her charities and doing great things with their own lives. As they usually say, they want to make her proud in whatever they do.

There's a sadness in them no doubt and as they expressed in their 2007 interview, they still wonder about what happened that night in Paris and they don't think they will ever know the truth about those events. It's a pain that endures in them and it was splashed all over their faces during the memorial service, including Charles's. They try to put their best foot forward though.

My thoughts and prayers are always with Charles, William & Harry and their families. Can't be easy for them to experience all this happiness in their current private lives and not have Diana there to actually be a part of it.

 

[Missymew2]

Both boys seem to have been able to move on with their lives. They live in the present and not the past.

I believe we all live in the present, however, past experiences strongly shape who we are today. Hopefully, most of us have not publicly experienced such a huge tragedy in our lives. While we do move on with our lives, I know that my heart isn't so cold as to forget my mother or close friends who are no longer with me. They are always a part if who I've become. My losses have also been much more private. Mine are also not internationally historical in nature. I'm glad you have "a stiff upper lip" as my dear English mother always used to stay.