Hello. How are you?

My name is Caireann. It is a traditional Irish name, but out in the wild, it operates as a sort of linguistic obstacle course for anyone who didn’t grow up with a sense of the Irish language. Even though there isn’t a fada to be seen, it still catches people out when they have to pronounce it. Even here in Scotland, where people usually have a decent enough handle on the aul Celtic names, I often experience what can only be described as panic the minute a person sees my name. And look, I get it. It’s just too many letters, it actively scares people. I chose the difficult spelling on purpose. I’m annoying. Most of the time, I have to step in and do the verbal heavy lifting and get ahead of the whole thing, kindly explaining how to say it before anyone feels bad.

In reality, it is pronounced exactly like Karen (Ca + ren or Care + in).

I'm a Karen! (but not like thaaaat)

The thing I find funny is the social panic that happens around my name from time to time. My social handles are all just my name, so sometimes when I meet people online first and IRL second, they already have an idea of how my name is pronounced in their head. Or they never really thought about it before and then sound it out for the first time when we meet. It is almost always the default “Carrie Anne” and I gently correct them, they immediately assume I am deeply, profoundly offended.

It’s probably because I don’t like the name Carrie-Anne (sorry if this is your name) and when I say I don’t like something I apparently sound like I am part of a paramilitary organisation. I see the sudden terror in their eyes. I feel the fear (from the other person) and do it anyway. Living over here and being from the North of Ireland, I notice some people are perpetually walking on eggshells.

It used to really bother me until I realised I can’t do anything about it. It seems to me that people are either entirely terrified of saying the wrong thing, (is that a Northern Irish accent? Sorry I don’t want to get it wrong!!) or go they in the total opposite direction and jump straight to making bizarrely offensive assumptions to fill the silence. Although given recent events back in Belfast, I almost don’t blame people for asking if it's scary at all living there. I spend half my life reassuring people that they haven’t caused a diplomatic incident just by mispronouncing my first name.

Which brings me to the modern, cosmic joke of my identity. To the internet, a “Karen” as we know them, has obviously become an archetype of a woman demanding to speak to the manager, radiating entitlement. They are annoying and they are no craic. Watching your own name morph into a punchline is a very strange sort of thing. I found myself apologising to people when I introduced myself, explaining that I am actually a nice person and wouldn’t cause any issues for them. “It’s Caireann,” you find yourself saying, “but don’t worry, I’m not that kind of Karen.”

How weird is that though? Sometimes I think I should have changed HOW I say my name, not just how I spell it. Did I think it through completely? Maybe not. I chose this spelling though, after a little bit of research and some soul searching. I didn’t change it legally or anything, but isn’t it cool that you can just do that? Like, just change your name to whatever you want? I still have absolutely no issue at all with people saying or typing my name the old way, a classic Karen will do me just fine. In my head, that’s my name too and they are sort of interchangeable.

Just not Carrie Anne!

When I made the conscious decision to change to the traditional Irish spelling for myself, it genuinely was a moment of profound internal change. I really wanted to figure out who I was and I wanted take myself and my work as an artist more seriously (wow, I know). More than that, I needed to draw a line between my old life and the new one I was building for myself. Even though I am still the same person, with the same history and experiences that have made me who I am today, I felt like I needed to do something symbolic, just for myself. I am estranged from my family, and choosing my name felt a bit like an act of reclamation. It was a way to firmly establish my deep attachment to home and to Ireland, while started afresh somewhere new. And it distanced me from the exhausting internet phenomenon of “Karen” culture. It was actually so bad a few years ago, it’s kind of hard to imagine it now, but I genuinely think my name was effecting my professionally before I could make a first impression in person.

Caireann - Derived from the Irish word Cara, meaning friend, Caireann stands for “little friend” or “little beloved” in Irish. In mythology, she was also remembered as the maternal ancestor of the high kings of Ireland, historically described as Caireann of the Dark Curly Hair. When I read that for the first time I thought, well I’m small and strong and have dark wavy hair. Isn’t that just a lovely coincidence. It felt aligned with who I am, a name rooted in connection and survival, which lets be honest feels completely different to the aggressive caricature the internet built around the English phonetic version of my name. Maybe it’s not that deep bro, but maybe it sometimes is.

For some reason or another, when I got married, despite the estrangement and the need for a fresh start, I chose to keep my family name. Which is strange when you think about. I love my surname and maybe changing it felt like the final nail in a coffin I wasn’t ready to shut. I guess I am still sentimental. I've carved out a new path for myself in life, with the knowledge that I’m still holding a protective hand over where I come from.

An added bonus to have a strange name, is that I never really see or hear it anywhere. I like teaching people how to spell it, say it and what it means. It makes me feel like a real person existing in the world, which is amazing considering how isolated and disconnected I do feel sometimes. I think it really brings out my Leo energy…

Speaking of… It was my birthday recently! I’m thirty-five, but as Caireann I guess I am 5? More on that later. I think a huge part of turning thirty-five and being right in the middle of your thirties, is just refusing to make yourself smaller for the convenience of others. There is so much unlearning to do in your thirties. If your twenties are about figuring out what you want to do, your thirties are just as much about learning what you don’t want to do.

So yeah! It’s still my name, but just a little different.

I will let people gasp and worry about how to pronounce all the vowels and hold their hand when I tell them how to say it right.

Oops I did it again… left another half baked substack article in my drafts! March was endometriosis awareness month and I had started writing something about my almost 15 years of living with it… only to have such a bad flare up of the illness itself that I couldn’t do anything? Now that’s what I call living with a chronic illness.

For most people living with a (mostly) invisible illness, it begins with years of not really understanding whats going on with your own body followed by not being believed by doctors when you try to get explain it. I respect doctors and I am grateful for the NHS, but my lived experience has been lots of medical gaslighting and leavings exam rooms in floods of tears.

My experience was shaped by a complete lack of understanding from doctors, the subtle eyeroll when I mentioned something I’d read online, or the sense that I was somehow exaggerating or misreading my own body. How can doctors know so much and so little? It really reflects how little we still know and understand about endometriosis. It’s framed as a reproductive condition, yet it appears in places that make that definition feel incorrect. Recently, I watched a video of a woman who had discovered endometriosis in her armpit.

Way before ever seeing a gynecologist, my pain was dismissed as all sorts, including, stress, UTIs, pregnancy, low iron, being run down or just normal period pain. I was prescribed antibiotics and antidepressants. And it seemed that no matter how many times I told the doctor… sorry for context here please imagine the following: I’m embarrassed at the tender age of 22, I’m a young woman who thought her sexuality was deeply tied to her self-worth, trying to tell my GP that it was too painful for me to have sex with my boyfriend and I was sure he would leave me… and yet, they continued to ask me if I could be pregnant. Now it’s many years later, and I am approaching the big grown-up woman age of 35 and I wonder to myself, can I even get pregnant?

Eventually, I started to just internalise everything, wondering if I was the problem, “Am I actually just mental?” Even though I was often doubled over in pain, bleeding unpredictably, totally exhausted.

Something was clearly wrong, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it.

Your twenties are supposed to be full of possibility and discovery. Instead, I was navigating chronic pain, anxiety, and grief after losing my mum. One night at a party at university, a man followed me into the bathroom and pushed me over the sink basin before trying to do whatever he wanted to me. I was so young and times may not have been that different but looking back I really had no vocabulary to describe anything that was happening to me. I was so angry but always tried to hide it. It was the era of toxic positivity. Smiling through the pain, minimising it, struggling under the pressure to keep going.

Looking back, I can see how much time and energy went into learning how to advocate for myself when I wasn’t being heard. Living with endometriosis isn’t just about pain. It’s the constant worry and unpredictability, the mental gymnastics and constant rearranging of your life around something you can’t even see.

I don’t know when I’ll feel sick, but I know that I will. I can everything I can to prevent a flare up, bar literally wrapping myself in cotton wool, and I will still get sick. That uncertainty makes it easy to withdraw from my life, to cancel plans, to hesitate before committing to anything. Making plans and spending the time leading up to them worried.

At 33, I had my second surgery. It confirmed endometriosis in multiple places. I expected relief and maybe some kind of clarity. Sadly that didn’t happen for me and the aftermath has been uneven more flare-ups and more uncertainty. I’m trying to build a life around something I understand intuitively but can’t fully explain externally.

When I started taking self portraits in my twenties, I wasn’t thinking about things like my longterm health, there was less awareness of all that. This practice felt lighter, even when life wasn’t.

Returning to taking self portraits now feels different. The body in the image isn’t something I take for granted, it’s something I’m trying to understand, feel grateful for, worry about and want to look after.

There’s certainly a tension in that: between reclaiming my body but not really wanting to look too closely. Once the image exists publicly, it stops belonging entirely to me. And I need to consider that more when deciding what I want to share. Once it’s out there, I can’t get it back. It can be misread and obviously sexualised.

That lack of control is frightening and sits alongside the impulse to hide from making the work at all. I find myself asking how much of it is actually for me.

Artists like Tracey Emin remind me that the work doesn’t need to resolve that question. The body can exist as it is, unresolved and exposed, holding pain without asking permission or offering up an explanation.

I want my work to connect, but not to become overly explanatory and finding the balance between honesty and ownership feels important to me. At the end of the day, when something I make is out there, I still want part of the work to remain mine. When dealing with the body, that line seems even harder to draw. I guess I’m beginning to realise that being an artist might mean spending my life figuring this out.

I’m in my thirties now, aware of the ways life hasn’t followed a straightforward path. I’m figuring it out as I go when it comes to living with this illness and when making work. Living in this body and finding joy where I can. There’s no resolution to any of this, just the ongoing reality of it.

It’s been a while, eh? And before that little hiatus, I hardly had much to say on here anyway. So let’s try again, shall we?

First things first, how are you? I hope you’re good, and if you aren’t, well I hope it gets better for you very soon.

My first intention of the year is to get better at talking to people, as basic as that sounds, I know, but jesus. I’m serious. The art of conversation as I once knew it seems to be dwindling away with each passing interaction. I spent most of 2025 in the grip of chronic stress and sometimes now when I’m talking to someone I forget what I’m saying mid sentence, or I cannot think of ways to have an enjoyable back and forth because I’m just so tired.

Other people obviously feel this way too, as i’ve found myself on the receiving end of a tiresome monologue without being asked one single question over a two hour coffee date more than once recently. I sometimes wonder if the other person simply can’t remember how to pause and ask a question, in the same way that I can’t remember what I was going to say — or how a word I have said a million times before in my life but in the very moment when I actually need to remember it and say it, has vanished into thin air.

Anyway, here’s to having better conversations in 2026. And laughing more! I really really hope there’s more laughing this year because 2025 sucked ass. I’d maybe give it maybe 3 stars on Letterboxd because I did go on a really good holiday to Portugal, but I did also ruin another holiday with a biblical level hangover that made me rethink my entire life. DON’T go to Amsterdam and drink 10 glasses of rose, even if seems like a cute idea at the time.

Like most people, I think I just really crave connection. And as an introvert/extrovert, I love talking to people but can only really handle it on a superficial level for so long. Making and keeping friends in your 30s is hard, but I think if you can even find one person who lets you be yourself and where it feels like a loving two way street, that’s what it’s all about. More of this please.

I also want to make more art! I’m in year three of my fine art degree and never want her to end. I was coasting a little at the beginning of the academic year because I was just living under the weight of a lot of stress (for those who follow on socials, my neighbour was harrassing me and I had to rehome my foster dog </3) but there’s light at the end of that tunnel… and that light is a professional studio light in art school.

I’m making a promise to myself right now that I’m going all in creatively this year and will try things I’ve never tried before. I will collaborate, I’ll write and I’ll create. I will!

Talking to people, making things and going to the cinema more. Those are my intentions for the coming year.

SHIT. I almost forgot the biggest one.

I want to go from living with chronic stress to only being stress occasionally. Ideal right? The level I’ve been living under has single handedly made me more chronically ill and disabled, and if there’s anything I can do to help myself this year, I’m trying it.

Stay tuned! More soon.

Thanks for being here x

Some seasons ask us to be our own best friend and this season was one of them. Summer especially carries a certain exception: long days pouring into nights, full social calendars and camera rolls. It’s the season for time spent with friends, making memories and having formative experiences that you’ll keep with you forever. This summer didn’t feel like that for me, and I find myself wondering how many others shared a similar experience to me. If social media is a highlight reel, people aren’t sharing their boring days, spent indoors wondering where their friends are, and worrying that time is simply slipping through their fingers.

Some seasons are quieter than others, and ask for meditation and reflection. Those words make me think of colder months, the ones you are supposed to spend burrowed away. Summer insists on brightness and energy. It assumes company. And yet some summers just don’t fit these assumptions. For me, this summer stretched on quietly, and the gaps in my friendships felt a little wider than usual.

I think about friendship a lot, at least as much as I think about romantic relationships. The round the kitchen table kind of closeness that film and tv conjured up on our screens, that effortless kind. And the more realistic distant kind, carried across cities, countries, screens, held together by memes and panicked last minute texts.

All kinds of friendships are precious, but when the distance is there, even when understood, it is felt so deeply. I think friendship is quite like falling in love, and just like a romantic relationship, friendships really need effort from everyone involved.

I don’t take distance personally, in fact I chose to move away (geographically speaking) from most of my friendships in order to start a new chapter of my life in a new city. We all have our own things going on, but it’s a little too easy to become a too individualistic these days.

Don’t get me wrong, I had some good times. Holidays here and there, and time spent with my husband who I am lucky enough to count as one of my greatest friends.

All this before August, the month I slid straight into a depressive episode. It started with everything feeling a little so-so. When I’d usually find myself enjoying the little things, life actually felt quite flat. It all started to feel like a re-run of life already lived. I had no desire to read, write or make things. I couldn’t romanticise or gratitude my way through this feeling. I was spending almost full days staring at my phone with every spare second I had, living off constant dopamine hits and diminishing returns. I was burning out.

I reached a point where my own tools weren’t working anymore. I was dialling the number but there was nobody on the other end. For the first time in almost a decade I felt like talking, touching grass and moving my body wasn’t enough, so I went back to my doctor. It’s too soon to tell how it’s going, but I’m turning up for myself and being my own friend.

The frustration I’m feeling these days comes from being unable to share something that I so innately wish to share with female friends but also cannot find the words for, even though I know they exist. The solution to this problem seems to be the same as most others, I need to work from the inside out.

When I’m feeling well, I tell myself that in my hardest times, in fact I promise myself, that I will love myself no matter what. When things feel horrible, when I’m a bad friend, bad partner, bad sister; when I’m of no interest to anyone, when I am crumbling under the weight of shame, I will still love me. I will pull myself up from wherever I’ve landed and if I can love myself, I can go anywhere from there.

A place where you don’t have to faff about being anyone other than yourself. And most importantly, somewhere you don’t have to be invited.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I’m missing this in my life. You know, that somewhere in between the four walls of your house and the daily grind. A place where you can just hang out, no need for plans or no reasons made for meeting up with anyone other than wanting to be there. Just being there, having a chat, sharing a laugh or a silence without feeling you’ve got to explain yourself. It’s something I didn’t really realise I was lacking or missing until it recently hit me like slap in the face.

Now, I’m not shy about admitting when I’m feeling lonely. And I actually love my own company, actually probably too much sometimes. I’m great at being alone, I have always been able to do things by myself. One of the few perks of being a loner as a child. But like everyone else, I still crave that sense of community. Time alone is grand, but it doesn’t fill that void left by human connection.

The idea of a third space isn’t new, of course. It’s been around forever, the local pub where you were bound to bump into the usual suspects in the smoking area, or your favourite cafe with the barista who is basically your bestie. Even the park where strangers always stop to chat because you know your dogs names, but not each others.

Maybe it’s social media, remote working, our worlds getting smaller and more insular and individualistic, yet somehow lonelier and more overwhelming at times, those places to spend time with people in real life feel harder to find.

Sitcoms from the 90s and early 00s have a lot to answer for. They really hammered home the idea that you’d always have a spot to just show up at, no invite needed. At any time of day, the coffee was brewing and the craic was always good. That idea stuck with me, made me believe there’d be a place like that for me too. I genuinely thought I’d be having breakfast at my friends apartments every morning.

In my 20s, I had that space easy enough. The pub after work, smoking areas, the house parties, those in-between moments where friendships just sparked up.

It was messy and all fueled by drinking, but I was never starved of company.

Suddenly I’m in my 30s, it’s five years since the first lockdown happened and the world has changed, or at least it feels like it. Maybe people younger than me are living the exact same way and honestly I hope they are. The social rhythms have all changed for me. And me? I’ve changed too, no doubt. But now, more than ever, I’m craving that third space. The thought keeps on coming back to me. Sorry to sound like a Simone de Beauvoir wannabe, but where is my salon of ideas?! A place for some petite conversation? Bavardage if you may. I can’t speak french but you get the idea.

Maybe it’s the move from Ireland to Scotland messing with me, missing the easy craic and familiar faces. But I reckon it’s a feeling a lot of folk share, no matter where you’re from. Sure, I knew moving countries would mean starting from scratch. That was part of the buzz, the excitement. But this bit, getting from knowing nobody to being completely comfortable within a group, that’s something I haven’t quite nailed yet. And it’s supposed to happen naturally, isn’t it? But in a time when we’re all glued to our phones, more connected yet more isolated, maybe more of us feel this way than we’re willing to admit?

I’m a partner, a pet parent, student, artist, and sometimes I wonder, where is the place where none of those labels apply? I am only half serious. I love my life, I really do, but the desire for something expansive and supportive like community is something that deserves a thought.

What I really mean is somewhere I don’t have to be on, and where you also don’t know who will see or where the day will go. A place to lose track of time and maybe find a bit of myself again. To share ideas, to listen to others, to forget things and to be reminded. Maybe that’s why the loneliness sneaks in, scrolling on my phone, seeing other people out there doing things, and even getting messages from my friends. Staring at a screen begins to feel a bit hollow.

Perhaps this elusive third space isn’t just a physical place. Maybe it’s actually friendship, a ritual, or a corner of my own mind. Something I can carry with me even when the salon of ideas/smoking area feels out of reach.

Whatever it is, I want it!

I have always been drawn to stories where almost nothing happens. I am interested in what isn’t being said and entertained by the mundane.

At 27, I was clinging to a feeling. I wasn’t tired yet, but I was holding on to memories of when time felt fleeting and the world less defined — back when it seemed like my twenties might stretch on forever. Now, I felt an awareness that they were winding down. I just wasn’t sure what life was supposed to look like at this stage.

It was August, and the air was thick with that kind of heat that makes a city feel alive.

It had rained for three days straight before this, and now inside the old building of this apartment, the radiators hissed and cracked as people began their day.

The morning had the weight of a hangover, although I hadn’t been drinking.

I was lying in bed, pretending to sleep. The world outside was waking up, but I lingered in that liminal space between sleep and awareness. The hum of life beyond the window; buses, traffic, neighbours clattering down stairs, it all felt distant, muffled. I was listening for something closer. Something quieter. The man beside me. I was grasping for a sense of this person, the gestures, the absences, the small, unconscious acts carved out over a lifetime. I stayed perfectly still in bed, still pretending to sleep. I thought of myself as invisible like this, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

This became a kind of ritual for me in the early days of relationships. The confidence of the night before often gave way to morning shyness, and I wanted to know things.

I was grasping for something I felt couldn’t yet ask for, a glimpse into someone’s life.

To be a witness to someone else.

I wasn’t spying or trying to catch him out. I just wanted to feel and experience the quiet of another person’s morning before I reentered it myself. The shifting weight of the mattress, the creak of old floorboards underfoot, stretching and yawning while almost making no sound at all, a shirt quietly pulled around his shoulders, the run of a tap—nothing remarkable. But in that stillness, I felt curious, reverent even.

When he returned, he lowered himself onto the bed with his full body weight —deliberate, unguarded. I wondered if he knew what I’d been doing, though surely he couldn’t have known just how closely I’d been trying to memorise him.

It’s easy to recall the obvious big moments, but harder to predict what moments will feel big later, while we are experiencing them. I was curious, regardless of what this relationship would mean, to know if I could hold on to memories that seemed mundane, where almost nothing happens, but that were completely my own.

I was going to write something about how this is my favourite time of year, but if you have found my Substack, you probably follow me somewhere else and already know how much I love Autumn. And who doesn’t love Autumn? Lucky for me, the season began with a trip to New York, and now I’m of the belief that every Autumn should begin that way. Is there a better place to be?

I was fortunate enough to spend a week housesitting in a Greenpoint apartment, pretending to live there, with a gorgeous little rescue dog called Maizie. It was my first time spending more than a day or two in Brooklyn and I get it now, I get why people love it there, especially Greenpoint. Community. There’s a sense of community that I feel in my own wee neighborhood in Glasgow. Everybody knew Maizie, so I was stopped in the street by total strangers who instantly felt familiar. I think it’s easy to visit somewhere as big and elusive as New York and feel like you could just disappear, but I soon felt at home. I get this feeling when I travel, I think it’s down to a few things. When I’m looking after someone’s dog, I’ll often bump into people who recognize the dog, and then we might talk a little. The connection is made in that moment; suddenly I am no longer just a random person floating around an unfamiliar city. I’m part of it’s fabric now. It’s like when you’re on holiday and get mistaken for a local, when someone asks you for directions. You might even successfully send them where they are going. I love that feeling. Meeting someone, even just for a fleeting moment, is still significant. I find such joy in meeting new people in these situations. It’s all so random and an experience I’d never have if I didn’t push myself out into the world. I’m probably (definitely) guilty of romanticizing interactions with strangers, but I have friends who say that’s perfectly typical behavior from a Leo…

When I wasn’t romanticizing brief encounters, I was taking photographs.

New York, I love you. A photographers dream.

I was also stuffing my face.

I obviously had to pick up the US copy of Intermezzo. I mean, c’mon. Look at her!

Intermezzo is ON MY MIND constantly. I finished it a few weeks ago and here I am, still thinking about it. I actually read the book for some chapters and listened to the audiobook while I was doing other tasks and couldn’t carry the book, which I’ve never done before. This was baby’s first audiobook and certainly won’t be my last. Certain chapters were honestly HYPNOTIC. It takes a lot to get me out of my own head, and with Intermezzo, Sally certainly did just that.

I would genuinely love a TV adaption but I don’t think those are in the cards anymore, which seems like such a shame considering how brilliant Normal People was…

Back to real life and I’m back to university, and already feel like second year is almost half way through. It’s going so quickly, which I think is a sure sign that I’m enjoying myself, but I wish time would slow down so I can figure out what I’m doing in the darkroom. I’m currently working on a website, so hopefully I will have something together in the next few months. In the meantime I can be found @caireann.photo.

Notable Greenpoint mentions:

Upside Pizza

Paloma Coffee

Frankel’s

Forma Pasta

Pan Pan Vino Vino

Five Leaves Coffee

Awoke Vintage

When I started this Substack, it was born out of a feeling frustration and a desire to express myself in another way. I wanted to talk about things that feel important to me and would hopefully resonate with someone else. It has been on my mind for the longest time to write something for Suicide Prevention Month, and in recent years I have just been resharing an old post of mine, but I’m looking forward to this new chapter and hoping you’ll all indulge me in a five minute read once again. 

This is my beautiful mum Marie. Marion. Mammy. 

Long before I was born, when she was younger than I am now. 

I don’t have many photographs of her so I hold on to the ones I do have dearly. Most are like this one, when she was in her twenties, thirties; I have a couple from when I was a child and that’s about it. I don’t think there are many of her later in life, but I remember her so clearly. When I close my eyes, I can picture her face, her eyes, the colour of her hair, I can almost smell her perfume. I can almost feel the way I felt when we were together and I can remember the words she said to me. At least I think I can, memory is a strange thing and it’s impossible to know what I can really actually remember and what my brain has conjured up to fill in the blanks. 

We lost mum to suicide in 2008. It was a completely ordinary day. I was at home by myself and my dad called me to tell me there had been an accident. I immediately knew it was really bad, he was not one to sugarcoat anything and he would never call in the middle of the day unless there was a problem. He might’ve even told me what happened over the phone but I honestly can’t remember that part. I just remember being sixteen, getting this phone call and feeling a huge shift. The next few days, weeks, months, years even, were just surreal. I cannot pinpoint a time in which life just felt normal, maybe because it never really felt normal to begin with. 

In the days and weeks after, people rallied around us, and there’s a serious comfort in that. I always remember someone saying to be, this will get hard when the circus packs up. They were of course right, once I was left to my own devices, I hadn’t a clue. Nobody teaches you how to grieve under any circumstances. And nobody teaches you how to talk about suicide. I felt I was surrounded by people who didn’t know how to talk about it, so simply didn’t. I don’t blame them either, it’s really difficult and it’s really painful. I also used to avoid talking about it or I would even brush off the severity of the situation, maybe I’d even make a joke to simply to alleviate any awkwardness for the other person in the conversation. I suppose didn’t really have any self-awareness, I did not know how or what to do to look after myself, and like most young people I just went out, got drunk and tried not to worry about anything. 

Grief obviously doesn’t care about any of that and always has other plans. It eventually caught up with me and wrecked my head until I finally got to a place of accepting that this will always be a part of my life. 

For whatever reason in recent years, I have flung myself in the opposite direction and will try to open up about it at any given opportunity. I think this has been born out of having my own struggles with depression and the unbelievable realization that talking does actually help. 

Lately I’ve been exploring all of these feelings through photography and it has helped me feel more connected to my mother and my memories of her. I took up photography later in life and it sort of feels like a gift. 

Suicide often comes as a surprise to friends and loved ones and by nature it is an extremely shocking thing to experience losing someone in that way. My mum didn’t have an easy life and in some ways her death was not a surprise to me, but at the same time, she was my mum and the way she died was awful and seemed so lonely. It is the most traumatic thing I have experienced in this life and the older I get, the more I realise that I’ll always be unpacking those feelings. I think I’m more understanding of it all now, but I also feel that I share her pain more and that is very difficult. 

I know what it’s like to feel like you’re at the very bottom, as if life would be easier if you just didn’t have to do it anymore. My heart breaks for her and for anyone who is feeling the same way. My mother struggled with her mental health for most of her life, she was actively getting help but looking back I wish we had all been more supportive. No matter what way I try to frame it and no matter how understanding and accepting I can be, there is no way around it, it feels like a complete waste. Life could have taken a turn in a different direction, things could have improved, maybe life could have been better. It is something we will never know now because it was all taken away in a flash. 

I feel like I am a good example of how life can get better if you give yourself a chance. Once upon a time that really felt impossible for me, and it seemed pointless talking to anyone about it. I eventually felt so bad that I actually scared myself, and that little scared voice in my head was the part of me that really wanted to live. Now, I have so much to live for. I figured out what I needed and what I needed to let go of. I can confidently say that I am loved, and I’ve built a life for myself that I am proud of. 

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please tell someone. Tell anyone you feel you can trust. Do not sit alone with those thoughts. Someone wants to know how you are feeling and there will always be someone who wants to help you. If you feel like you don’t have that someone in your life, there will be someone you don’t know yet who wants to help you. There is so much kindness in strangers. You are not a burden to anyone. You might think you can deal with these feelings alone but everybody has their limits. You do not have to face anything alone. Do not feel ashamed. You have done nothing wrong. You did nothing to deserve these feelings. Ask yourself, what if this was happening to my friend? You would want them to reach out for help. 

You are loved and the world needs you. 

Life did get better for me and I am so glad I stuck around to find that out. I know that I might never be free of suicidal thoughts. It’s common for a child of suicide to experience ideation, and I’m aware enough to know it’s a place my brain can wander off to when I’m not coping very well. When this happens, I slow myself down and remember to take in the view from the other side. I got this far and I’d never want to give that up for anything, I’m so proud of myself and I hope my mum would be too. 

Below are some numbers that might be helpful if you need to speak to someone. 

Lifeline (Northern Ireland) 0808 808 8000 

Samaritans (UK) 116 123 

Pieta House Crisis Helpline (Ireland) 1800 247 247 

SHOUT (24/7 text service) 85258 

I’m Caireann

Lover of art, films, and rescue dogs. Always at least trying to get dressed.

I have been going back and forth about starting a substack for ages, mostly because I thought, well who will care to read it? And then I reframed the question in my mind as, who cares? But you know, in a good way. So here I am.

I have absolutely no idea what I’ll be talking about but that’s part of the fun.

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