Note: This post discusses suicide, and some readers may find it triggering. To speak with Lifeline, please call them on 13 11 14.
Sinead O’Connor has shocked fans with an apparent ‘suicide note’ posted to her Facebook page late Sunday night (Monday morning AEDT).
The rambling post highlighted the family issues and career struggles that have plagued the star in recent years, with the distressing update reading:
“The last two nights finished me off. I have taken an overdose. There is no other way to get respect.
I am not at home, I’m at a hotel, somewhere in Ireland, under another name.
If I wasn’t posting this, my kids and family wouldn’t even find out.Was dead for another fortnight since none of them bother their hole with me for a minute. I could have been dead here for weeks already and they’d never have known.”
The ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ singer had a successful year in 2015, playing at festivals across Canada and Norway. However, she slipped in the past fortnight, and has been in hospital on suicide watch.
Police are unsure about the details surrounding her discharge and the fallout that followed.
Thankfully, Sinead was discovered safe by the Gardai (Irish police), and was taken immediately to hospital where she remains “distraught but safe”.
The Irish superstar has publicly discussed her mental health issues in the past, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression in her 30s. However, in 2014, Sinead said she was misdiagnosed, and in fact suffering from PTSD.
She is believed to be estranged from her four children, Jake (28), Brigidine (19), Shane (12), and Yeshua Francis (nine); as well as her new grandson from son Jake and his partner Lia. Her post suggests all contact has been cut, with her Facebook post referring to “the withholding of my babies from me without any sound reason by their fathers.”
In August this year, Sinead liveblogged her hysterectomy, which she also mentions in yesterday’s ‘suicide note’:
“Because apparently I’m scum and deserve to be abandoned and treated like shit just when I’ve had my womb and ovaries chopped out and my child is frighteningly sick.
I’m such a rotten horrible mother and Person, that I’ve been alone. Howling crying for weeks.”
Sinead’s fans leapt to her aid following the post, with over 4,200 comments urging her to seek help and stay safe.
We are glad that Sinead was discovered safe, and hope she is getting the help she needs.
If you found this post triggering, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website at https://www.lifeline.org.au/
Top Comments
There are two sides. However this is not what I believed a family was. What family ostracizes another family member or scapegoats them? A family that is difunctional, scapegoats, and alienates the other parent. Its a family systems dynamic. She is probably the sanest one in the group. Imagine if you were in her shoes. Families do this to another member?
Her family might not be the nicest towards her either and this may have made things worse or triggers whether they meant well or not. Or did not try to get her into hospital sooner. I've seen this within my own family and it's very hard. I feel very sorry for Sinead she has gone through a lot since her childhood and I hope she gets through this again. There are always two sides and please don't dismiss this as all to do with her mental illness. Families are not perfect and she may be telling the truth and was desperate in posting this message that no one would find her, no one calls, no one sees her...imagine that.
I feel very sorry for her too, she clearly does not have access to the support she desperately needs. But I don't know if you can necessarily say her whole family is horrible based purely on her side of the story (and since her family aren't making any form of public statements, her side is all we've got). People in general, mentally ill or not, can be extremely manipulative and people with mental illness aren't exempt from inflicting real damage on the people closest to them. Her own kids are estranged from her. As someone who grew up with a mentally ill parent who caused harm I can empathise with that. Just as there isn't enough support for people with mental illness, there isn't enough for those closest to them, especially the ones with no voice - kids.
I do hope she now gets the help she needs and can start rebuilding the bridge with her children.