Diana the pleasure addict. Why it's dangerous to be Queen of Hearts.

Image source: 123rf.com/fmua

Diana – A canvas for our longings

Diana - for some an annoying media figure, for others the biggest projection screen in the world. No one can ignore her. A woman to whom an incredible mass of people reacted emotionally, a Madonna to this day. That says more about the image of women in our society than countless scientific studies.

Like so many people, I remember exactly where I was when she died. I was a young woman and had just met the love of my life. We were exploring romantic corners of the west coast of Rhodes together when the news broke on the television in a small taverna. I never liked Diana and yet, like her, I was about to sacrifice my identity for love. Like so many other women, I was prepared to give up much of what made me who I was for a smoothly functioning us. Love - the supposedly most worthwhile thing in the world. It wouldn't be until years later that I would search for the wreckage of my identity in this us and try to find a meaningful clue as to who I actually am. Please don't get me wrong. The love of this man is one of the most beautiful things that has happened to me in my life. But today I have a place in our us as a whole and complete personality.

The trap of conformity and the return to identity

This is something that we women often only realise in later years. We begin to realise how much we give ourselves up for our relationships, how many relationships, including professional ones, are built on our indulgence. We discover our self-efficacy and mature into an independent personality that is enough for itself. Rarely does this process take place without a moderate earthquake occurring in a woman's life. Like the Greek goddess Persephone, who is abducted into the underworld as the girl Kore and returns as the powerful goddess Persephone, you are no longer the same woman afterwards.

Tragic, if so. Just like Diana.

As much as she may look at first glance like a rebel who rebelled to go her own way, on closer inspection this turns out to be an optical illusion. Throughout her life, this woman served the most useless images with which society manipulates us women: she was a princess, Barbie, Mother Theresa, star, the caring mother. She was a walking cliché and, until the end, not capable of going her own way. Magically, she was always drawn to wherever there was admiration and affection to be had. The age-old trap of women. In the end, she is nothing more than a shiny trophy of the patriarchy and anything but a worthwhile role model.

Princess Diana as a symbol of the need for recognition

A documentary shows footage of her public-speaking training. The camera is rolling, but they haven’t started working yet. She tells the children to be quiet, then skilfully adopts her „Diana look“ – head bowed and a naive expression. That look alone is a symbol of everything worth rebelling against. The trainer asks her where she finds the motivation for her gruelling charity work. Diana laughs: “I’ve got nothing else to do,” and can’t stop laughing for a while. As I said, these images weren’t intended for the public. And of course, it was a joke. And, in a tragic way, it was also the truth.

Diana had no plan of her own for her life. In fact, she didn't have a life of her own. She traded the pressure of royal etiquette for the pressure of publicity, walking past paparazzi with a coquettishly shy look, which she had demonstrably called out herself often enough. She remained what she was - dependent on the love and admiration of others, unable to build on herself, the property of the public and/or the men into whose arms she incessantly threw herself. A woman who was incapable of respecting herself and supporting herself.

I don’t want to be unnecessarily harsh with Diana. After all, we make this mistake ourselves time and time and time again. We long for authenticity, we want to learn to say no – and we equally hope that those around us will understand this. We don’t want to lose the affection of others whilst we’re on our journey of self-discovery, yet in this dilemma we often enough lose our bearings. We finally set out briefly on our own path and cannot bear it when others don’t approve of us doing so. We’re full of guilt when we fail to meet the expectations of those around us. We cannot bear their displeasure. And we fall back. Je suis Diana. We’re all a bit like Diana, the torn woman. We want to be ourselves and be authentic, yet at the same time we want to please everyone. The price of our authenticity seems too high to us as long as we’re unable to find the support and encouragement we need within ourselves.

The sacrifice of one’s own identity: An appeal to all women

Lady Di was no rebel. Lady Di was a torn, restless soul, an addict, always on the lookout for her next fix of attention, affection and reassurance. She could not break free from this drug right up to the end. Right up to the end, she remained trapped in this addiction and saw it as her very identity. The Queen of Hearts. But in reality, those hearts were the substance she had to consume every day, which she – like so many of us – needed so desperately that she placed it above all else. With deadly consistency, she played into female projections, died too young as a victim, and thus became a legend. A victim of the paparazzi, a victim of a completely drunk driver, but in reality a victim of her own lifestyle, of her addiction to love, which she had elevated to a maxim of life. Diana died from a lethal dose of a drug from which no woman is immune.

On the anniversary of the death of this tragic figure, I would like to remember all the women who sacrifice their identity every day in the good faith that they are doing the right thing. All the women who believe they can save the world or even just their relationship with their willingness to sacrifice. Who forgo living their needs so as not to jeopardise the balance of the family. Who deliver top performance at work and don't demand adequate pay because the satisfaction of others is reward enough. All the women who maltreat their bodies with eating disorders and cosmetic surgery because society only accepts one kind of beauty. All the women who believe that a good mum doesn't take her own needs so seriously. All the women who don't live their power because it sometimes looks unattractive. All the women who immediately betray their path when there is more affection to be had elsewhere. All the women who have not yet exposed these sh...een images of women for what they are - lifeless images, sh...een ones at that.

And so I now come to the most important question of my female soul: Do you all still love me, even though I speak my mind?

Joking aside. Diana must not have lived and died in vain. To me, she is the symbol of a woman’s life that ended in spectacular failure – the life of a woman who had every opportunity and yet succumbed to the same longing as Mrs Müller, Mrs Meier or, indeed, Mrs Schmid. A woman who fell prey to the misconception that the affection of others is more important than forging her own path. Forging your own path may well come at a price. But as Diana’s fate shows, not doing so does too. The idea that popularity might be a higher currency than authenticity is a fallacy. A wise woman, who fearlessly follows her own path, said to me recently during a telephone conversation: „I’m well aware that my self-confidence comes at a cost.“ Everything has its price, after all. A true queen knows that.