'Don't waste your teenage years hating yourself, it's not worth it'

“Sometimes when I say 'I'm okay,' I want someone to look me in the eyes, hug me tight, and say, 'I know you're not,'” - unattributed. 

It was while travelling through Navan in a car three ago now that Aoife Duggan attempted to end it all.

“I was after having an argument with my friends and my Mam picked me up in Navan. She used to take the car off me when I'd have episodes because she thought I might do something,” she recalls.
“I saw a truck coming from the opposite direction. I just looked at my Mam said: 'I'm sorry.' She said 'What do you mean?' and with that I just opened the door and tried to run for the truck coming towards us. I just wanted the truck to run over me. My Mam grabbed me, held me back, she saved me that day.”
Aoife, now 23, called into the Meath Chronicle to courageously talk about her young, sometimes traumatic, life. How she had sought to kill herself; how she had suffered from anxiety for years - and depression too; how voices in her head left her immersed in a sea of negativity that almost drowned her. 
She told how she became “addicted” to marijuana and how she used various, covert, ways of self harming, hiding it from the world, fearful of what people might think of her. 
Yet she also spoke about her road to redemption and how changing the way she thinks about things has helped to transform her world. 
From Stackallen - where she grew up along with her brother Shane and parents Sharon and Des - Aoife laughs easily, but that sense of joie de vivre; that contentment she portrays has been earned. Hard earned. 
She has suffered in the past but now she wants to talk about her journey; the many ups and downs she experienced before finding a better way. Aoife recounted her life the day after the Annual Report 2017 of the Ombudsman for Children highlighted how children are being let down by a mental health service where psychiatrists are not routinely available to suicidal young people. 
She points out that she was thought nothing about mental health in school - and she wants to help other young people, in schools and elsewhere, who might be grappling with issues such as a negative body image, something she battled with for much of her teenage years. She would love to be able to tell them there is a better way. 
“Don't spend your teenager years hating yourself, hating your body because it's just not worth it. I did it. I may not have the body I want but I'm not beating myself up over it anymore, I spent so long doing just that,” she wants tell them. 

 

Aoife Duggan thinks it was the death of her Grandmother that “triggered” a descent into the kind of depths no youngster should experience. She was five when her Grandmother Rita passed away, suddenly. One day she was there, the next she was gone.
“She used to mind me. My parents would go to work, my Mam worked full-time back then. I would be in my Grandmother's house watching TV with her, having tea. I can still see her in the morgue; I can remember going and seeing the body. I can remember what she was wearing, the smile she had on her face.”
With her beloved Nanna no longer around Aoife developed an anxiety so acute that attending Stackallen National School every day was a fear-filled event. “I had very bad separation anxiety in primary school. I needed my mam to be outside the school all the time. I had to be able to see her. If I didn't see her I would go into a meltdown. She had to be around at all times and it was like that until fifth class.”

So every day Sharon would leave Aoife at school and heroically sit in her car where her daughter could see her. “She used to tell me she was cleaning her car - and listening to Gerry Ryan but I don't know what she did in the car, she'd just sit there. I know there were others parents who used to sit with her because they kind of all knew what was going on so they'd sit with her. That continued until about fifth year.” 
Aoife attended St Joseph's, Mercy in Navan, did her Leaving Cert, went to study to be a beautician. The world held such promise yet at 19 she was diagnosed with depression by a doctor. “I still have no idea why I developed depression, I haven't a clue,” she explains. “It manifested itself through arguments with family members, that's what I remember. I thought I was just a normal moody teenager, that my parents were stupid, I was just angry at life, but that's just the way teenagers go, I thought,” he adds. 
She was given anti-depressants, the dosage gradually increased as time went on. Looking back now she compares depression to living in a crowded room full of voices. “You can hear what the voices are saying but they're not directly talking to you, it's just noise but it's your own voice. 
“It's like you talking to yourself in the mirror and it talking back to yourself, it was constant, I couldn't get away from it. I also gained three stone in just three months. I'm only 4' 11'' so three stone on me was a lot.” 
That compounded her low self-esteem. “I used to stand at the mirror, look at myself and say horrible things to myself. I'd look at stretch marks and say 'you deserve this.' 
Then the suicidal thoughts came in with those voices. 
“I'd wake up in the morning and cry that I'm alive because all I wanted to do was die in my sleep. 
“I knew I wanted to die and I knew that I would do it but I wanted to do it in a way that wasn't distressing for my Mam and Dad.” 

It didn't help that Aoife also became heavily dependent on marijuana. Then, that day in Navan, she tried to jump out of the car until her mother saved her. 
It was after that Sharon pushed hard to get Aoife an appointment with a mental health specialist in Navan - and her journey to redemption began. 
Now working as a sales consultant, and off any medication, Aoife has no doubt that the treatment she received, and the love of her family, saved her life. 
“You think of positive things such as naming five positive things that happened to you in a day. 
“If I was in a situation where I was thinking negatively, or I'd be anxious about it or feeling low I have to realise those thoughts are irrational, they are not real, they are just thoughts that can be changed. Think of what's the worst thing that can happen and live in the reality of that.
“If I don't get a report in on time what's the worst thing that can happen? Ok the report isn't in on time but I'll get it in as soon as I can.
“Mindfulness is important as well, taking care of yourself, detaching yourself from social media, getting out and just walking, taking time for yourself, looking for the positives in everything, enjoying life.”

Still only at the foothills of her life Aoife Duggan has completed quite a journey already. Now, she wants to help others; well aware there are many out there crying out for a soothing word - or simply a hug.