The Princess

I should hate the English...for what they did to the Irish of course. But I don't hate them. In fact I sort of love them. I enjoy their sense of humor, their long and wild history, their beautiful countryside and that wonderful way they have of not taking themselves too seriously. I have had a lot of English clients over the years. Most of these clients have become my friends. Spending so much time working and traveling with them has just made me like them more. Go figure. Also, if the Brits had not been awful to the Irish, my relatives never would have had to flee their country. I would have been born in Ireland, not America. I’m happy to have been born here - so I’m grateful for that part of the story. 

I even love the British Royal Family which, I have been told repeatedly, is a very old-fashioned sentiment. But this is not a piece about the benefits or drawbacks of a monarchical system  - it is more about how one of them, Princess Diana in fact, changed my life. 

I was a freshman in high school when Lady Di married the Prince of Wales, but I remember it like it was yesterday. For some odd reason they got married on a Wednesday (July 29, 1981) so it was a week day. My mother was not big on having television in our house so I have a vague memory of watching the wedding coverage in the pre-dawn light at a friend's house before we trotted off to our respective summer babysitting jobs.

I wasn't crazy about Diana’s wedding dress, a big poofy meringue of a thing, but I loved Princess Di. As a wildly romantic high school girl I thought to myself “well...if Prince Charles can marry a relatively unknown girl then it goes to follow that my prince is out there waiting for me as well.” Granted, (unlike my own family’s somewhat less illustrious farming heritage) Princess Di was a member of the Spencer family. A family so ancient and aristocratic that some would say, at the time of her wedding, that Diana was more “royal” than Charles. The Spencer family is descended from King Charles the second who was king of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1660 until his death in 1685. She also shared ancestry with Mary Queen of Scots and Winston Churchill. Not too shabby a lineage for a young girl.

Diana was 18 when she was hand-plucked by the queen (rumor has it) to be her eldest son’s bride. She was perfect. She was a virgin, she had that fancy-pants family history, she was tall and graceful and had the right bone structure. She was sweet, seemingly pliable, and madly in love with Charles who, unbeknownst to her at the time, was madly in love with someone else. The poor girl had no idea what she was getting herself into.

But it wasn't the glorious pageantry of the wedding or her effortless style and beauty, or even her work on behalf of AIDS patients or people crippled or disfigured by land mines that won my heart. It was when she came clean about her decade-long struggle with bulimia. 

Princess Diana first publicly discussed her battle with bulimia in 1992 when I was battling that evil force myself. Before entering A.A. and trying to live a more balanced life my mornings were a disaster.  I always woke up afraid, sometimes even rigid with terror. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture, but I am one high-strung individual. I used to feel, at times, as if I were one loud unexpected noise away from a complete nervous breakdown. Which made the constant blaring sirens a problem during the twenty years that I lived smack dab in the maelstrom otherwise known as New York City. Not that anyone would know about my chronic internal panic except for people who have lived with me and heard me scream bloody murder and then run in terror as a cup falls or a door slams. I am highly aware of and reactive to almost all stimuli. The increased visual awareness probably makes me a better photographer but the heightened reactivity to everything else drives most people (myself included) bonkers. 

My central nervous system is wired for cataclysmic disaster. I mean...we all know the apocalypse is nigh so why not freak out about it before even getting out of bed? That way I can at least be prepared for the end of the world when it does come. In my past life as an active alcoholic and bulimic my early mornings were spent chugging coffee, freaking out about the day’s news (while reading it), smoking a cigarette or two and dealing with my hangover, all while trying to get myself out the door and off to work. If the anxiety got too overwhelming and intense I would drink more coffee, eat two or three bagels loaded with butter and salt, drink a half-quart of water, and then make the whole mess come violently back up in a bitter, chunky, partially digested wave. Bulimia was an action I could take that gave me some sense of control over my anxiety. I wasn't sure why this ritual worked to quell my shaking nerves - but it did. 

And that, I assume, is the same thing that happened to Princess Di. For some reason the binging and purging calmed her down. It gave her, like it did for me, a way to release the unmanageable feelings that were torturing her. In the 1992 authorized biography Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Norton Diana openly and honestly discussed her bulimia. It started the week after she got engaged to Prince Charles and plagued her off and on for a decade until she sought professional help and was able to arrest it. 

Everyone loved Princess Di. And a lot of young women at that time (myself included) wanted to be her. “Look at Princess Di,” I would think. “Her perfect life and her perfect marriage and her perfect smile.” But it wasn't so perfect underneath that sparkling aristocratic royal facade. In fact underneath all that cultivated perfection, Princess Diana was a bloody mess.

And her being a mess and coming clean about being a mess while everything on the outside looked so damn good gave me strength. Gave me hope. 

Bulimia is an isolating, shameful secret. Making yourself vomit is a disgusting and sometimes painful experience. “This sure doesn't feel good,” I would think as I blew my nose and wiped my eyes while brushing my teeth in a frenzy after each and every episode. And yet I could not stop. Until I heard Princess Diana speak openly and honestly about her own struggles. And she did so without shame. 

And so, just like I saw Princess Diana do, I came clean and sought help. I found an eating disorder specialist in the city and I told her everything. “I'm here because of Princess Di,” I told her at our first session.

“If Princess Di can get better, so can you,” my new therapist assured me with a smile. And she was right. Over the course of one year I saw this therapist every week and just like Princess Diana did with her eating disorder therapist we found better, more constructive ways for me to deal with my overwhelming anxiety. Healthy methods like exercise and meditation and talking about what was really going on underneath those “unmanageable” feeling. Methods that did not include leaning over a toilet bowl with my fingers down my throat. 

I sought help because this “perfect” woman who I idolized from afar stood up and told the world that she was bulimic, that she wanted to get better, and that there was a way out of the obsessive compulsive hell that is active bulimia.

I have not had a bulimic episode for decades now. I believe that chapter in my life is over for good. And I have one beautiful, gone too soon, honest-to-god Princess to thank for that.