To an onlooker Irish woman, Cara, is a bubbly and out-going 27-year-old mother-of-one, but behind it all she feels very different. Unknown to many of her friends and colleagues Cara has battled with a mental illness for several years.
After some encouragement from her partner, Cara decided to write a frank and honest post about her struggle with depression.
‘What’s wealth to you?” touches on how the issue affected her everyday life, relationships, self esteem and self confidence.
“The only explanation I can give will sound pretty much like a cowardly excuse to someone who doesn’t or hasn’t suffered with this awful taboo. It is simple: I WASN’T ME”
After sharing the very touching and personal blog post to her Facebook page, the young Mum was blown away with the support she received.
This is her incredible journey:
What’s Wealth To You?
If someone asked me a few years ago what is wealth to me, I think the easiest answer would have money, success in my chosen career, and the usual happy family with 2 or 4 children.
Let me start at the beginning to give you some understanding.
I come from a family of five, one boy and two girls.
The usual sibling rivalry ensued, with my brother seven years older and my sister four years older, I was the baby, of course if you ask them, the spoiled one, I don’t agree but then don’t all youngest children say this?!
Growing up the usual teenage angst ensued, who was friends with who, which boys liked which girls and did the boys I liked like me?
When I was 16 a misjudgment on my behalf led to a horrific scenario for a friend. To this day I haven’t forgiven myself and always have What-Ifs, but as they, that’s life.
I can’t exactly pinpoint when, but a darkness started to come over me. I started feeling just so wore down with school, and relationships with everyone seemed strained. I know, as I said, the typical teenage angst – the world was against me.
Looking back now it’s clear I was suffering with what would haunt me numerous times in the coming years, the whispered and never spoken about dreaded depression.
On the outside I was a happy outgoing, maybe sometimes too loud, 16/17 year old, but inside I couldn’t stop this darkness enveloping me. Try, as I might, it took over.
My first suicide attempt was at the age of 18. I remember I had been out every weekend drinking away my worries and troubles, not talking to anyone about it. I came round in hospital to find one of my friends who had brought me to casualty, crying at my bedside. My parents couldn’t understand why I would do something like this. On the outside I had everything going for me, but inside I was crumbling.
The weary state my mental health was in meant I easily fell into an abusive relationship, and at the ripe old age of 19 I took my second and third suicide attempts.
Looking back, I can’t believe I’d even contemplate this, and thinking of the hurt and pain I would gave caused to all my family, friends and loved ones still genuinely tears me up.
The only explanation I can give will sound pretty much like a cowardly excuse to someone who doesn’t or hasn’t suffered with this awful taboo. It is simple: I WASN’T ME.
I finally saw the hurt I was causing friends, my family and myself by continuing this relationship, and parted ways.
In a strange way, I’m quite thankful for this relationship, as when it was working well, everything was great, but when it wasn’t, it showed me exactly what I didn’t want my life to be like, and made me much stronger and less tolerable to bullshit from guys!
By the age of 22 I attended the funeral of one of my closet friends, taken too young in a car accident, a brother of another close friend who died suddenly, and two acquaintances to suicide. All these friends were in their early twenties.
Fast forward to December 2009, I meet the love of my life, a decent, hard-working, normal and nice guy, who just so happened to be very easy on the eye. As far as been conventional – we were anything but!
After just five months of seeing each other, having fun and not thinking about the future, we were faced with a very real situation, an unplanned pregnancy.
A few days after finding out this life changing news, and both still unsure how we felt, I started bleeding. My doctor sent me to the A&E for a scan and there we were told it was too early to tell, as I was only a few weeks gone, but more than likely I was miscarrying. There in that moment I decided I wanted this little baby and I was going to do whatever I could to keep it safe and growing.
I returned two days later for more blood tests and was told the HCG level (pregnancy hormone) was dwindling, and I was in fact losing the baby. Heartbroken and numb I went home with the instructions to come in the following morning for another scan.
Returning at eleven the next morning to a waiting room of heavily pregnant, happy women, whilst we waited for a scan with the news that we already knew, was very hard to deal with emotionally. Other couples waiting in the area had the same wide eyed fearful look we had, only we already knew the answer, we weren’t going to come out with good news.
The doctor scanned me again, and to be honest I really don’t remember much of it. Next I was sitting at a table and he was explaining an ectopic pregnancy to me, and I kept thinking, ‘why is he telling me this?’ He explained the embryo had in fact not been growing inside my womb, but had instead attached itself to one of my Fallopian tubes.
Still not quite grasping the enormity of the situation, he explained I needed surgery and possibly to have the tube removed if it was badly damaged. I remember looking at my partner confused as to what was going on, when the doctor informed me I was going for surgery right then, and it be life threatening.
All that went through my head was, ‘I’m never going to have kids’. Going from finding out we were having an unplanned pregnancy, to not been pregnant, and then me having major surgery to a tube removed, all within two weeks was a tough time. More than most couples go through in their entire relationship, we dealt with in fives months of been together. Thankfully, instead of tearing us apart, it brought us a lot closer.
Fast forward three years time and we welcomed our gorgeous little boy into the world. Even though we planned our pregnancy this time, it was still a major shock finding out we were expecting. I think I spent the whole pregnancy worrying something would happen but trying not to, as I’m sure many women do!
Deciding to have our son was the best decision we ever made. We decided to move from our apartment to a new area and into a house.
Many welcomed this decision but, unfortunately, some were not so pleased.
It’s been a tough few months, I love my son with my all, but I knew I wasn’t feeling well again and went back to my doctor for medication.
My relationship with his dad was hanging by a thread at certain points, but I’ve learned to zone certain negativity out and all that go’s with it.
We’re getting there, it’s not been easy and there’s always going to be bumps along the way, but I know this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
I’m not putting this down here as a sob story, nor am I looking for sympathy or claiming to be an angel.
I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but this is me.
I suffer with depression.
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A huge thank you to Cara for getting in contact to share her touching story with us.
Helplines:
Aware: 1890 303302
Samaritans: 1850 609090
Shine (Supporting People Affected by Mental Ill Health): 1890 621631
Console: 1800 201 890
Pieta House: 01 601 0000
Reachout :01 764 5666
