Princess Diana’s struggle with bulimia
My thoughts The Crown’s depiction of Princess Diana’s struggle with bulimia:
I was young when I first heard Princess Diana struggled with Bulimia. I remember being shocked but also somewhat relieved, realizing that anyone could suffer from this disease. When I heard her struggle was being incorporated into the latest season of The Crown I was intrigued to say the least.
The episode in which her Bulimia is first displayed centres around her loneliness. It’s palpable. Loneliness, abandonment, rejection, isolation. I think this alone paints an accurate picture as to what can cause these behaviours to begin. The act of bingeing and purging is isolating in itself, and causes you to retreat further away from life/people. The loneliness feeds the cycle, and the very feeling she is trying to soothe only intensifies over the course of the season.
Her Bulimia is depicted throughout in various ways. From the common binge/purge cycle in which one binges outside of a normal meal, to her unable to keep down lunch for example. I think this was important to portray as eating disorders rarely fall into black and white categories. I think the show also did a good job of showing how bulimia was used to remedy different emotions in different ways. You sense the calm/comfort she gets from the binge, but you also see her use food to help distract from tension, anger and upset. I believe eating disorders aren’t simply about weight/food and this is well portrayed because you clearly see she uses it to deal with pain, loneliness and sadness and not as a means to loose weight. Bulimia is her coping mechanism to numb and distract (momentarily) from the world she finds herself in.
The most gut-wrenching scene for me is when she looks herself in the mirror after an episode. You see Princess Diana staring at herself in the mirror, tears in her eyes…for me I couldn’t help but feel what might be going through her mind. An onslaught of voices saying “what the hell are you doing with your life? Why are you doing this to yourself? Why can’t you stop? Who are you? This feeling of looking at a stranger, not able to recognize the person you see in the mirror and the disappointment in yourself is all consuming. Yet she quickly cleans up, brushes her teeth, washes her hands and carries on with life …and to the outside world nothings seems amiss. And this is why so many people that struggle with this disease never appear to be “sick”. But the shame inside continues to build.
My only concern after watching it is that, I myself , only started these behaviours after seeing it portrayed on TV. So in the back of my mind, I worry that someone else out there tries to mimic what they’ve watched. I hope, however, that I t continues to raise awareness about Bulimia, helps those struggling feel less alone and lessens the stigma and shame attached to having open and honest conversations about mental health as a whole.
