Mother of missing teenager admits contemplating taking her own life

The heartbroken mother of missing Amy Fitzpatrick has admitted she contemplated taking her own life.

Audrey Fitzpatrick said the unbearable torment she has suffered since her 15-year-old daughter vanished in southern Spain over four years ago pushed her into a deep depression and to the brink of suicide.

In her new book, Please Find My Amy, Dubliner Audrey admits: “It is hard to keep going and there are plenty of times I have wanted to die. I must be honest about that.

“I have never tried to kill myself, but I have thought about it and wanted to do it. The pain is so intense and so concentrated that sometimes I think the only way out is to die. Dying would actually be easier and less painful than our existence at the moment.”

But Audrey, who returned penniless to Dublin earlier this year with partner Dave Mahon after spending €500,000 on a tireless campaign to find Amy, said she’s been able to conquer her darkest thoughts by concentrating on her duty to find her only daughter.

“I’ve thought about suicide, but I have to stay strong enough for Amy. I’m the only mother she has. I often talk to her and shout at her for disappearing. ‘I feel so bad,’ I tell her. ‘I just want to lie down and die and you are not letting me even do that. You are not letting me do it’.

“But I just have to push those thoughts out of my head.”

Audrey and her partner, who are now on unemployment benefit and only recently moved into an apartment in the capital after spending a couple of months living in Audrey’s mother’s sitting room, also spoke frankly about the huge toll the stressful and costly campaign has had on their once healthy finances.

Prior to Amy’s disappearance on New Year’s Day in 2008 near the plush family villa on the Costa Del Sol, the couple, who worked as auctioneers, were “very well off” with savings of €300,000.

But things became so tight for them in their final months in Spain towards the end of last year that they could barely afford to feed themselves.

* Please Find My Amy, published by Paperweight Publications and priced €12.99, is out tomorrow.