'There will be scars on my soul until the day I die but they make me who I am'

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer,
no-man-fathomed

- from the poem ‘No worst there is none, pitched past pitch of grief’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

An English writer, Hopkins lived in Ireland for a time - and clearly knew a thing or two about depression; about that “frightful” descent into the dark recesses of the mind.

Gabrielle Cooney McGuire could relate to what Hopkins was seeking to describe. She too has gone to places where as somebody else once observed “the soul is seen to be in conflict with itself.”
Gabrielle - whose job includes travelling around the world as a flight nurse - has her own way of putting it. “You know I’ll never be fully healed, there will be scars on my soul until the day I die but you know what it makes me who I am.”
The “it” refers to the long struggle the 42-year-old Navan woman has gone through; a struggle that has included attempts by her to come to terms with the fact that between the ages of four and 12 she was sexually abused by, not one, but three different men in three different “episodes.”
For years the married mother of two says, she put “a lid on things” burying the memories of the horrific experiences deep in the recesses of her mind. Invariably there were consequences and they included a “tailspin” into depression.
These days she says, she is in a much happier place and she’s hoping that by telling her story she can help others grapple with the kind of issues that confronted her.
Gabby, as she is known to her friends, has also found that the very act of talking about her struggles is a catharsis and may even have saved her life. More importantly she feels that by giving voice to what she went through it may help to prevent someone else being exposed to the kind of evil opportunism that led to a breakdown in her twenties.
She also wants to get the message out there that there is help available; that there is a way out. “The mental health services in Ireland are not as good as they need to be, maybe that’s down to a lack of funds available, but the people who are suffering in any way should remember that they are surrounded by friends and family, by good people who want to help.”
Her experiences have left another legacy. “I definitely have a slightly different outlook on life now. No matter what I’m faced with my question to myself will always be: What’s the worst thing that can happen? I’ve been through hell but I’m still here so what’s the worst thing that can happen. I’ve nearly faced it all and done it all. There’s feck all really and truly that can kill me.”
For Gabrielle Cooney McGuire it’s about speaking out. It’s certainly not about bottling up her emotions which she tried to do until they all came tumbling down on top of her. For a time they overwhelmed and submerged her and left her to live through “an absolute nightmare.”
To talk with Gabrielle for an hour or so is to engage with someone who is witty and entertaining - despite the grim story she has to tell. Even in the midst of outlining the most harrowing of experiences she will say something witty - one liners and observations that are both humorous and revealing. “I have to warn you I can talk the teeth off a saw,” she said at one stage.
On another occasion, while describing a character she played in a play in recent years, she came up with another gem. “The character I was playing was rough and ready, as rough as a badger’s arse!” Cue another outburst of her familiar laugh.
A natural ability to create humour, a searing honesty - and buckets of courage - are part of what she is. Then there is the other “shit.”
That exuberance; that joie de vivre is more genuine today than it was in the past. For years she says she acted a part. She was the heart and soul of the party. Outwardly, she appeared happy and content, always ready for a laugh, inwardly she was “dying.”
Now, with Gabrielle, you get what you see. Her life is an open book - and while there are laughs there are tears also. She spent so many years hiding her real self, her deepest feelings and memories she has no problem talking about the issues that tormented her - the abuse, the depression, her own perception that for a time she was a “monster” to live with. In fact she wants to talk about all that because it was by giving expression to the broiling, bubbling emotions inside her she eventually put herself on the road to redemption.
The eldest of five children Gabrielle Cooney grew up in Athlumney, Navan. She went to the local Mercy Convent school but even before she began secondary school the abuse that so blighted her life had started.
The first time it happened she was just four. “On one occasion I was staying with my grandmother and visiting another house. This man was there, couldn’t tell you what he looked like, couldn’t tell you what his name was and he brought me outside. He put me sitting on his knee and put his hand down my knickers.
“I just remember hopping down off his knee and saying ‘I’ll go back inside now’ and even at that tender age of four I knew it wasn’t right. I didn’t know why it was wrong I just new it wasn’t right and I didn’t tell anybody.”
The second “episode” started when she was around 10. One member of a family, she says, “saw an opportunity” and she was once more the victim.
“He had an opportunity and used it.
It was, she adds, a similar scenario when she was abused by a third person. She says she didn’t have the “strength or energy” to pursue that case through the courts.
That second episode was, Gabrielle adds, the “most invasive” and years later she reported it to the Gardai. That led to a court case with the perpetrator receiving a prison sentence.
“There have been times, in the intervening years, when you think: ‘Did I have something here (pointing to her forehead) that said ‘abuse me.’ Why? Why? One you might understand but three? Three is a lot.”

 

GABRIELLE COONEY McGUIRE ON.....

 

.....how sexual abuse has affected her

'I was abused as a child from the ages of four to 12, by three different people, the most significant one or the one that affected me the most was between the age of nine and 12. I didn't tell anybody, not even my husband, bless him. Well, he got a one-liner from me: 'I was abused as a child.

'I grew up very quickly. I have been 40 since I was 10 and I'm now 42 and it's only since I turned 40 that I feel comfortable within myself. I was always way older than my years. You feel very lonely, very isolated, you feel, looking back on it, you feel something of a fraud because you are putting on a front all the time, you become an actress.'

....hiding for years what happened to her

'I grew up outwardly happy, outwardly. I became a nurse, everything. I boxed it, I buried it so, so, so deep, oh so deep. I did not think about it, I literally did not think about it. The only time it ever slightly surfaced would be if there was a report in the news about the Ferns Report, Rolf Harris, if something like that was reported there would be a little bit of a flicker and as quick as it appeared I would bury it again because I'd say: 'I can't go there, I just can't go there.'

....on her work as a flight nurse
'I love my job, it's a fabulous job. I could end up going anywhere to pick up a patient and bring them back to either Ireland or somewhere in Britain. You could go to work and end up anywhere in the world. Recently I was in Buenos Aires.'