'I didn't want to die': Mick Finnegan tells Tommy Tiernan about wanting to take his life
Mick Finnegan: 'I didn't deal with the trauma that I experienced as a child.'
A mental health advisor told The Tommy Tiernan Show about his experience of homelessness and the suicidal thoughts he had after he was sexually abused as a child.
Mick Finnegan said he was abused from the age of 12 and ended up living on the streets. He moved to the UK and said the moment he tried to take his own life on a bridge in London was when his life changed.
“It was fear. It was nothing to do with [psychiatrists or psychologists]. I didn't want to die,” he said.
“Things just came to a head. I didn't deal with the trauma that I experienced as a child. I just wanted to escape from the reality that I was living. I couldn't deal with the constant flashbacks, I couldn't deal with reliving it over and over and over again. I just wanted to escape and I thought at the time that I wanted to end my life.
“[A friend] Howard, came to the rescue. He said something to me that no one else really did say to me, he said, ‘I don’t want you to die, I love you.’ I broke down. I started crying and we walked back off the bridge together.”
He credits the NHS for saving his life and he now hopes to help others in a similar situation.
“Thankfully, there was a psychiatrist in London, and a brilliant community mental health team who enabled me to integrate back into society.”
Tiernan was also joined by former newsreader Anne Doyle, who told him she has never regretted her decision to not have children.
“I suppose I never really fell in love with somebody, to a point where I felt like upturning my life, and becoming part of a married couple. And then as I got older, quite frankly, I didn't see the point,” she said.
“Judging how my life has panned out. I've never had any reason to question it. I just never really particularly wanted to have children, and I'm not alone in that. There, there are many women who for one reason or another, simply don't choose to have children, they live their lives differently.
"That brings its own joys and blessings and, I suppose, it also brings its own sadnesses and loneliness, but everything that you do in life will bring the flipped coin.”
Finally, artist Gottfried Helnwein described moving to Ireland and buying an old castle in Munster to Tiernan.
Austrian-born Helnwein said he bought a home in Co Tipperary after his wife found a castle they could live in.
"When we came [to Ireland] I liked it, everybody wanted to stay here, my kids really liked it. My wife got a castle for me because I like castles, and my wife is really good at getting stuff, if she's on a mission, she gets it. She got a castle there that's where we ended up.
"It's an old castle and we started restoring it and I'm still restoring it. It's really magic, it's really great. I think it was two million Deutsche Mark at that time. But, it's easy to buy a castle but to keep it up and restore it... I really love old architecture and I restored as perfect as a movie set. It's really great.”
