Australian Comedian Fiona O'Loughlin Reveals Suicide Plans
Australian stand-up comedian Fiona O'Loughlin said that she had attempted to kill herself around a year ago. O'Loughlin said that she was still alive only because of her youngest daughter.
The 50-year-old, who is the mother of five children, checked into a motel under a false name so that she could kill herself. The incident took place in 2013. O'Loughlin explained the incident to ABC News. She said that her daughter started looking for her as she had gone missing. The daughter went to the motel and looked for her mother. However, the motel authorities said that there was no guest under O'Loughlin's name. However, O'Loughlin's daughter Mary seemed to have an intuitive notion that her mother was there in the motel. She described how O'Loughlin looked like, and that was enough to find her mother.
O'Loughlin started taking psychiatric help since her suicide attempt. She is also supported by the Albert Road Clinic in Melbourne. She said that the "most pointless suicides" were committed by alcoholics as those people could not suffer the consequences of their own activities. She called it "pretty selfish" to leave the world in that manner. However, she said that alcoholics would not be aware of it at that time as they would get "kind of crazy." According to her psychiatrist Dr. Mark Johnson, O'Loughlin felt "hopeless" about her alcoholism and her life. He said that she had been severely depressed those days.
O'Loughlin became an internationally successful comedian during her late 30s. However, her journey was interrupted multiple times due to her drinking problems. She was admitted to hospital several times and also went through her divorce during the process. O'Loughlin fainted on stage in 2009 during a performance at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane. It was when her personal problems came under the public radar.
O'Loughlin used to drink a couple of bottles of vodka before every performance. It apparently calmed her nerves during the performances. "The problem was with those two little vodkas - if you're an alcoholic you put that in ... and your body aches and screams for more," she told ABC, "You know I fought it off nine times out of 10 but about every 10th time it would beat me. I was the weaker and I'd go on a bender, you know ... back we go to square one."
Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au